ABSTRACT
The most comprehensive account of Jack Mezirow’s understanding of Transformative Learning is given in his book Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning, and also in a series of edited books by Mezirow and Associates. There seems to be an obvious risk that the concept of Transformative Learning may be losing its significance and thus its emancipatory power, which have been in the past the source of its importance and popularity. Whilst identity is the structural answer to the individual’s handling of contemporary life conditions, Transformative Learning is the corresponding practical tool by which that identity is kept up-to-date. Transformative Learning has always, in theory as well as in practice, been related to adulthood. In relation to Transformative Learning, it is important that transformations cannot take place before there is something to transform, i.e. before there are some well-established identity elements and at least also a kind of early identity pattern or structure.
