This study explores the potential of critical transformative learning for revitalizing citizen action, particularly action toward a sustainable society. Through an action research process with 14 university extension participants, it was found that a dialectic of transformative and restorative learning is vital for fostering active citizenship. This study also found that transformation is not just an epistemological process involving a change in worldview and habits of thinking; it is also an ontological process where participants experienced a change in their being in the world. As participants shifted into a new mode of relatedness with their material, social, and environmental realities, they sought avenues for socially responsible involvement as active citizens.The purpose of the qualitative study, "Living Transformation: From Midlife Crisis to Restoring Ethical Space" (Lange, 2001), was to pilot and assess a critical transformative learning 1 process for revitalizing citizen action, particularly action toward a sustainable society. In the mid-1990s, preliminary investigation revealed that many adults were experiencing high levels of fear and anxiety regarding the changing structure of work, including intensified work or job loss brought about by the neo-liberal economic policies. A university extension course, Transforming Working and Living, was developed to address issues such as making a transition to a new job, work/life balance, and more meaningful work. As participants engaged in this course, it became evident that there was a distinctive learning process operating that was restorative as well as transformative. This article expands existing understandings of transformative learning by describing restorative learning, its 121 ELIZABETH A. LANGE, at the time of writing, was an instructor for the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension Adult Education program and for Athabasca University in the Masters of Distance Education program. She now teaches for the Master of Arts-Integrated Studies program at Athabasca University.

It has been charged that transformative learning theory is stagnating; however, theoretical insights from relational ontologies offer significant possibilities for revitalizing the field. Quantum physics has led to a deep revision in our understanding of the universe moving away from the materialism and mechanism of classical physics. Some scientists observe that this shifting view of reality is catalyzing a profound cultural transformation. They have also noted significant intersections between the New Science and North American Indigenous philosophies as well as Eastern mysticism, all relational ontologies. These intersections as well as the theory of agential realism of Karen Barad, feminist physicist, are used to propose a next generation of transformative learning theory, one that is embedded in ontologies of relationality. The author came to relational ontology through environmental and sustainability education. This fruitful cross-fertilization helps illuminate a transformative approach to sustainability education or transformative sustainability education—which has not yet been explicitly theorized. Relationality demands an ethical, ontological, and epistemological transformation. The six criteria that emerge in the overlap between quantum physics, living systems theory from ecology, and Indigenous philosophies can reframe our understandings of transformative education, particularly toward socially just and regenerative cultures, completing the work of unfinished justice and climate movements. Pertinent to adult educators, Naomi Klein (2014) asks, “History knocked on your door, did you answer?” (p. 466).

In an earlier article in this journal, C. A. Bowers suggests that transformative learning, particularly Paulo Freire’s pedagogy, is a Trojan horse of western globalization, by deepening the ecological crisis and colonizing indigenous cultures. He charges that critical pedagogues avoid their own complicity in neoliberal globalization; he advocates for an alliance between conservative politics and environmentalism; and he promotes a “conserving education.” This article will critique the first three facets of Bowers’ argument: first, by agreeing with the critique of the enlightenment underpinnings in transformative learning theory but resolving them in more nuanced ways; second, by explaining the ontology implicit in Freire that Bowers misunderstands; and third, expanding the critical stream of transformative learning by arguing that every sustainability educator needs a strong political economic as well as cultural analysis, combined with honoring local contexts, including indigenous traditional knowledge.

As part of a multi-phased study exploring the experiences of refugee claimants in Atlantic Canada, this article focuses on the experiences and perceptions of immigrant service providers in relation to gender and women refugee claimants. Given the paucity of research on refugees in Atlantic Canada and on the particular perspectives of service providers, we have located this part of our research in the intersection of state policies and civil society practices, in particular service providers’ and NGO practices vis-à-vis refugees and refugee claimants. To contextualize our study we briefly trace global and national trends in migration and refugee issues, specifically increasing refugee deterrence policies that restrict claimants’ access to protection and settlement services. Findings highlight the recognition of gender-specific needs but also the lack of a gendered analysis of women refugee claimants, uneven accessibility to support services across the Atlantic region, challenges in navigating services, low cultural competence of institutional social and health service providers, and the rise of a punitive deterrence culture.

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