Revisiting the Nature of Transformative Learning Experiences in Contemplative Higher Education

Abstract

We are interested in the transformative potentials of intersubjectivity as it is enacted through second-person contemplative approaches. Our work here focuses on contemplative practice as a pedagogy that reveals and enacts intersubjectivity within postsecondary education. How might contemplative higher education practice as a pedagogy enable students to access these underlying intersubjective dimensions, thus creating conditions for a shift in the forms of transformative learning that affect the nature of the learner’s consciousness as well as their overall journey of transformation through the course of their studies? We review the theoretical and research literature on postsecondary contemplative education, particularly in its intersubjective dimensions, and then offer data from a qualitative study involving students enrolled in a graduate program in contemplative inquiry that offers evidence of the transformative potentials of these intersubjective, contemplative approaches to learning and inquiry.

The Barcelona Conference on Education 2023: Official Conference Proceedings

“…I encourage learners to be self-reflexive in their engagement with the topics we discuss, and model and support extending their interpretations of texts and frameworks through dialogic reflexivity (Sherman et al, 2023) and interdependent reflexivity (Case et al, 2023). In effect, what I am seeking to create in the virtual space we share is a transformative space (Gunnlaugson et al, 2023), where learners are supported in being brave enough to engage with challenging topics and ideas. Because of my experiences with Indigenous learners and colleagues, my own approach is underpinned by the 7 Sacred Teachings as articulated in Anishinaabe culture: Truth, Humility, Respect, Bravery, Wisdom, Honesty, and Love (McMillan, 2023).…”

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“…Such holistic involvement of individuals within the hub was aided by a new awareness of the self and of the interrelationship with others, based on the principles of open mind, heart and will and embodied through the listening-awareness practice. Such awareness-based and contemplative inquiry, as Gunnlaugson et al (2022) argue, can indeed facilitate a ‘transformative deepening of intersubjective involvement’. And although communitas are temporal in nature (Turner, 1969/1995, p. 140), as Buechner et al (2020) illustrate through a series of case studies, their transformative potential can allow individuals to elicit change in other contexts, even after a specific communitas has come to an end.…”

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