Theorizing transitions to adulthood: Exploring liminal and transformative spaces

This paper challenges traditional notions of transformative learning in which young people are constructed in deficit ways and as not able or ready to be adults. The question of why we do not consider young adults as able to undergo transformative learning often lays in developmental theory which positions adulthood as a stable space, instead, we posit that Raby’s (2010) concept of liminality offers a better understanding of the transition to adulthood particularly when applied to research on youth.