Transformative Vocational Education: Bridging Transitions of Underserved Urban Adult Learners

Background

We both work for different educational institutions located in a small urban city in the Midwest. Each of our institutions provide educational programming and courses to underserved adult learners with varying experiences within the educational system as well as from varying backgrounds, which are culturally and economically diverse. Urban settings provide a number of formal and non-formal educational programs where adults may participate. Some examples of programs are community based job readiness programs; sector based vocational education programs, and traditional post-secondary educational courses. The urban setting as the backdrop for both of our programs positions learners in unique ways not fully explored within empirical literature on transformational learning and vocational education. Residing in an urban setting has the potential to inform a learners experience in both positive and negative ways (Martin, 2004). According to Kappel and Daley (2004), “the urban context often acts as a multilayered web of disorienting and intersecting dilemmas” (p. 88). These disorienting dilemmas often present themselves as challenges to underserved adult learners providing them with both inspiration and obstruction in their learning process. Merriam (2005) points out that such life events or transitions create moments for learning and development in the lives of an adult learner, and these transitions for adult learners are times when an individual goes back and forth between moments of stability and change.