Centre for Staff and Educational Development

Within the field of transformative education there is a notable lack of attention to the functions of power, and space, in transformative pedagogical theory and practice. This is coupled with an overriding concern with time. The literature on transformative learning is, for instance, circumscribed by a prevalent view that transformation involves irreversible change to learners’ ways-of-being in the world (i.e. ways of feeling, thinking, acting etc.). Yet there is inadequate interrogation into this predominant premise.

This presentation explores and disturbs these shortcomings, arguing broadly for more attention to power and space in transformative pedagogical theory and practice. The presentation is based on my PhD research (currently in its final year) and the conceptual and methodological dilemmas I encountered during my fieldwork in which I conducted an ethnographic case study of a purportedly transformative global education gap-year programme in Bolivia and Peru. The programme - facilitated by three instructors from the global North and one Bolivian assistant instructor - was operated by a U.S. organisation (Beyond Borders) selling ‘learning adventures’ in the ‘developing world’ to 18-21 year-old students from the U.S. Beyond Borders cites Paulo Freire as a major influence on its transformative pedagogical ethos.

Analysing qualitative data from extensive (video-recorded) participant observations, interviews, and students’ learning journals, in this presentation I focus on a pedagogical activity that took place during the three-month-long programme. Drawing on concepts of power and space from Edward Soja, Pierre Bourdieu and Ann Curry-Stevens I provide a micro-level analysis of how the socio-spatial configuration of the pedagogical (‘spectrum’) activity can be seen as a visible, symbolic manifestation of the function of invisible, symbolic power. More specifically, I argue that the spectrum activity embodied three problematic features of a culturally particular way-of-being that was, in some ways, unintentionally reproduced - rather than transformed - through the micro-pedagogical strategies used by instructors during the activity, and elsewhere during the programme: (1) a unilinear conception of time; (2) a dualistic epistemological and ontological ‘frame of reference’; (3) a perpetuation of the notion that (political) ‘neutrality’ is a plausible position for (transformative) educators to adopt and for students to learn. These three features are reflective of the predominant assumptions of transformative pedagogical theory and practice mentioned above and represent some of the last unexcavated remnants of an otherwise well-critiqued ‘western-centrism’. It is important that these are excavated and more deeply understood because if not, as this presentation shows, educators with transformative intentions risk inadvertently reproducing the very ways-of-being they seek to transform within learners.

The transformative learning literature features a prevalent view that transformation involves irreversible change. This presentation explores and disturbs this premise, guided by some methodological questions it raises; if someone experiences transformative learning, when in that person’s life-course could her transformation be deemed irreversible? On her death-bed? The challenge of answering these questions, both in methodological theory and practice, is compounded when one considers issues of epistemological and ontological imperialism in the social sciences; can this conceptualisation of transformative learning be applied in a cultural context in which death is a passing moment in the cyclical progression of time? I focus on the methodological dilemmas I encountered during my PhD fieldwork - an ethnographic case study of a purportedly transformative global education gap-year programme operated in Bolivia and Peru by a U.S. organisation offering ‘learning adventures’ for 18-21 year-old U.S. students. Drawing on qualitative data from (video-recorded) participant observations, interviews, and students’ learning journals, I argue that the preoccupation with permanence in transformative learning theories represents one of the last unexcavated remnants - a linear conception of time (coupled with a lingering insensitivity to cultural context) - of an otherwise well-critiqued ‘western-centrism’ that requires further probing.

A final evaluation report on Norfolk Education and Action for Development's (NEAD) Global English Project for NEAD and the project funder; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The 3-year Global English Project aimed to develop Norfolk secondary school pupils' English language communication skills through learning about critical global and local issues (e.g. climate change).

This article - written as the final dissertation for an MRes in International Development at the University of East Anglia - reflects critically on the use of educational drama in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Claims are made in the literature about the transformative potential of drama-based pedagogies - such as role-play - for teaching and learning but there is a paucity of related empirical research into ESD contexts. Does educational drama have a transformative potential for ESD?

By way of a case study the article focuses on a pilot-project – in which the author was co-facilitator and evaluator-provided by a non-governmental organization (NGO) in a primary school in England. During The Energy Project 9-11 year old pupils were cast in role – within an imaginary narrative-as trainee super heroes in a secret government project to combat global warming together with government agents (project facilitators and class teachers). The article investigates the pedagogy used through a qualitative content analysis drawing on video-recorded data from participant observation of learning sessions, focus groups, interviews, and pupils' writing exercises.

The use of educational drama was highly effective in engaging and motivating pupils. However, concerns are identified over, for example, the dichotomization of 'good' and 'evil' for the purpose of dramatization, and a pervasive scientism, technocentrism, and aggressiveness permeating the comic-book/action-film influenced narrative. It is argued that underpinning the pedagogy used is a hegemonic neoliberal meta-narrative framing sustainable development (SD) as the 'greening' of global capitalist expansion. Rooted in patriarchy and dualistic ontology this meta-narrative envisions SD as a minor modification to 'man's dominion over nature' and neglects to challenge asymmetrical power relations between the global north/south in Development orthodoxy. It is concluded that if transformative learning must, at the very least, disrupt habits of mind and action, then the lack of a challenge – during the project-to neoliberal configurations of relationships between humans and other living entities constrained the supposedly transformative potential of the educational drama used.

Various types of theatre, and other forms of performance, have been associated with notions of 'radicality' and postulated as instruments of social change. In this paper I critically discuss these claims, examining how they have been affected by the influence of postmodernism.

This report evaluates the first year of Norfolk Education and Action for Development's (NEAD) Global English project, for NEAD and the project funder; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The 3-year Global English Project aimed to develop Norfolk secondary school pupils' English language communication skills through learning about critical global and local issues (e.g. climate change).

This report evaluates the second year of Norfolk Education and Action for Development's (NEAD) Global English project, for NEAD and the project funder; the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The 3-year Global English Project aimed to develop Norfolk secondary school pupils' English language communication skills through learning about critical global and local issues (e.g. climate change).

This thesis is situated in the context of a gap-year education programme operated in Bolivia and Peru by a US-based organisation. Inspired by Paolo Freire's social-emancipatory educational ethos, the organisation transposes his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) from literacy programmes for Brazilian peasants to a very different context: into attempts to transform privileged 18 to 21-year-olds from the "developed" world into critical global citizens, ready to challenge social injustices after three months in "developing" countries. This Freirean sentiment is unusual in the gap year industry, as well as in the academic literature on transformative learning which has emphasised personal transformation, overlooking social change and power relations. My thesis addresses this oversight, engaging with the concept of power as an 'invisible', symbolic network of social boundaries that defines 'fields of possibility' , shaping what happens during the programme.

This thesis is situated in the context of a gap-year education programme operated in Bolivia and Peru by a US-based organisation. Inspired by Paolo Freire's social-emancipatory educational ethos, the organisation transposes his Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) from literacy programmes for Brazilian peasants to a very different context: into attempts to transform privileged 18 to 21-year-olds from the "developed" world into critical global citizens, ready to challenge social injustices after three months in "developing" countries. This Freirean sentiment is unusual in the gap year industry, as well as in the academic literature on transformative learning which has emphasised personal transformation, overlooking social change and power relations. My thesis addresses this oversight, engaging with the concept of power as an 'invisible', symbolic network of social boundaries that defines 'fields of possibility' (Hayward, 1998), shaping what happens during the programme. Much research into transformative educational experiences focuses on the learning outcomes of self-identified transformed learners, based on self-reported data collected retrospectively. By contrast, this thesis is based on a critical ethnographic case study focusing on pedagogic process. Analysing data from participant observation, discussions, interviews, and students' learning journals, I hone in on the micro-level functions of power, space, and place in shaping not only what is taught and learned during the BB programme, but also how, where and why this happens. Suspended in the tension between Bourdieu's theory of social and cultural reproduction (1990) and Curry-Stevens' post-Freirean 'Pedagogy for the Privileged' (2007), I principally use Bernstein's notion of 'pedagogic device' (2000) to analyse how programme Instructors counter-intentionally facilitated socially reproductive, rather than transformative, learning.