Transformational Learning in Botswana: How Culture Shapes the Process

Abstract

Transformational learning as presented by Jack Mezirow has been critiqued for its Western, rational, and cognitive orientation. This qualitative study was conducted in the African nation of Botswana and examines how that culture shaped the process. In-depth interviews were held with 12 adults who acknowledged having an experience that had profoundly changed their view of themselves and/or their perspectives on the world. Spirituality and the metaphysical world, community responsibilities and relationships, and gender roles are 3 culturally specific factors embedded in how participants constructed the meaning of their experience; these factors are also evident in their changed perspective.