Creating a Sense of Belonging: Enabling Transformative Learning Through Participatory Action Research in an Ubuntu Paradigm

Building on an understanding of transformation that derives from the Southern African paradigm of Ubuntu, we share four South African science teachers’ experiences with transformative learning through participatory action research (PAR). We first provide insights into the transformative learning process that involved a gradual shift from focusing on challenges to recognising teachers’ agency. Transforming the self thus enabled transforming our educational practices. Second, we discuss what facilitated the teachers’ transformative learning, focusing on the relational aspects of a collaborative research that allowed for interacting as “whole persons.” Deepening relations to others and deepening one’s knowledge became two sides of the same process: a shared quest towards shaping a common future by becoming more human though entering deeper into community with others.