Transformative learning theory, developed by Jack Mezirow, states that learning occurs through autonomous thinking, and that the centrality of experience, critical thinking and rational discourse are three common themes in transformative learning (Imel). Transformative learning theory was developed by Mezirow in 1978, and although he is the major developer of the theory, other perspectives on the theory have emerged, based on the work of Robert Boyd. Mezirow's theory developed into a "comprehensive and complex description of how learners construe, validate, and reformulate the meaning of their experience." The theory is based on psychoanalytic theory and critical social theory.
For learners to alter their learning schemes, i.e. their specific beliefs, attitudes and emotional reactions, they must critically reflect on their experiences, and this leads to a perspective transformation - a process, according to Mezirow, of becoming critically aware of how and why their assumptions have come to structure the way they perceive, understand, and feel about the world (Imel). The process also involves changing these structures of habitual expectation to include a more discriminating and integrating perspective, and making choices or acting on this new understanding. Perspective transformation is how adults change the meaning structures they have acquired over a lifetime. These structures are the frames of reference which are based on the totality of the individual - the contextual and cultural experiences they have experienced and how they behave and interpret different events. For instance, an individual's meaning structure determines how they react to other people's problems, or simply how they vote.
The transformation of meaning schemes through integration of new ideas occurs routinely through learning, but perspective transformation occurs more rarely (Imel). According to Mezirow, it usually occurs following a disorienting...