COVID-19 has done significant damage to individuals, families, workers and the economy. What is not known about the virus is part of the problem, and the knowledge gap drives an unprecedented and urgent search for knowledge. This article explores the challenges for lifelong learning and the relevance of transformative learning. Disorientation, disorienting dilemmas and critical reflection are the ingredients of such learning, since we can only learn our way out of this situation. The authors present American adult educator Jack Mezirow’s theory of transformative learning (TL) as an appropriate learning framework for lifelong learning. They draw on the work of American philosopher Richard Rorty and German philosopher and sociologist Jürgen Habermas to re-shape TL so that it supports the kind of learning that is sufficiently complex and nuanced to enable us to deal with contradictions, ambivalence and meaning-making in a world where not-knowing is the new normal.

This paper connects Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, dispositions and capital with a psychosocial analysis of how Winnicott's psychoanalysis and Honneth's recognition theory can be of importance in understanding how and why non-traditional students remain in higher education. Understanding power relations in an interdisciplinary way makes connections -by highlighting intersubjectivity -between external social structures and subjective experiences in a biographical study of how non-traditional learner identities may be transformed through higher education in England and the Republic of Ireland.

Mezirow's theory of transformative learning built on the learning experiences of nontraditional adult students returning to education and on the critical theory of Habermas, more recently progressed by Honneth. This paper links transformation theory with the work of Honneth who in recent works advances ideas about identity development and freedom that allow us update gaps in transformation theory -that it has an inadequate understanding of the social dimension of learning. A new understanding of 'disorienting dilemma' as a struggle for recognition is suggested. This paper expands our understanding of the emancipatory intent of transformative learning. EU funded empirical research supports this new iteration of the adult learning theory.Implications are drawn for teaching non-traditional students in adult and higher education.

Lifelong learning is a familiar concept in ordinary conversation and in public policy discourses. Though the history, genesis, and various meanings of lifelong learning are noble, it has in more recent times been identified with functional interests, economic goals, and one-dimensional interpretations. This chapter identifies the genesis and grounding of lifelong learning in psychology and adult education, disciplines that establish the foundations for understanding learning. Classical and current learning theories are outlined, including behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism from psychology. Adult education learning theory contributes andragogy, self-directed learning, experiential learning, multiple intelligences, and transformative learning. How adults are taught depends on the meaning one gives to learning. How adults learn is outlined. This more comprehensive interpretation of learning contributes to a better understanding of lifelong learning as not only having an economic focus but an interest in enhancing communities and society.

Mezirow's theory of transformative learning has always relied on the work of Jürgen Habermas in order to give it a sound theoretical base. This chapter outlines Mezirow's theory of transformative learning attending to its reliance on critical theory which contributes important concepts such as domains of learning, emancipatory learning, critical reflection, and the discourse of communicative action. This chapter explores how the work of Habermas and elements of his critical theory not utilized by Mezirow enhance the rigor of Mezirow's work. An argument is made that allows us to interpret transformative learning theory as a critical theory. As a new generation of Frankfurt School scholars create the next iteration of critical theory, the implications of Axel Honneth's recognition theory are identified for the theory and practice of transformative learning. The communicative turn of Habermas and the recognition and emancipatory turns of Honneth contribute significantly to the evolution of transformation theory.