ABSTRACT
Introduction: Invitational Thinking Swami Vivekananda wrote, “Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in Humans . . . the only duty of the teacher . . . is to remove all obstructions from the way . . .That is our duty, to clear the way” (Vivekananda, 1894, in Vivekananda, 1989, Vol. 4, p. 358). In higher educational practice, all many learners need is an opportunity; they are self-motivated, driven by internal fire and self-belief in their personal goals. Others need help. They must feel persuaded that the time is right, the place is right, the people are supportive and that learning is good. If not, they may remain inactive, frozen and embarrassed until the mental obstacles that inhibit them are removed. Removing obstacles to engagement with education, this is the purpose of a learning invitation. An invitation is a signal that requests companionship or consideration. Invitational
Theory is an applied field that seeks, intentionally, to modify the sum of the (often nonverbal) signals and signs that affect human self-belief and to create from these a system of educational practice. Invitational Theory has roots in John Dewey’s ‘democratic ethos’ (Dewey & Ratner, 1939), but it is constructed upon foundations in perceptual and selfconcept theory (Purkey & Stanley, 1991). Its goal is positive intentionality; the
constructive alignment of the messages transmitted by, and contained within, any given learning environment (Biggs, 2003). It aims to expunge the negatives that inhibit learners. This paper introduces Invitational Theory as a framework that provides the ways and
means of researching the geographies of learning places and especially the ‘affectiveness’ of learning environments, which is the way a learning environment makes you feel. It provides a way of recognizing why certain learning processes, such as fieldwork, successfully engage learners (Haigh & Gold, 1993; Meijles & Van Hoven, 2010). It provides a methodology for the intentional construction of learning invitations and illustrations of how the impact of these invitations may be evaluated. It introduces Invitational Theory as a new lens for research into Geographical Higher Education and indicates where it already intersects with the discipline. Finally, it contrasts Invitational Pedagogy with Appreciative Inquiry (AI), an apparently similar but mainly unrelated approach from the Positive Psychology stable and from the Action Research toolkit.
