Developing, sustaining and thriving transformative living educational theory research and practice in challenging times and contexts

Our intention here is to contribute to envisioning and realising a paradigm shift for empowering the future of research and education to bring into being a more harmonious, peaceful world where individuals and communities can learn to flourish and help others do so too. Humans have faced challenges from time immemorial. Some challenges are common, others are particular to a time and context. Challenges particular to a 21st century world include those presented by: a global pandemic; climate change; the hegemony of technical rationality and; global spread of individualistic, popularist and neoliberal ideologies. This presents us each with a personal challenge to accept responsibility to pose, create and offer valid answers to questions such as, ‘How can I, as a researcher, practitioner and citizen, contribute to the development of local, national and global policies and practices which hold a hope of bringing into being a world with values of human flourishing, and help others do so too?’ We illustrate how practitioners worldwide have been engaging for decades in Living Educational Theory Research to generate answers to such questions. In the process they have critically and creatively engaged with various knowledges and united with researchers, practitioners and citizens across multiple academic fields and disciplines to: improve their research and pedagogical practices for the benefit of all; transform education and research to enhance sustainable educational, values-led, development of individuals and communities locally and globally and; contribute valid accounts of the knowledge they generate to the growth of a global educational knowledgebase.