Changing the world: a case study of transformation,

agency and social change

Michael Chew

Introduction 1 Motivations 1

SECTION 1 - THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2

SECTION 2 - CASE STUDY AND METHODOLOGY 5 Context and evaluation 5 Respondents 6 Design assumptions: 6 Questions 7 Analytic methods 7 Personal engagement 8

SECTION 3 – ANALYSIS OF RESPONSES 9

Part 1 - Social-centric transformation 9

Part 2 - Individual-centric transformation 12

Part 3 – Individual - Social Transformation 15

Part 4 – Story telling - Disclosure and agency 18

Part 5 – My process of learning 21 Design 21 Implementation 21 Analysis 21

SECTION 4 – FUTURE DIRECTIONS 23 Interviews 23 Visual 23 Quantitative 23 Future focus 23 Website 23 The development process 24

CONCLUDING REMARKS 25

APPENDIX 1 – SURVEY QUESTIONS 27

1

Introduction

This paper explores the relationship between self-perceptions of agency and

transformational experiences amongst young self-identified social change agents.

The extent that these experiences manifest on a social compared to individual level

is explored through transformational learning theory. An analysis of the participants’

corresponding learning unfolds in two parts – firstly with respect to their past

experiences affecting their self-perceptions of agency, and secondly with respect to

their own act of articulating and synthesising these reflections during the surveying

process itself. Mezirow’s and Freire’s theories of learning, together with narrative

development theory, form the underlying theoretical analysis. Counter-posing the

theory is my critical reflection on my own learning as part of the research process.

This is achieved in three sections. Section 1 introduces the theories of

transformative learning together with the relevant conceptions of the self. Section 2

outlines the investigative survey – context, assumptions, respondents, and how it

was run. Section 3 explores the key themes that emerge from the survey,

interwoven with my own perspective.

Motivations I have had a long-term interest in questions of agency and social change, derived

from key shifts in my own perception of agency during different phases of my life.

During my teenage years, due to a combination of extreme shyness and bullying at

school, I perceived myself to have no control over my own life, let alone the broader

world. However subsequently during my long years at university I became involved in

various environmental and social-justice activist groups where - due to the focus on

organising, direct action and empowerment - I developed a strong sense of my own

ability and necessity to take action in the world. Since then I moved away from this

overt political change work to more of an emphasis on empowering people. This

paper’s central question of how people perceive their own empowerment is of core

importance to developing approaches to empower others.

Given my key interest in personal agency, one of the hopes that I have for

this survey is that it actually can have a positive effect on the participants’ agency.

There is potential for this through the survey providing a space for participants to

self-reflect and critically engage with their perceptions of their own agency, and the

latter’s relationship with their past transformational experiences.

2

Section 1 - Theoretical background

On a theoretical level, this paper’s research question draws from various theories of

transformational learning, with particular emphasis on the latter’s concepts of the

self. I primarily focus on the ideas of Paulo Freire and Jack Mezirow whose

foundational theories of learning provide for quite different accounts of the self, with

loci at the social and personal levels respectively. In addition, over the last two

decades many additional perspectives on the self have emerged in the

transformation learning literature, including the emotional, imaginal and spiritual

dimensions. From these narrative theory provides another exploratory lens for the

inquiry.

It is useful to first briefly look at Dirkx’s review of the self in transformational

learning for an overview.1 He outlines several key concepts of the self that these

theories draw from. Three are described here. In the evolving knowing self,

represented by theorists included Mezirow, there is a concept of an innate core self

which unfolds and is self-realised through the act of transformational learning, while

being influenced by environmental conditions. In contrast, the structured self

emphasises the key roles that politico-economic structures have in shaping the self,

in which learning occurs through a process of developing critical consciousness in

relation to one’s agency and hegemonic forces. Finally, in theories of the storied

self, the self is seen as emerging from how we construct our own narratives about

ourselves and the world. This idea tends to draw more from post-structural concepts

of the decentralised or ‘plural self’ in contrast to the unitary self implied through the

knowing or structured self.

I briefly outline key ideas from these three theories below.

Paulo Freire’s developed his critical pedagogy in the political context of

democraticising education in Brazil in the 1960s. His theory of liberation education

recognised that the marginalised could not escape oppression within the standard

education tradition – what he called the ‘banking’ approach, where active teachers

deposit knowledge in ‘empty’ and passive students. He writes: The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less

they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their

intervention in the world as transformers of that world.

1 Dirkx (2007)

3

This critical consciousness - or ‘concretisation’ - is needed to reveal the

social, political, and economic contradictions that form the oppressive matrix that

anchors them in an underprivileged position. It is the vital step that paves the way for

them to take action in the world against this oppression.

Jack Mezirow’s explorations in transformational learning emerged from his

pioneering research with adult learners around a decade later. Drawing from

Habermas’ theory of communicative action, he explored the types of learning

experiences that fundamentally change the way people see both themselves and

their world. This theory has evolved considerable over the last two decades in light of

numerous critiques2, but essentially locates the act of critical reflection on one’s lived

experiences as the basis for transformative learning. Through this critical reflection, a

learner can perceive and subsequently transform her habits of mind – the complex

meaning structures that continually filter an individual’s way of seeing the world.

The theory of the storied, or narrative self spans a range of thinkers and

draws from various disciplines including literary theory, cognitive psychology,

theology, and philosophy. In the late 1990s Dan McAdams posited a theory of

narrative self based on a ‘life story’. Although he did not develop it as part of a

specific transformative learning theory as with the previous two, it useful to examine

it in the context of the respondent’s self-reflection. To McAdams, a person’s life story

was “…an internalized and evolving narrative of the self that incorporates the

reconstructed past, perceived present, and anticipated future”.3 The core function of

the life story is integrative – to bring together separate parts of the self. In doing so,

it draws up on both the person’s mental meaning structures, and the socio-cultural

constraints and drivers of society. The most intensive periods of this integration are

known as ‘selfing’, and in the context of learning, can be seen as points for such

transformational learning to occur. In contrast, in other narrative theories based on

the poststructuralist decentred self, the self itself is told by the various stories that

constitute its identity at a particular time.4

While the theories situate their analysis on different levels, they all

acknowledge the concept of ‘self-in-the-world’5. For Freire’s socio-cultural learner,

self-transformation occurs through the development of critical consciousness, while

for Mezirow this self-change through transformation of meaning structures occurs in

a relational setting. In the narrative self, the stories that the self constructs are

2 Kitchenham (2008) 3 McAdams (1996, p. 307) 4 For a concise comparison between the decentred vs centre theories of the narrative self see Tennant (2005). 5 Cranton (2006, p. 46)

4

fundamentally enmeshed with its lived environment. For each of these theories, any

transformation in the sense of who we are is fundamentally connected with how we

are in the world.

5

Section 2 - Case Study and methodology

In this section, I give an overview of the case study process – its development,

engagement, participants and assumptions. This case study was an online survey

developed to assess the key research questions:

• How the participants’ self-perceptions of their agency relate to prior

transformational experiences?

• What effect has the participants’ experience of reflecting on the above inquiry

through doing the survey itself have on their self-perceptions of agency?

Context and evaluation

This type of broad surveying methodology is far from unique in the literature - Taylor

identifies a growing number of studies in the field of transformational learning that are

adopting survey techniques as data collection.6 Many of these methods involve a

combination of survey and interviews to invite deeper responses; interviews were

planned for this case study, however they were cancelled due to time constraints.

I choose online surveying as the means of conducting the case study for a number of

reasons:

• It was a simple and quick way of gathering written responses to the research

questions under limited time constraints.

• The topic and the corresponding survey questions require thoughtful

introspection, which can be supported by the privacy of the online

environment.

• It was a flexible medium that allowed participants to take part in their own

choice of time and location (several respondents were in other countries).

There were also several drawbacks to this method:

• The survey was one-directional – collecting data only – it did not allow

dynamic questioning of the participant to go deeper or to seek clarification.

• The question response input fields were relatively small and made it difficult

for the respondents to see their whole response at once.

6 Taylor (2007)

6

• The remote textual form of data collection encouraged verbal, literary thinking

and reflection, in contrast to imaginal or embodied ways of self-

understanding.

• The online environment in which the survey took place can be a distracting

context that makes it difficult to establish a separate space of self-reflection -

for instance, it has the risk of excessively ‘sandwiching’ the reflective

experience in between other cognitive contexts.

Respondents

Being motivated by my own observations and reflections about my peer group and

colleagues in various social change movements, I was primarily interested in ‘young’

people who self-identified as change agents.7

A second related consideration was the respondents social connection to me.

The great majority were all people I knew personally to varying degrees. This was

intentional for both ease of access, as well as acknowledging the increased difficulty

in comprehending and speaking for people radically outside of my general social,

cultural, political and economic background. Having said this however, I was curious

about the broader applicability of the survey and so I did invite respondents to

forward it on to friends whom they thought may be interested. Nevertheless, these

responses formed a minority of the analysed cases.

Design assumptions:

There were several key assumptions operating in the survey design.

• As the survey calls for people to define their ‘agency’, what constitutes

‘change’, and their ‘world’ of operation in essentially the their own way, I

assume difference as the norm and compare solely across people’s own self-

perceptions.

• Because respondents were able to complete the survey in their own time,

there was no standardised time duration for completing the survey, and this is

not taken into account.

• I largely took the responses at face value, rather than analyse hidden

meanings or making extensive interpretations or inferences when ambiguous.

7 ‘Young’ in this context meant approximately from 20-35 years of age. This was achieved primary through choice of participant amongst the first survey callout.

7

Questions

The questions themselves were drafted up and tested out on myself and my partner,

following which they were fine-tuned. The analysis focuses on the responses to three

specific questions: • Describe the specific key transformational experience(s) in your life

that changed your perceptions your own agency to make positive

change? How did these changes occur?

• How much of a factor were group or social interactions compared

with your own individual growth in these experiences? Please

explain.

• Please reflect on your experience of completing this survey. How

did the process of articulating your experiences and self-

perceptions makes you feel? Does it reinforce or weaken

particular self-beliefs?

These questions follow four brief framing or ‘warm-up’ questions intended to

contextualise the inquiry and initiate thought into self-perceptions of social change

and agency.8 In addition, several questions required numerical responses on scales

between 1-10. In the proceeding analysis the respondents quotations are taken

largely independently from these scales, given the large degree of overlap between

the social and the individual-centric responses. Because of the self-assessed and

subjective nature of the numerical responses, there are many limitations on the

potential for quantitative analysis. Therefore in this paper I make very limited use of

these figures.

Analytic methods

The process for analysing the results was not beholden to any one particular analytic

tradition. Rather it focused simply on distilling meaning and common features from

the responses. There is a some similarity with analytic methods from grounded

theory approaches - such as open coding (examining, comparing, conceptualising,

and categorising responses); axial coding (reassembling responses into groupings

based on relationships and patterns within and among identified categories); and

selective coding (identifying and describing the central phenomenon, or “core

category,” in the responses sets) .9 Unlike other, more empirically based social

8 For the full survey, please see Appendix 1. 9 For further reading, see Starks (2007).

8

scientific analyses that rely on statistical sample sizes to infer generality; I make no

claims of universality as resulting from this analytic method. Rather I regard any

insights that arise as simultaneously particular to this group and with potentially wider

applicability – that is highly context dependent.

Personal engagement

From my position as an interested researcher, I sought to capture some of my

thoughts and feelings about the process and results of the inquiry as they

progressed. For this I made brief notes in a simple journal, some of which is

summarised in Section 3.

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Section 3 – Analysis of responses

In this section we look at some of the key themes that emerge from the surveyed

respondents in light of transformative learning theory. Parts 1-3 explore the

transformative role that past experiences can have on people’s self-perceptions of

agency, investigating the different influence of social, individual, and social-individual

respectively. The theories of transformative learning, critical pedagogy, and narrative

self are applied to each of the first three parts respectively. Part 4 examines the

effects of self-reflection and disclosure through the survey process itself, and Part 5

discusses my own learning through the process.

Part 1 - Social-centric transformation

Social-centric responses highlight experiences that are based in a group or social

contexts. There was a wide range of responses that privileged this mode as the

primary transformative factor that lead to greater self-perceptions of agency. Slightly

over half of the respondents indicated on the numerical scale question that the key

transformational events or processes were social centric.

A common response was that involvement in specific ‘social change’ identified

groups as increasing respondents’ agency. Amongst these, some nominated

exposure to the group’s diversity of views as a key influence, while in contrast others

emphasised the group’s focus and uniform position.

A group’s social norm of empowerment can be a crucial influence: …being surrounded by people that care about addressing climate change…is very

powerful for me. It helps me to maintain my faith in my agency: because so many of

us believe in it and are exercising it; and because by exercising our individual

agency together we can create a better world.

Others emphasise their ability to influence such groups as being crucial: I think over quite a long period of time being involved and being encouraged to

share thoughts and opinions and actually shape what Activate was/is, and not just

participate in it was a massive booster to my sense of agency.

Another positive outcome of group involvement is the latter’s ability to create new

spaces as alternatives to the mainstream socio-political environment:

10

The first time I went to a Reclaim the Street Party or the annual Student of

Sustainability conference were transformative in that in both it felt participants had

collectively entered a world where it felt the assumed logics of capitalist,

authoritarian society didn't apply (but then of course with time, I looked deeper, and

discovered so many pervasive -isms in radical spaces.....) and it felt like a really

different way of socially being with others was possible.

The group’s influence or co-option by mainstream views as mentioned above was

backed up by other respondents. With one respondent it was enough to turn them

away from the group: Take critical mass as a small example - everything was wonderful and I was very

keen on advocating for public use of public space until it seemed like a boys bike

riding club then I was scared away from this idea for a few years. I am always very

impressionable by social experiences. So for me, the personal is heavily influenced

by the social experience I have.

For another respondent, the initial disempowerment facing a repressive group

eventually had an empowering effect:

It was the group/social interactions which facilitated my individual growth. It was

extremely difficult in the beginning because I was only just beginning to grow in

confidence, but I didn't feel that I knew the subject matter as well as I should.

Standing up in front of 20 police officers who believe that you are wasting their

time, or that you are trying to tell them what to do, is daunting. But if it wasn't for

these very difficult interactions, my individual growth would have been stunted.

We can examine these diverse comments through the transformational learning

theories outlined above. A Freirean analysis is well suited to the social-centric

comments – in his critical pedagogy, self-transformation is inseparable from social-

transformation. People working together in a group that fosters a liberatory agenda

can form a powerful collective transformational process – fostering dialogic

interactions – active co-questioning of dominant regressive practices – that work to

support the conditions for critical consciousness to emerge and be nurtured. Through

this questioning, participants’ awareness is validated and refined, and the potential

for relevant social action can be explored.

Many of the groups mentioned by the respondents aim to effect a

transformation of society – the issues of homelessness, disability rights,

environmental destruction, gender inequality, and human rights were just a few. For

many if not all of these issues there is not necessarily a utopic foreseeable end point

to arrive at – rather the nature of their work is to continually improve society.

11

Similarly for Freire liberation is a continual unfolding social dynamic, “ ...akin to a

painful childbirth that never completely ends, as oppression continuously mutates

and morphs into unprecedented forms in new epochs”.10 This continual process

infers that agency is not a fixed quantity either – it grows and morphs in response to

the challenges at hand.

In addition, to be able to shape the agendas of the groups themselves - as

indicated by one response above - allows for the collective space for people to

develop critical consciousness through their own dialogic processes. In contrast, if

groups exclude genuine participation and input, then it they approach the same

disempowering logic of mainstream society that they are actually seeking to

transform – the ‘banking method’ where knowledge (or cultural conditioning) is

depositing in the passive learner. Some of the negative reactions to group

involvement above can be read as an outsider disturbing the group’s well-defined

internal educational or social norm forming processes, from the boys’ bike club to the

police workshops.

In looking at participant reflections on transformational events, many people

nominated time periods where change occurred, alongside discrete events.

Although I had framed the question to focus on the latter - intending to use a similar

specific event methodology such as Ligon’s study11 - the responses forced me to

reconsider the primacy of the discrete transformational event. This focus on the

period time as opposed to a catalytic event to is present in numerous other studies in

the transformational learning literature, as reviewed by Taylor.12

10 Kincheloe (2008, p.71) 11 Ligon (2008) used life narrative approach in the context of leadership development, but its event taxonomy is indicative of a possible further direction for investigation in the agency context. 12 Taylor (2007).

12

Part 2 - Individual-centric transformation

Although smaller in total, there was similarly a diverse range of responses that

emphasised the personal as the locus for transformative experiences. Approximately

one-fifth of the respondents indicated on the numerical scale question that the key

transformational events or processes were individual-centric.

A few respondents mentioned that being self-aware was a crucial basis for their

agency in the world: I believe that by remaining aware and as true to myself as I can be in every

situation I encounter in some way I am contributing to making the world a better

place.

I feel more capactitated [sic] when I have periodic time for reflection, silence and

escape from the world of thought.

The actual act of belief itself can have a dramatic effect, as one respondent writes: my BELIEF in my agency gives me confidence that I have capacity to bring about

change... the most important change is the change I can bring about in myself (ie.

'be the change you want to see'). Believing in one's own agency is central, and

probably comes about from a degree of self-confidence, having supportive and

inspiring relationships and being more of an optimist than a pessimist.

Summoning up the emotional resources to overcome a negative personal experience

or condition was also regarded as transformational: A key transformational experience for me was recovering from depression. I

rejected conventional remedies (drugs and therapy) and decided to try my own

way. ...This all worked for me: for the first time in my life, I realised that I was not a

victim and that I could actually re-define my own reality (including my world view),

not to mention my perception of myself...

One respondent located a source of her disempowerment to be in her perceived lack

of comprehension of world issues: Where I feel I hold myself back is with my difficulty in learning about what is

happening in the world... This comes from a lack of trust in my own mental abilities

to understand and synthesis information. It may also be a fear that if I really learn

where the world is at it might shatter my comfortable life.

13

Some respondents expressed a sense of their agency being nascent and linked to

their position and influence at a point in time: Just how much difference I personally make is something that will change over time

I think. As I learn more and gain more skills (and perhaps more salary!!), I think I

will be able to perhaps create more change.

At the moment I feel I have the greatest capacity for change through immediate

relationships or connections with people. I don't have any great faith in my capacity

to influence politicians or other 'high level' decision makers to do anything that I

want to do, either alone or as part of a group. Perhaps this will change as I rise in

the ranks of influence, with age and occupation.

We can explore these comments through the lens of Mezirow’s transformational

learning theory to tease out further meaning. Learning is seen here as the crucial

process of “…examining, questioning, validating, and revising our perspectives”13.

These perspectives form a largely invisible filter to our experiences, determining what

we evaluate, judge and believe subsequently based on them the experiences.

Mezirow identifies habits of mind as a key part of these perspectives, and

describes six interlinked and interconnected types; epistemic, sociolinguistic,

aesthetic, philosophical, moral-ethical and psychological. Transformational learning

occurs when these implicit habits of mind are self-reflectively called into question.

This self-reflection is occurs on three different levels - content reflection examines

the basic components of the issue or problem, process reflection looks at the

processes or problem solving strategies used, and finally premise reflection

fundamentally questions the actual basis of the issue of problem itself. It is premise

reflection that has the potential to transform one’s way of viewing the world.

Self-awareness of one’s own ability to effect change as seen here can be

viewed from the perspective of the psychological habit of mind - the set of self-beliefs

that we carry about ourselves, a person’s “…self-concept, needs, inhibitions,

anxieties, and fears”14. In this case, the self-awareness emphasised in the first set of

comments above implies the importance that the respondents hold in this continual

reflection on these beliefs. The nature of this critical reflection has developed

through Mezirow’s writings, with most of his early work focusing on rational reflective

processes. His later writings acknowledge other processes outside of the rational,

such as the intuitive and meditative experiences mentioned above.15

13 Cranton (2006, p.23) 14 Cranton (2006, p.34) 15 See Kitchenham (2008) for an overview of the evolution of Mezirow’s transformative learning theory.

14

This self-awareness can have far-reaching and liberatory responses, as

indicated in the response outlining recovery from depression. The shift in self-

awareness entails a premise reflection – the rejection in the depressive identity of

being a passive consumer of therapy or medication to an active agent in pursuing

alternative healing strategies. This is mirrored in Crowe’s research into

transformative learning experiences emerging from people employing a range of self-

directed processes to engage positively with their depression, they led to an

“…expanded meaning perspective entailing a reconstructed and more useful frame

for making meaning of their experience with depression”.16

As seen in the second response, the act of simply believing in one’s agency -

whether stemming from premise reflection or psychological qualities such as

optimism or self-confidence – provides confidence to act and to see oneself as

capable to bring about change. However, there is a key question here around the

context that this belief manifests in. Several studies confirm that transformational

experiences in one context do not necessarily translate into other contexts or life

areas.17 Rather, this core belief can be viewed as a transformational learning

experienced in a particular context can then invite further self-reflection on behaviour

and thinking in other contexts – which may or may not lead to transformational

change. Thus the development of personal agency is likely to be an ongoing

process rather than a singular transformative experience.

Disempowerment can be seen as one result of an inability to critically

question a negative belief regarding a habit of mind. For instance, with one

respondent citing a lack of knowledge in world issues, a specific epistemic habit of

mind could be a barrier. The latter reflects the implicit way a person evaluates the

different ways of knowing the world - for instance the linking of specific factual world

knowledge as a prerequisite for action in the world. Content or process reflections

may bring awareness about the nature of these facts - such as their context and the

processes of inquiry to engage with them - but it is premise reflection that can

challenge the core assumption of needing factual knowledge itself.

16 Crowe (2009, p.497) 17 See Hoggan (2009) for an overview discussion.

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Part 3 – Individual - Social Transformation

By focusing on the individual and the social aspects of transformation separately, the

previous two sections may give the impression that the responses were sharply

divided amongst these two poles. However many responses expressed how their

transformational experiences operated on fundamentally both individual and social

levels, with approximately one-quarter expressing a balanced score on the numerical

scale.

Some examples:

I have found that social interactions and individual growth are intimately linked. In

the first example it was definitely about gaining my own independence and sense of

self and this included leaving where I had grown up and finding my own path. But it

was not until I moved into a more social setting where I was living with others and

part of a community that I felt I had been successful in creating a life for myself. I

had the support of a community of like minded people around me and this was the

basis if you like from which I could have agency in the world.

Kat - I think group process were essential but I think personal work sustained those

changes and made them embodied, not just theoretical or external. But its

cyclical...its also essential that I have support from others who are walking a

different path.

My own individual growth needs at its heart a willingness to receive the lessons and

challenges from being involved in groups and social interactions. I need to take the

time, energy and space to reflect and constructively engage with these interactions.

Although Mezirow and Freire’s theories place different emphasis on the individual

with respect to society, both recognise the fundamental interweaving of the self and

world. Considerations of the self that cross both individual and social perspectives on

transformative learning are implicit in the concepts of both critical consciousness and

self-reflection.18

The importance of community and relationality to individual growth and

agency as indicated in the first respondent is echoed by numerous studies of

transformational learning reviewed by Taylor.19 In this response we see the basic

cycle of individuation through first separation from others, a period of traveling on

one’s own path, followed by a (re)integration with others. The cycle may repeat itself

18 For further discussion see Dirkx (2007). 19 Taylor (2007).

16

several times with different ‘others’ and a different sense of self. The last response

above may also be read in this way.

The second response’s comments on the body draws in an element not

discussed so far – the relationship of embodiment to transformative learning. Powis

explores this in her paper, commenting that:

..the inter-subjective experience of being of the world as an embodied

spiritual, sentient being, rather than in, on, or witness to the world. Such

body knowing implies a unitive consciousness, being in connective

relationship with all that is, not separate from it.20

Thus by the respondent doing ‘personal work’ herself, the learning are

embedded in her bodily awareness, which in turn has a concrete, intersubjective

effect on others that she engages with.

20 Powis (2005, p.384)

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Part 4 - Story telling - Disclosure and agency

So far we have been examining the content of what respondents have been saying –

the statements themselves. However a crucial factor in the self-perception of agency

is the influence that the very process of articulating these responses can have on

how people see their agency. This forms the second part of the initial research

question, which is expressed in survey as the following question:

Please reflect on your experience of completing this survey. How did the

process of articulating your experiences and self-perceptions makes you

feel? Does it reinforce or weaken particular self-beliefs?

For many the act of reflection confirmed the beliefs that they specified in the earlier

questions, whether it was individual-weighted, social-weighted, or a more balanced

view. In confirming this, respondents often viewed the process of completing the

survey positively:

This survey definitely forced me to reflect on my own experiences and journey and

by doing so it made me feel proud to be committed to positive change.

Self-reflection is a wonderful space to be invited into, now that I see it as a fruitful

experience to gain from.

I think it's been good for my ego, and also for my attitude towards activism,

becuase it's made me think of all the lovely things people have said, as well as

heaps of positive experiences I've had with other active and inspiring people.

It actually makes me feel proud because I think that I have made a difference... It

does reinforce my more positive perceptions

Many respondents welcomed the survey as it provided them with a space for

reflection on their beliefs that were not normally present in their busy world:

In the grind of my day job (as a public servant) and self-focused stuff (like mortgage

repayments, bills and being pregnant) I hardly ever get a chance to reflect in depth

and alone about my place in the world.

It's great to talk about this because it is helping me to tune into what I really believe

in... sometimes it's easy to lose track of all that with everything else going on in life.

I quite enjoyed this experience of reflecting in a way that I may not have chosen to

do myself.

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Another key theme was the self-realisation of the social basis for the sense of

personal agency:

It highlighted the importance that other people have played in my life and the

fantastic contributions that they have given me.

It made me realise how social a creature my sense of agency is. It grows out of my

ability to see change in people around me, and is augmented by working closely

with people who share some sense of agency with me.

In particular, when thinking about moments of intense personal change and how it

they were always the combination of changing how I understood myself, but that

was not a individual experience by brought about, mediated or reenforced through

interactions with others.

Some participants wrote about the relevance of self-reflection on their ability to

inspire other people:

I like having to reflect & be concise about my story, that is helpful in distilling the

essence so that I can communicate more clearly with others.

Telling my story, moreover, thinking that somebody values this, encourages me to

encourage others and further develop my own sense of agency.

There were also a few critical comments:

…there was an implicit value judgment in the questionnaire which is that to answer

that you think you do affect change in the world is a 'good' answer and that you

don't is a 'less good' answer.

Completing the survey has been a bit of a struggle as from its point of view I appear

to be an outlier and my personal story barely is.

To explore the responses above, we turn to the third theory outlined in Part 1 – the

narrative concept of the self. There is a certain ease or naturalness that comes with

the narrative form, as Tappan puts it: Whenever it is necessary to report `the way it really happened' ... the

natural impulse is to tell a story, to compose a narrative that recounts the

actions and events of interest in some kind of temporal sequence21

The responses here form a type of narrative knowing – complex mix of re-

constructions in the present of both transformational events from the past, and

reflections on the present experience of filling in the survey itself. Thus people are

21 Tappan (1991, p.8)

19

reflecting on the experience of both remembering the past and synthesising it in the

present.

For the many respondents who found that the reflection tended to confirm

their beliefs, it is indicative to look at an insight from Crites's work that discussed the

temporal direction of the self-narrative.22 He suggests that the narrator can construct

the story from two directions – from the past to the future, or from the future to the

present. Explicating this through our example, the act of completing the survey

reinforces certain respondent’s beliefs regarding agency (I am active, I am ‘good’

change agent, I am skillful because of my knowledge… etc). When considering their

agency through time, they project these beliefs into the future to act as a horizon for

future possibilities. Depending on the nature of these beliefs, this may constrain

potential future development into one or more particular paths - for instance with the

belief that 'agency come from knowledge’ may suggest an agential development path

that neglects non-knowledge approaches.

There can exist in the narrative context a dynamic tension between a more

stable present identity and transformative potential future self. The opposite

narrative direction, from the future perspective to the present situation, implies a

present born from a future vision. This perspective, relying on such a defined vision,

may be less commonly found. However, it may be that the transformation

experiences themselves as described by the respondents may induce a different

personal vision. As many respondents felt positive overall in the reflections above,

this may correspondingly contribute a favourable influence on how they move

forward into the future.

The fact that the practical time constraints of respondents’ busy lives limit the

degree of their critical reflection is hardly a new insight - yet it is telling here as the

nature of the comments demonstrate a high degree of self-awareness amongst the

participants. Narrative theory provides one way of looking at this - that the

respondents are living out multiple competing stories. For instance, one story sees

time as running out for changing the world, versus the story that emphasises the

importance of time spent in continuous critical reflection. This former story may

relate more to a respondent who leans towards an outer, more social sense of

agency, and the former to individual-leaning respondents. When taking into account

the quantitative self-assessment of agency, the responses imply a mild correlation

between those indicating this time constraints explicitly and a more outwardly social

sense of agency.

22 Crites, cited in Rossitor (1999, p.63)

20

The responses that expressed finding an unexpected social emphasis for

their agency underscore the importance of relationality to the ability to make change -

both individually and in the world. The narrative approach stresses this relationality

through viewing the ‘person-in-context’ as a unity – that is, an essential construction

of both psychological and socio-cultural elements.23 Here the socio-cultural domain

spans from individual people – colleagues, mentors and students – to larger

structures such as groups, organisations and ultimately society itself. In each area,

one’s story of agency may be told in a different way. This differs quite profoundly

from the mainstream view of the autonomous self, making its story through the world,

rather than with it. Through the respondent’s process of telling a transformational

story, they may actually shift between the two paradigms – starting off as the

sovereign narrator and emerging with a wider conception of self.

It is important to consider the critical comments, which bring attention to

potential bias in the survey. The issue of the survey coming across as not relevant to

some participants is a complex one. Its focus is on a person’s ability to make

positive change in the ‘world’. The survey’s explanation to the participant states: …a 'world' is any context outside of yourself. Anywhere from your household to the

global stage.

This bias is intentional and is inseparable from the particular focus on this kind of

change. However, it is important to acknowledge that there are theories and ideas of

change in which the self alone is the key actor, and which would require a survey

with different emphases to explore these questions properly.

23 For further discussion, see Rossiter (1999).

21

Part 5 – My process of learning

Undertaking this research project has been a formidable task and one that I have

learnt during each stage of the process. In this section, I reflect on these learnings

across the project’s three stages – design, implementation, and analysis.

Design

As mentioned earlier, I had a key hope that the process of completing the survey

itself would have the potential to produce transformational change in the participant,

through the successive acts of critical reflection that it calls for. The topic of

reflecting on previous moments of transformational change seemed to provide for

that opportunity, and the poles of the individual vs the social influence mapped

closely with the transformational learning theories of Mezirow and Freire.

Developing the questions were an iterative process whereby I would write a

question and then try to answer it myself. This was a difficult cycle where I found I

was repeating the same answers to different questions – seemingly resisting the

difficult critical reflection that I was planning to impose on others.

Implementation

Despite the technological ease of sending out the survey (via email), I found it

personally challenging to be continually asking people to participate. I perceived it to

be a burden and a favour that people were doing for me, based on my assumptions

that the critical reflection process involved was difficult – a chore to do for me rather

than something that could benefit them. This was despite of the initial premise that I

held above regarding the transformational potential of the survey.

Analysis

My assumption around difficulty and respondents’ attitudes was challenged as I

began to read the incoming surveys. Over two-thirds mentioned that the process of

completing the survey was positive in some way, with many expressing gratefulness

for the opportunity. What made this experience of reading these reflections powerful

for me was that I was simultaneously feeling moved by the respondents’ openness

and depth of reflection. I felt privileged, and at times, humbled, to be a witness to

such offerings. Many responses drew me into their world, where I could for a

22

moment glimpse how this person saw change and their part in it. This in turn

challenged my own beliefs and assumptions.

The survey process unfolded in a spiral growing around the alternating poles of

individualism and collectivism - developing the questions individually, sending them

out collectively, analysing them individually, and then collating and representing them

collectively. This oscillation can be compared to what Marshal describes as the

poles of agency and communion: Agency is an expression of independence through self-protection, self-

assertion and control of the environment. Communion is the sense of being

‘at one’ with other organisms or the context, its basis is integration,

interdependence, receptivity.24

Reflecting on my learning’s using this approach locates my initial desire to ‘create

change’ as an expression of extending my own agency, together with the idea of

sending the responses back out into the world through a website. In contrast, while

developing the questions and considering all the possible respondents, alongside

actually reading all their responses, was in effect developing and broadening my

communion and connectivity to others people’s perspectives.

24 Marshall (2008, p.457)

23

Section 4 – Future Directions

This research paper has provided some initial insights into the topic of self-

perceptions of agency in social change. It represents the first stage of a potentially

larger project to extend this inquiry. Some of the possible processes for this are:

Interviews

Interviews were planned but were not executed because of time constraints. As

mentioned above, the interview medium would allow dynamic face-to-face

interactions and give greater adaptability to pursue topics and questions that arise on

the fly.

Visual

Relying on text based and/or verbal responses alone privileges the linguistic form

over other ways of knowing. By inviting participants to draw images or diagrams

representing their reflections, the door is opened to a different kind of knowing.

Quantitative

Although several questions a numerically based, they ask very general questions

which are difficult to assess numerically. Breaking down these general questions

into more specific sub question may increase the validity of the method; in the

meantime it is more the respondent’s process of coming up with a numerical

response which is important, rather than the actual result.

Future focus

The survey has so far queried the participants experiences in the past

(transformational events) and in the present (completing the survey). A natural

extension would be to investigate perceptions of agency for the future, and gauge

whether such future visions can have a transformative effect on the present.

Website

As mentioned in the survey instructions, my intent is to collectively assemble the

responses and post them all to a website to allow others to view. The initial viewers

would be all those who had participated in the survey, and from there I would ask

them to pass it along to their friends etc. Developing an automatic mechanism for

24

posting responses to the website would make the system largely autonomous and

therefore easily to keep going.

The development process

The concepts of agency and communion, as described above provide a framework

for advancing the inquiry. By continuing the cycle of action and reflection, the survey

can be honed further and its responses spread to a wider audience.

25

Concluding remarks

The concept of agency - seen here in this inquiry as one’s ability to make positive

change in the world - is a complex and challenging idea to grasp. The theories of

Mezirow, Freire, and the narrative self all act to illuminate different parts of the a

person’s agency-concept, corresponding to the social, individual and storied aspects.

In this theoretical context, the online survey took participants through critically

reflecting on both their transformational past experiences, and the present act of this

reflection during the survey process.

Social transformational experiences were the most commonly expressed as

influencing agency; with several respondents being surprised themselves that their

reflection lead them to this conclusion. For many being involved in social change

groups provided connections with other likeminded people and spaces for dialogic

engagement that challenge, distil, and advance ideas around social change. For

respondents who reported individual transformative experiences, the process of

critical reflection was crucial, with the latter encompassing a variety forms from the

rational to the meditative. Despite these variations in individual and social emphasis,

the majority of respondents acknowledged both as contributing factors, reflecting the

complex interwoven nature of transformational learning processes.

The final exploration of the reflective process during taking the survey yielded

strong evidence that these practices contributed to transformative learning. The

surprise that many respondents found in actually enjoying completing a potentially

burdensome survey underscored this, with many indicating that it had made them

more sensitised to their thoughts and assumptions behind their self-perception of

agency.

In conducting this project, my own learnings have developed through

challenging my own assumptions. Although my initial desire for the survey to

contribute to positive social change ‘out there’ was largely successful, it was the

personal engagement with respondents contributions which ultimately had the most

effect on me. This act of witnessing these candid and personal responses en mass

was a privilege that deepened my understanding of the complexities of social change

and one’s place in it.

This exploration has only scratched the surface of the topic of agency and

social change, an area so crucial for our present time. We have caught glimpses of

change occurring through the eternal cycles of transformation of the world and

26

transformation of the self. A key challenge of the future will be transform these

sporadic glimpses into a steady gaze - a way of seeing that reveals the endless

variety of transformational changes occurring around us and that can reflect them

back onto ourselves.

27

Appendix 1 – Survey questions

28

29

Survey form can be found here

Compiled survey results can be found here

30

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