ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the dynamics of transitional, transformative and transgressive university education, making use of auto/biographical and historical enquiry. It employs a psychosocial theory of recognition, combining critical theory and psychoanalysis, to illuminate the dynamics involved. Drawing on the narratives of diverse learners in an increasingly turbulent and fractious world, universities can create good enough qualities of space to facilitate positive self-transitions, transformations and the capacity to challenge the taken for granted. The chapter draws on auto/biographical research into the struggles of particular non-traditional learners in various university spaces. It considers how universities once contributed to a progressive project of building a more inclusive and educated 'liberal' democracy in contrast to the contemporary obsession with social mobility and a narrow instrumentalism. The chapter concludes with a set of issues about how best to build the spirit and practice of democratic education among teachers and students in various universities and colleges of higher education in Israel and Georgia.
