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Abstract

Harry Boyte (2008) contends that civic agency requires an “enabling environment” and a “broader set of capacities and skills required to take confident, skillful, imaginative, collective action in fluid and open environments where there is no script” (p. 10, 11). The Field Immersion Framework (FIF), an adaptable four-stage pedagogical scaffold, engages students in place-based learning and civic engagement by immersing them in contentious civic issues in the communities in which the issues are contested. In several iterations of an FIF-structured course focused on the stewardship of public lands, we implemented a reflection activity that drew on elements of Hoggan’s (2016) typology for transformative learning outcomes. We asked students to consider their experiences throughout a nine-day immersion learning experience and to map those experiences onto the transformative outcomes. Of 136 undergraduate students from a wide range of majors, the majority (>86%) reported transformative outcomes related to changes in their worldview (i.e., changes in values, beliefs, and/or expectations and questioning ideas about social roles). More than half reported outcomes related to epistemology and ontology (i.e., questioning ideas related to previous beliefs and trying out new roles, respectively). When asked to identify specific activities that promoted those transformative learning outcomes, students cited interactions with community partners (>70%) and structured explorations of place (>50%). These results indicate that FIF-based courses that engage students with real civic issues promote transformative learning.

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