Conference Agenda

In Spring/Summer 2023 Professional Development in Education will have published a special issue of the journal entitled ‘Beyond Reproduction: The Transformative Potential of Professional Learning’. This special issue is based on the premise that there is an often unquestioned assumption that professional learning and development (PLD) is a ‘good thing’ (Stevenson, 2019), and that whilst co-opting the language of transformation, many professional learning policies and practices actually serve to further entrench hegemonic practices. Use of the term ‘transformation’ in multiple education contexts is often over-used and under-theorised (Boylan, 2023). Little attention is paid to precisely what is being transformed, for what purpose, by whom and how. Literature is often focused on identifying ‘what works’ solutions within a set of parameters that do not question ‘what matters’ (Biesta, 2007). Against this backdrop, the special issue of PDiE seeks to explore the potential of professional learning to be disruptive – to challenge current inequalities, dominant ideas and established orthodoxies (Kennedy, 2005; Kodama et al, 2023).

Much of the debate about transformative adult learning has been shaped by Mezirow (1991, 1995), with a focus on the personal transformation of a learner’s ‘frame of reference’, defined as a combination of both ‘habits of mind’ and ‘points of view’. Mezirow describes habits of mind as ‘habitual ways of thinking, feeling and acting influenced by assumptions that constitute a set of codes’ (1997, pp5-6). ‘Points of view’ are the values, attitudes and feelings that represent an articulation of an individual’s habits of mind. The latter can be quite superficial and open to change, but habits of mind are much more embedded and enduring. For Mezirow, it is the transformation of an individual’s frame of reference (as either a shift in one’s habit of mind, or an ‘accretion of transformations in points of view’ 1997, p. 7) that is the measure of genuinely transformative learning.

Mezirow’s exposition of transformative pedagogies is located in what might be described as traditional adult education contexts, rather than the more precise, and arguably problematic, context of professional learning and development. ‘Professional learning’ is a specific form of adult education that can be described, in some loose sense, as ‘learning for work’. Given the inevitable constraints that such a definition imposes – can professional learning ever be considered transformative, even in the limited form developed by Mezirow? What are the transformative possibilities for those engaged in professional learning and who frequently work in the systems they simultaneously seek to disrupt and transform. Is it possible to work ‘in and against’ (Mayo, 2015)? Is it possible to conceive of professional learning as not only learning for work but learning about work and even learning against work?

The panel discussion will provide an opportunity for attendees and PDiE Editorial Board members to discuss issues arising from the special issue, mapping out where this debate and the research, might go next. Following a brief introduction to the Special Issue by the editors, four members of the PDiE Editorial Board from different national contexts in Europe and the USA will each present brief reflections on what they have taken from the issue, drawing out themes of interest from across the articles, and using these to form and pose provocations for session attendees to consider. Attendees will then be invited to react to these provocations, drawing on their own specific contexts and knowledge bases. We anticipate that the diversity of interpretation, policy and practice in Europe will be highlighted and we hope that the perspectives of ECER attendees from across and beyond Europe will help to expand and develop this conversation on the transformative power of professional learning.