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The second half proposes one possible direction for adult education supporting participatory democracy, outlining what it could involve in principle and in practice.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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finnegan, maynooth university  \nAbstract  \nThe paper discusses the value of imagination in educational debate and makes an argument for Irish adult educators making space and time to envisage a range of possible futures for the field beyond the terms offered in current policy. It explores this topic in relation to neoliberal educational reform and the broader social context. The second half outlines one possible future-adult education for aparticipatory democracy and sketches out some of what this might entail both in principle and in practice.  \nKeywords: imagination, learning theory, neoliberalism, democracy, critical realism, critical pedagogy  \nIntroduction  \nThe cultural critic Said (1994, p. 401) once remarked that education needed tobe transformed in order to match “the new economic and socio-political dislocations and configurations of our time with the startling realities of human interdependence”. Developing new forms of education which can adequately meet the challenges of a rapidly changing, fragile and interdependent world is no small task and achieving this will require a sustained collective effort of both the imagination and the intellect. Yet the impact of crisis, austerity and recent shifts in policy is making this type of effort, which depends on imagining a range of possible futures, very difficult in Irish adult education. Important and necessary debates surrounding policy are already taking place but we also need to open up a related but distinct discussion which explicitly moves beyond the terms offered in policy to explore alternative futures for adult education. The first half of the article explains why I think that imaginative and ambitious proposals are needed in the current socio-political conjuncture. In the second part  \nI will sketch out one possible future, albeit in avery provisional and incomplete way, and argue that adult education can help build and sustain a genuinely participatory democracy from a perspective based on a synthesis of critical realist ideas, cultural studies and critical pedagogy (Bhaskar, 1978; Engestrom, 1987; Freire, 1998; Wainwright, 2009; Williams, 1961; Wright, 2010) .  \nImagining a range of educational futures  \nI want to begin with the argument articulated in a recent book (Barnett, 2013) in which he makes a compelling and persuasive case for exercising our imaginations in a bolder and more sustained fashion in thinking about education. Barnett is especially interested in how we can encourage each other, both as individual educators and as a field as a whole, to “leap beyond the familiar”(2013, p. 15) . Doing this, he argues, allows us “to see into things, to feel into things, to be at one with things anew to produce a new understanding of the object of imagination”(2013, p. 25) . It is important to note that Barnett is not inviting educators to indulge in pointless daydreaming or idle speculation. On the contrary he argues we need to look at the field with careful attention but that in doing this we should also give ourselves license to go beyond the given and the ‘self-evident’ to ask ourselves what we think education has the potential to do. In other words Barnett is saying that we need to think imaginatively about what the education system might develop into in the future as well as what it is already doing or meant tobe achieving.  \nCalling fora greater degree of openness in educational debate may seem a rather vague suggestion but Barnett is alerting us to something very important which is all too easily overlooked in the current political and cultural climate. In common with other educational thinkers (Freire, 1998; Greene, 1995) he is making a claim that open, imaginative exploration is an integral element of critical thinking and is crucial to pedagogical innovation and institutional reform.  \nAccording to Barnett renewing a sense of possibility is doubly important","cbCaifjgMxCxyilv","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifjgMxCxyilv","pdf",101031,13,"English","# Introduction\n# Imagining a range of educational futures\n## Imaginative openness and critical thinking\n# The narrow horizon of the neoliberal imagination","[{\"question\":\"Why does the paper emphasize imagination in educational debate?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that imagining possible futures is necessary to move beyond policy-prescribed terms and to support critical thinking, pedagogical innovation, and institutional reform.\"},{\"question\":\"How does neoliberalism affect the educational imagination according to the paper?\",\"answer\":\"The paper links neoliberal educational reform to a narrowing of imagination driven by marketization, an audit culture obsessed with measurement, and an overemphasis on technical and managerial efficiency questions.\"},{\"question\":\"What kind of future for adult education does the paper outline?\",\"answer\":\"It sketches a provisional model of adult education aimed at building and sustaining participatory democracy, drawing on a synthesis of critical realist ideas, cultural studies, and critical pedagogy.\"}]","The Future is Unwritten - Democratic adult education against and beyond neoliberalism | PDF",1792065734,33]