Conference Program

In the present study, we seek to explore the contribution of Arendtian thought through both the action of citizens in the public sphere and their modes of resistance to authoritarian systems, viewed through the lens of Arendt’s educational approach. More specifically, the social and political polarization—as manifested in algorithmic echo chambers, disinformation, and democratic backsliding (Druckman et al., 2023)—underscores the critical importance of targeted educational interventions. If polarization projects the Arendtian condition of world alienation (Arendt, 1958), then it becomes imperative to re-examine the field of adult education as a democratic space of deliberation and active participation (Leiviskä, 2025).

The specific question posed is whether the Arendtian framework can overcome democratic regression by means of a democratic education situated within the domain of adult education. The central aim, therefore, is to investigate the dialogical relationship, emancipatory action, and social transformation within adult education, enabling learners to participate in the shared public world. In other words, how does Arendt’s conception of the common world (Arendt, 1958, p. 52) intersect, for example, with Freirean conscientization (Freire, 1998) in order to raise issues that illuminate democracy from below.

For the Arendtian approach, the challenge does not lie in the epistemological justification of truth, but rather in the common world that we share and co-construct through political action and the diversity of perspectives (Arendt, 2005). Truth thus reflects a shared factual basis that strengthens critical thinking and dialogue, enabling democratic education to become a domain of political values and thereby highlight the pluralistic and normative dimensions of democracy.

Under these premises, Arendtian spaces of appearance and plurality shape a form of political action that attends to the ways in which adult learners experience their participation in collective action, thereby renewing democracy from below. This “law of the earth” of plurality (Arendt, 1978, p. 19) contributes to the lived experience of freedom through the disclosure of the self, as well as through speech and deeds.

The issue that consequently arises does not concern a linear trajectory of educational policy, but rather how we learn from our political existence (Biesta, 2010). More precisely, it concerns the ways in which Arendtian spaces of appearance within adult education constitute a field of shared action and reflective judgment in the face of societal polarization.

The learner, therefore, engages in a dynamic process of reflection in order to renew and reconfigure their experiences by entering into dialogue with the transformative projections of the world within them. This process relates to Arendtian natality and collective action, since the self encounters the world, creating spaces of appearance wherein political existence is now understood in terms of beginning and generativity. These elements of the educational perspective operate within the framework of social practices in the public realm, affirming the diverse viewpoints of individuals. Adult learners thus learn through their participation in understandings of the world grounded in their experience. Learning, therefore, constitutes a lifelong condition that connects the political and the social worlds.