Conference Theme

Contemporary Dilemmas and Learning for Transformation

Originally used in rhetoric, the term “dilemma” referred to an argument that sets out an alternative between two contrary arguments, both potentially unfavorable to the person who must choose. More commonly, the expression is used to signify a difficult choice between two possibilities that triggers doubt or perplexity (Oxford English Dictionary, 2017; Rey, 2000). In his contribution to transformative learning theory, Mezirow (1991) introduced the notion of dilemma to evoke disorienting moments in our lives, and the transformative potential these may bring. Accordingly, the experience of dilemmas is associated with the possibility of critical self-reflection and an assessment of one’s fundamental assumptions, alongside the potential to break through into new ways of seeing and being. Thus, experiencing a dilemma can reveal lived antagonisms, tensions or conflicts, some resolution of which can trigger profounder forms of learning. Recursively, the experience of transformation can also raise new dilemmas in our relationships and ways of being in the world. However, there are many ways to conceive the relationship between the experience of dilemmas, and of learning, transformation, and of personal and collective development.

Nowadays, the experience of dilemmas seems to be particularly acute, as people can face overwhelming feelings of pervasive change, precariousness, and critical choices that inevitably impact on what they do, how they think and feel, and of who they are and where they live. Dilemmas may find expression in the pace of how they should live, or the values to live by, and of what they may learn, and how they can change themselves and influence the world around them.

Being aware of the complexity inherent in our contemporary situation arguably makes every dilemma even more difficult to address. Thus, forced migration, uncertain economic development, political violence, ecological crisis, or the domination of consumerism in mass culture, and even in education, can represent many sources of alienation that perpetuate and exacerbate dilemmas for many. Alienation might also contribute to the current epidemic of mental distress as identified by the World Health organization. Everyday experience of discrimination, unemployment, powerlessness, of populism, racism and xenophobia, or of the pervasiveness of consumption and the meaningless and emptiness this can evoke, raises countless challenges and questions. And as much as these may be experienced as alienating, the conflict provoked can also be a means to profounder forms of learning. From an educational perspective, the multiple antagonisms that shape the activities of learners, teachers, trainers, activists, researchers and policy makers, reveal a dynamic field of tensions, within which every decision carries its own dilemmas.

From the psychological, including psychoanalytic and developmental psychology, dilemmas may be interpreted through the tensions experienced – consciously and unconsciously – whenever conflicting desires or impulses are felt. Like wanting immediate solutions or quick answers, rather than engaging with the struggle to know, at a deeper level.

Dilemmas can also find psychic expression in disorientation as the mask or persona we present to the world no longer functions or feels false, and we search for more authentic modes of life and relationship. From a psycho-social perspective, the experience of dilemmas can relate to tension between the cognitive aspects of characterizing a problem, and how cultures define the people involved (in classed, gendered, raced, status, or educational terms, etc.), and the conflicting and confusing emotions generated. From a systemic perspective, contradictions may appear between different levels of communication (e.g., what is said and what is expressed non-verbally), while understanding may have to be framed within awareness of people in context, in relationship in families and communities and within wider ecologies. From a sociological point of view, dilemmas can reveal conflicts of interest and power dynamics, whether at individual or collective levels, whenever a situation involves people, in interaction, with heterogeneous backgrounds (e.g., of class, gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.).

Whether dilemmas are conceived as the expression of unconscious dynamics, or of socio-cognitive conflict, or double-binds, or power struggles, we can assume that they bring a potential for learning and transformation; or of course change may be resisted, because dilemmas feel too overwhelming, and people turn to fundamentalist solutions, in which complexity is abolished, however illusory this might be.

The aim of our conference is therefore to question the nature and the processes through which dilemmas are experienced by people, including those active in the field of adult education and lifelong learning, and the relationship between such dilemmas and learning as well as transformation, or resistance and closure.