Routledge Transformative Education through International Service-Learning: Realising an ethical ecology of learning (Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education)

Transformative learning is a compelling approach to learning that is becoming increasingly popular in a diverse range of educational settings and encounters. This book reconceptualises transformative learning through an investigation of the learning process and outcomes of International Service-Learning (ISL), a pedagogical approach that blends student learning with community engagement overseas and the development of a more just society. Drawing upon key philosophers and theorists, Bamber offers an integrated, multi-dimensional approach, linking transformative learning to the development of the authentic self, and analysing the aesthetic, moral and relational dimensions of ISL in an increasingly globalized world. Chapters explore rich empirical data to provide a timely framework and ethical ecology of transformative learning, detailing the challenges facing the approach, and how it can be embedded at the levels of practice, institutional ethos and partnership. Transformative Learning through International Service-Learning will appeal to academics, researchers, teachers, instructors and leaders in the fields of service-learning, international education, character education and in adult learning and education. It will also be of interest to practitioners working in international education, development education, volunteering, service-learning and community engagement. Review In this finely conceived and elegantly structured book Philip Bamber brings an international perspective to bear on the notion of learning as a transformative process that combines reciprocity and dialogue with a willingness to recognise our cultural differences. It is, argues Bamber, only through this process of learning together across local and global divides that we achieve ethical agency in respect of our own life trajectories and moral agency in relation to our treatment of one another. This is an important and timely work that has implications for how we conceive of educational practice in a global and increasingly divided world. Professor Jon Nixon Honorary Professor of International Education and Lifelong Learning and Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Lifelong Learning Research and Development, Hong Kong Institute of Education. The sterile, utilitarian policies and practices that characterise contemporary education neglect the power of learning to change lives fundamentally. In this important book, Philip Bamber demonstrates how International Service-Learning offers an alternative approach--one that can truly transform individuals and mitigate the cultural misunderstandings, social divisions, environmental degradation and other by-products of the complex globalised village we inhabit. Professor Bob Adamson UNESCO Chair Professor in TVET and Lifelong Learning The discourse on international service learning is taken to a new conceptual level through this important publication. Through an analysis of theories of transformative learning and examples of practice in higher education, and use of the concept authentic, it provides an important contribution to the growing body of literature in and around global citizenship education. Dr.Douglas Bourn Director-Development Education Research Centre, University College London, Institute of Education Editor, International Journal of Development Education and Global Learning This important book contains insightful messages regarding the ethics of International Education and adult education more broadly. It draws upon an impressive range of theory to develop our understanding of transformative learning as it links to the notion of authenticity. The findings of this research, which include a novel definition of International Service-Learning, are timely and pertinent for researchers and practitioners in North America and beyond. Professor Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon Professor, Philosophy of Education, University of Tennessee, United States of America Editor, Studies in Phil