Sometimes we need to know when to catch the momentum of change: or, to be more exact, to distinguish normal and repetitive waves of newness from shifts of greater substance. After all, change is ubiquitous in modern society. Marx's famous observation captures that: society dominated by capitalist relations ‘cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production’ and is characterised by ‘everlasting uncertainty and agitation’: ‘[a]ll fixed, fast-frozen relations … are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air …’ (Marx and Engels, 1967, p 83). Where can we detect, to coin an inelegant phrase, solid change?

The proposition of this book is that the ‘tectonic plates’ that constitute the underlying structure of society are moving in the direction of democratic relationships which are the nurturing ground for the exploration and generation of enduring meaning; and that education is at the heart of this opportunity. There are structural opportunities for progressive change, and – crucially, in addition to that – our understanding of agency is evolving in a way that is especially conducive to taking advantage of those opportunities. Educational policy and possibilities for a paradigm shift in education are placed in the context of generic organisational trends that foreground participation and meaning. The argument is not that education should follow changes in the economy and other sectors: on the contrary, education has a sacred task that is not reducible to the demands of the economy or blind subservience to dominant ideas. Education, however, can and should be stimulated by innovations elsewhere, because it is both an ideal and an intensely practical activity. A good deal of the book, therefore, explores what is happening in other contexts, including some business settings, and interlaces education within the discussion.

New democratic times?

The hailing of more democratic times is not new. A ‘sudden growth’ of democratic and cooperative grass-roots organisations in the US during the 1970s and 1980s, for example, prompted great interest and an important scholarly study (recently re-published) (Rothschild and Whitt, 2009, p 11).