ABSTRACT
This essay is based on my varied experiences as a researcher and as a university and community educator, facilitator and planner in a wide range of contexts. The focus of my development work—theoretical, practical and applied—has been to understand the way in which social problems are constructed by different interest groups. So much energy is focused on solving problems without agreement on the nature of the problem. The way reality is constructed is based on our assumptions and values. The first goal of this essay is to convince the reader that inclusive thinking, which traces common webs of meaning across the separate frameworks of cultural and social values, can be taught by means of thinking tools. People can be educated to work with ideas and assumptions rather than within the boundaries of a prescribed orthodoxy. The second goal is to argue that tools for thinking and communicating can help us re-work the categories that limit our thinking by forging transcultural webs of meaning.
