Building capacity for transformative learning: lessons from crossdisciplinary and cross-sector education and research

This contribution to the special issue on transformative learning is an analytical essay that bridges discourses of boundary crossing and urban sustainability. Part I establishes a baseline for understanding the nature of learning that occurs. It begins with interdisciplinary education, accounting for structures, pedagogies, and competencies. It then turns to transdisciplinary education, accounting for multiple connotations of transdisciplinarity, proposals for reform of the university, and insights from two urban sustainability projects. Part II focuses on prospects for transformation, beginning with a broad-based heuristic tool to guide definition and, prompted by the co-editors’ call to consider the role of new technologies, virtual horizons. The final section presents the concepts of an ecology of spatializing practices, a transdisciplinary orientation, double- and triple-loop learning, and methodological agility. The article ends with seven key take-aways from the foregoing analysis. Broadly speaking, transformative learning is inherently a constructivist process that fosters integrative, holistic, and reflexive capacity. The heterogeneity of structures and strategies that have emerged over time provides all parties with a rich portfolio of options for use in both existing institutions and new enclaves.