Adult Education, Futures Literacy, and Deep Democracy: Engaging Democratic Visioning and Anticipatory Futures For More Sustainable Futures

Adult education has historically played a role in modern democracies in support of civic participation and democratic engagement. In the context of a relatively stable and unchanging society, learning “about” and participating “in” the democratic process allow for tweaking the mechanisms of democracy. In present times, taken for granted democratic practices inadequately address the spirit of democracy as social and environmental changes undergo rapid and unanticipated changes. In the context of a past, present, and futures, democracy’s future/s is a vast, complex system that offers practical and inspirational hope to communal living. Anticipatory futures perspectives explore our relationships with the future beyond that of prediction to understand and develop human capacities to enact necessary and important changes for unknown and unanticipated futures. This paper explores the role of adult education in supporting a deep democracy approach for creating more sustainable, ecological, and just futures by developing our relationship with the broad spectrum of anticipatory futures.