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Contemporary Paradigms of Learning

Teachers College, Columbia University.

The Western rational tradition, a set of assumptions upon which our major concepts of reality, learning, and education is based, constitutes an objectivist paradigm of learning. These assumptions are currently challenged by an interpretive paradigm of learning. The Transformation Theory of adult learning is based upon an emancipatory paradigm, and constitutes a dialectical synthesis of objectivist and interpretive paradigms. Transformational Theory grounds its claims pertaining to learning in the distinction between instrumental and communicative learning, particularly the roles of critical reflection and discourse in human communication, and in the transformative potential of our interpretive frames of reference. The assumptions and rationale upon which Transformation Theory seeks to develop a universal, abstract, idealized model of adult learning are presented.

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