Transformative Authorship Through Critical Dialogue: Concepts, Theory, and Practice

Abstract

This conceptual article deals with components and concepts of transformative learning, emphasizing the organization-level perspective on critical reflection. The discussion leans on the concept of transformative authorship and it is argued that it enables authoring processes through which professionals can recognize and recreate their routinized work practices. The aim of the research is to explore how professional experiences are integrated with reflexive, theoretical knowledge through critical dialogue. The authoring process of transformative authorship is illustrated with two complementary case studies from postgraduate health care education. In both cases, the learning tasks were designed as constructed objects by various instructional interventions where organizational contradictions or dilemmas were used as an inspiring premise for transformation. Transformative authorship was realized as the professionals’ reflexive awareness of their capacity to influence the intentional variation in their modes of action.