Abstract
Overview
In a time of democratic backsliding and rising authoritarian pressures, the question of how citizens learn to live democratically has become increasingly urgent. In Learning for Democracy: A Framework for Adult Civic Learning, Hoggan-Kloubert and Hoggan (2025) tackle a pressing question: how does adult civic learning sustain meaningful democracy? They reject narrow views of democracy as merely institutional or procedural, instead framing it as a lived practice rooted in human dignity and requiring continuous learning across the lifespan. The authors state that their aim is to clarify what it means to protect and improve democracy today, particularly by foregrounding adult civic learning (p. 2).
The authors adopt an explicitly normative stance, drawing on Dewey’s (1916 [1997]) classic formulation of democracy as “a mode of associated living” (p. 50) to define it as “a specific form of human, societal, and political interaction” (Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025, p. 4). This vision positions citizens as active co-creators of their social worlds, not passive spectators, a point reinforced by Soltan’s (2014) emphasis on humans as “co-creators of our worlds” (p. 9). The authors reject minimal, procedural views of democracy and instead argue for strong democracy, in which democratic life is grounded in human dignity and sustained through active participation (Barber, 1984; Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025). This positions the book at the intersection of democratic theory and adult education, with a strong emphasis on human dignity and ethical participation.
The book is written primarily for scholars and graduate students in adult education, civic education, and related fields, while also addressing practitioners, policymakers, and civic activists interested in strengthening democratic life in diverse settings (Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025). It develops its argument through several interrelated themes rather than a simple linear progression. First, the authors establish a normative foundation by grounding democracy in human dignity and shared human experience. Democracy is understood not simply as institutional arrangements or electoral mechanisms, but as a form of human interaction cultivated through learning. Second, the authors propose a principle-centered framework built around autonomy, solidarity, rationality, and pluralism. These principles serve as ethical and practical guides for democratic life and often exist in tension, requiring ongoing negotiation rather than simple application. Third, the book examines the relationship between democratic theory and institutional practice. Civic learning occurs across multiple contexts, including formal education, workplaces, civil society, and the public sphere. By linking democratic ideals to social practice, the authors show that democracy is sustained not only through institutions but also through everyday interaction.
Evaluation
The book arrives well-timed amid debates over civic education’s adequacy in polarized times. It intervenes powerfully in discussions about skills-based approaches’ shortcomings. Hoggan-Kloubert and Hoggan argue that competencies and measurable outcomes cannot substitute for judgment, responsibility, and ethical deliberation—the deeper commitments sustaining democratic life (Biesta, 2011). By synthesizing adult civic learning traditions with democratic theory, they show that behaviorist civic “training” overlooks deeper values and offer a more principled alternative.
The framework both complements and extends critical and transformative traditions in adult education (Brookfield, 2005). While these traditions emphasize emancipation and critique of power, this book focuses on how individuals navigate democratic tensions in everyday practice. It examines how personal autonomy is balanced with collective solidarity, and how pluralism is negotiated alongside public rationality, while still acknowledging structural conditions. In this way, the book addresses an important conceptual gap by demonstrating how democratic values can inform everyday civic life without being reduced to procedural checklists or technocratic approaches.
The book’s central strength lies in its conceptual clarity and internal coherence. It draws on a wide range of interdisciplinary literature to clarify concepts, support normative claims, and surface tensions among democratic ideals. Each principle is presented as necessary rather than optional, and the argument develops in a way that is easy to follow without sacrificing theoretical depth. Chapter summaries and reflective sections help readers trace connections across chapters (Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025), and the writing is accessible and well-suited for graduate-level teaching.
At the same time, the book is primarily theoretical. As the authors note, it is “a book of theory rather than a guide to practice” (p. 25). While this strengthens its conceptual coherence, readers seeking detailed empirical studies or concrete pedagogical guidance may find the framework relatively abstract. Although Chapters 10 and 11 provide useful institutional illustrations, including participatory budgeting, citizens’ assemblies, and German integration councils, practitioners seeking step-by-step guidance may still need to adapt the framework to their own contexts.
Issues of gender, race, class, and difference are addressed mainly at a normative level, especially in discussions of pluralism and human dignity. These dimensions are recognized as central to democratic life, but are not examined in sustained intersectional or empirical detail. This reflects a deliberate effort to develop a broadly applicable framework, while also revealing its grounding in Western democratic traditions. As Bron notes in the foreword, engagement with Nordic, British, and European Society for Research on the Education of Adults (ESREA) scholarship is limited, with the discussion shaped largely by German and North American contexts (Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025). Readers working in the Global South or postcolonial settings may therefore find the framework conceptually useful but in need of further supplementation.
Overall, the scholarship is rigorous and well-organized. The authors largely achieve their goal of articulating a principled framework for adult civic learning. In a period marked by democratic fragility, civic disengagement, and rising authoritarian pressures, conditions that Dahl (2020) describes as revealing the structural vulnerabilities of democratic institutions and their dependence on informed, capable, and engaged citizens, the book’s objectives are timely and worthwhile.
Recommendations
I would strongly recommend this book for scholarship, research, and teaching in adult education and civic learning. For scholars and graduate students, it offers a framework that extends existing work on civic competencies by placing them within a broader normative and theoretical context. In doing so, it echoes Biesta’s (2011) argument that democratic education must move beyond technical competences toward questions of purpose and the political. The conceptual vocabulary developed in the book is well-suited to empirical research that examines how democratic principles are supported (or constrained) in workplaces, social movements, and civil society organizations.
Educators and practitioners may also find the book valuable as a source of conceptual guidance. Rather than providing instructional templates or step-by-step programs, it supports the design of courses and initiatives that emphasize democratic dispositions and forms of participation over the transmission of information. Chapters 3, 10, and 11 are especially useful for thinking about universities, organizations, and local councils as “schools of democracy” (Hoggan-Kloubert & Hoggan, 2025, p. 43), settings in which democratic habits are cultivated through deliberative forums and participatory practices.
For policymakers and civic organizers, the book offers an ethical rationale for investing in adult civic learning in contexts marked by polarization and growing authoritarian pressures. The institutional examples in the later chapters illustrate how democratic principles can be translated into everyday norms and organizational practices.
Overall, Learning for Democracy is well-suited for graduate seminars, professional development settings, and reflective work in third-sector organizations. Its central contribution lies in re-centering civic learning as an ethical and relational project rather than a technical one. In a period increasingly shaped by efficiency-driven approaches, the book serves as a reminder that democratic life depends on adults’ capacities for judgment, responsibility, and shared meaning. As a reader in adult education, particularly in cross-cultural contexts, I found its emphasis on democracy as an ongoing learning process especially compelling, as democratic norms and expectations are often shaped differently across contexts and therefore need to be continually negotiated in practice. It also led me to reflect on how, in contexts shaped by different histories and social positioning, promoting human dignity, central to the book’s framework, may not always be equally recognized or realized, which raises important questions about how democratic learning can take place under such conditions.
