Transformative reading: A study of transformative learning among Christian emerging adults through book reading in a digital age

This study explored the transformative learning experiences of emerging adults through book reading in the context of the digital age. Qualitative in-person interviews were conducted with twenty-eight emerging adults, half of whom were seminary students and half of whom were campus ministry professionals. Half were women and half were men. The participants were interviewed about their reading experiences during emerging adulthood and described the ways in which book reading had been transformative for them.;The findings suggest that life-changing book reading is most likely to take place when an emerging adult's life context aligns with a book's content and is reinforced by one's surrounding community. Life-changing books were most often read when recommended by a trusted friend or mentor. The participants were most likely to experience transformative learning when they felt identification with a book or author, when they experienced dislocation from their prior ways of thinking, and/or when a book or author provided articulation for new phenomena or realities.;The study finds that the life stage of emerging adulthood is an opportune time for transformative reading, because it is a period in which emerging adults experience disequilibrations that make them particularly open to life change. Transformative reading is a process that launches readers on a journey of holistic life change, taking them to new locations as evidenced by changes in readers' thinking, relationships and behavior.