Daphne W. Ntiri is Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University. Her major areas of research are adult education and literacy, transformative learning, gender and Third World studies. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 2015 and served for three years as consultant on adult education to United Nations (UNESCO) in Paris, Senegal, and Somalia. She is author of over 40 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and editor of eight books, the most recent being Literacy as Gendered Discourse: Engaging the Voices of Women in Global Society (2015). Her awards include the WSU Career Development Chair, President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Arthur Johnson Individual Community Leadership Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the State of Michigan.

Abstract:
Transformative Learning and Adult Literacy: An Autoethnographic Study of a Female African Immigrant

This paper applies transformative learning (TL) theory to my experiences as an adult literacy scholar and West African immigrant in the United States. It shares how two disorienting experiences dramatically altered my perspective and career path and became the impetus for my long-term focus on adult literacy. Tennant (2000) argues that TL is an effective instrument for self-development and change. I employ the insights of TL to the lived experiences in my journey, from taking my first overseas study trip as a college student, to transitioning to the US as a graduate student, to teaching adult students in an urban research university. My story demonstrates the intertwined nature of self and society and how such relationships can play out in our lives and shape the ways in which we come to understand ourselves and others. I have employed autoethnography as the methodology because it focuses on autobiographical details that expose the self as central to the reflexive process which results in greater understanding of the human experience.