Jack Mezirow (1923 - September 24, 2014) was an American sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Adult and Continuing Education at

Teachers College A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Mezirow received his B.A. and M.A. Degree in Social Sciences and Education from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

, and his Ed.D. Degree in Adult Education from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California S ...

. He was an Emeritus Professor of Adult and Continuing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, and the founder of the Adult Education Guided Intensive Study (AEGIS) doctoral program at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Work

Mezirow was influenced by

Paulo Freire Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work '' Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the found ...

and Jürgen Habermas. He was widely acknowledged as the founder of the concept of transformative learning.

Perspective Transformation

Mezirow began his theory of perspective transformation when he studied adult women who chose to re-enter higher education. Mezirow's initial research and further study led him to surmise that adults do not simply make application of old ways of learning to new situations - instead they "discover a need to acquire new perspectives in order to gain a more complete understanding of changing events". Mezirow then coined this "reflective-change-action" process as Perspective Transformation. Mezirow continued to find consistencies in the adult learners he studied. He then identified 10 stages that adult learners encounter as they experience perspective transformations.

Works

* 1990. ''Fostering Critical reflection in adulthood'', Jossey-Bass Inc * 1991. ''Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning'', Jossey-Bass Inc * 2000. ''Learning as transformation: Critical Perspectives on a theory in Progress'', Jossey-Bass Inc * 2009. ''Transformative Learning in Practice: Insights from Community, Workplace and Education'', Jossey-Bass Inc

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mezirow, Jack 1923 births 2014 deaths Columbia University faculty Teachers College, Columbia University faculty University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of Minnesota College of Education and Human Development alumni