Democracy’s Relationship With the Future: Transforming Society’s Promise

Abstract

This essay introduces a juxtaposition of adult education, futures perspectives, transformative learning theory, and democratic engagement. Within adult education, the promise of education, and the possibilities of transformative learning (TL) are often linked to democracy and human freedoms, yet that democratic promise is often left unfulfilled or incomplete. At the same time, futures perspectives coalesce around the strengthening of capacity for adults to change their conceptualizations of and relationships to the future and facilitate skills in navigating discontinuity, complexity, and ambiguity. The inclusion of futures work potentially shifts the TL discourse and may change the ways that we study and support how adults learn, change, and grow through shared human experiences. Futures literacy may become a new dimension for democracies.