Learning is grounded in particular contexts and individual experiences, requiring effort to transfer specific knowledge and skills to other circumstances or to more general understandings and to unlearn personal views and approaches when confronted by new information.

This principle interacts strongly with the principle of development and holism. Some students come to college more ready to have their received knowledge challenged than other students. Asking students to "unlearn personal views" (and the underlying and most likely unarticulated belief systems on which these views are based) needs to be approached with sensitivity because this request often asks them to challenge the views of those closest to them, most likely family and peers. And yet, as educators, we would be remiss if we did not challenge students to view the world from different perspectives and if we did not assist them in figuring out how to transfer learning from one context to the another. And we should expect "rough edges" along the way.

The individual experience students gained in their community service experience proved invaluable in providing a safe space in which students could test out their previous understandings of such social issues as race, class, and gender within an educational setting. I was able/privileged to witness their inquiry.

Maria demonstrated her ability to transfer her understandings of a sociological construct to one of her ESL students:

One of the little girls told me that she was not coming to school on Halloween. Her family did not celebrate Halloween and that her mother did not want her to come to school because she did not want her to participate in any Halloween activities. As I watched the little girl throughout the rest of the day, I noticed that she was struggling as she interacted with the other children. The children spoke constantly of Halloween, of their costumes, and the candy they anticipated receiving, leaving the little girl out. She sat alone, trying to ignore what was going on around her. This little girl was facing [a sociological construct known as] a role conflict where she was confused about her role as a Salvadorian as opposed to her role as an American. She handled this conflict by ignoring her surroundings and concentrating on her reading assignment.

Alana took on her bias about the neighborhood she was entering and connected that feeling with earlier experiences of difference in her own elementary school:

Some people told me that the school was in a bad neighborhood. [Coming to Clara Barton for the first time] made me think back to my early childhood. I was raised in small town that did not have any black students in the school system. I can remember back to elementary and middle school never having any black friends. The only kid I knew growing up that was different than me was a Puerto Rican girl. All throughout school she was made fun of and always criticized for being different. She was my friend. It really hurt me when other would make her feel less important than the rest of us.

As I walked into the [5th grade] classroom this afternoon, I got a real sense of what it must be to grow up knowing all kinds of people. I tried not to carry prejudices into the classroom with me. Although, as I sat there observing children, I began to notice some similarities. Most of the white children talked to other white children, and most of the black children to the other black children. Maybe this made them comfortable or maybe they think this is how they are supposed to act.

Kristin connected her reading in one educational setting -- the Sociology course at Mason -- with her "reading" of a situation in another educational setting:

I think the [2nd grade] boys are beginning to warm up to me, though. They are not as overly emotional as the girls but they do talk to me and say hi and bye and are more willing to ask questions now instead of doing everything themselves. Ever since I read that extra credit article for Sociology about the behavioral patterns society instills in young men, I have been watching the guys more carefully. These boys seemed much more hardened when I first came here but now they seem more willing to be themselves around me. I don't know how much good that does, though, because they need healthy male role models in their lives and, not to be stereotypical, based on actions and language I have seen thus far, I don't think many of them do.