Abstract
Can adult educators of varied interests find content germane to their areas and aims in the voluminous title, The Palgrave Handbook of Learning for Transformation? Most definitely.
The handbook constitutes nearly one thousand pages curated by a team of six editors with contributions of over one hundred authors of the book’s 51 chapters. Proceeding with an explanatory first chapter introducing the work’s organizing metaphor is not one but two forwards, an expository reflection on the cover artwork, as well as conventional front matter, and seventeen pages of notes on the contributors. This is a massive volume.
The motif of passageways is the chosen metaphor of the handbook, selected to represent linkage and connectivity between what was and what is emerging; or, as two of the editorial team state in the first chapter (Nicolaides & Eschenbacher), First, a passage points in two directions—backward to the space one is leaving, and forward to the space one is approaching. Second, a passage is passed through. Our intention is to invite the reader to “pass through,” that is, to leave the familiar space that currently defines the territory of transformative learning and turn toward something new. (pp. 1-2)
Importantly, these authors state that transformative learning per se is not their focus, but instead, they elect to “study the phenomenon of transformation” (p. 4). In short, the reader is invited to set out on a journey nudged along by three questions: “Why do we quest for transformation? What draws so many disciplines and their hope for the influence of transformation on people, workplace, communities, environment, and society? How do we move through transformation, with humility, and, transform?” (p. 18).
This expedition is conceptualized as a set of four intertwined “provocations.” As described in the second forward, the series begins by taking up Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, then moves on to conditions conducive for transformation, and next into unsettled issues before arriving at the final provocation, Challenges and Emerging Future of Transformation (Lim, pp. xvi-xvii).
As noted in Chapter 1, “we do not know what passageways authors (and readers) will go down” (Nicolaides & Eschenbacher, p. 2). Indeed, all comers will bring their own questions and interests. What prompted me to reach for this handbook was the hope that the volume would shift the transformation focus away from individual experiences and toward a far-reaching, collective metamorphosis. Given the existential crisis that we confront as inhabitants of an endangered planet, I came looking for guidance on ushering in the changes needed to transform the ways in which we humans relate to one another while acting to rectify our overextension beyond the Earth’s carrying capacity. In such a large tome, is an index a reader’s good friend? Not finding as much joy there as I’d hoped for, I settled in to read.
Traveling through the volume I had the sense of getting warmer, as one might when playing a game to uncover a hidden object. It was in Part 4 where my particular thirst was quenched, perhaps most directly in Chapter 44 by a trio of authors (Chaplowe, Hejnowicz, & Laeubli Loud) addressing “Evaluation as a Pathway to Transformation Lessons from Sustainable Development” (pp. 785–808). When I arrived at the concluding chapter (pp. 913–938), a wonderfully insightful synthesis by Y. Gilpin-Jackson and M. Welch, I much appreciated their concise sense-making of the immense undertaking. In fact, I respectfully suggest readers might take a look at the conclusion early in their journey with the handbook.
The size itself raises the question, “What makes a handbook a handbook?” In the traditional sense, a handbook provides an overview of a subject, guidance on its application, and, in many cases, identification of areas of contention. I understand the editors wanted to challenge the constraints and representational hegemony of an intellectual field. Yet I wonder whether such a large collection, even one with an articulated organizational metaphor and an eloquently elaborated rationale for its curated sections, is a handbook.
I began by saying most definitely adult educators of many contexts could find material to feed their interests, and I still think this to be the case. However, I must extend the invitation to many other readers beyond those involved in adult and lifelong learning. As the totality of this work makes clear, transformation is a transdisciplinary endeavor. In short, this book may not comprise a set menu to be enjoyed around a common table with a spirited discussion about the contents of each course; perhaps it is instead a buffet where individuals will go fill their individual plates. With luck, readers will find diverse dinner companions and enjoy animated conversations about the merits of one another’s choices.