ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the strengthening the moral demand of creating transformative spaces by an epistemological rationale. It suggests that Paulo Freire's approach of transformative learning – which justification is first and foremost socio-political and moral but not epistemological as opposed to Jack Mezirow's approach – will be integrated with Mezirow's approach. The chapter looks at epistemological considerations that further strengthen the moral demand of challenging the universities' inclination to uphold the pedagogic status quo and the demand of creating diversity-responsive transformative spaces in higher education. It also discusses to support the transformative learning theory by supporting the constructivist approach of knowledge acquisition on which it is based. The chapter explores that the empiricist approach of knowledge acquisition is problematic from a scientific point of view because it offers little in the way of explaining conceptual change and because some researchers have shown that humans are born with some kind of knowledge in at least some areas.
