Pressure groups campaign for changes in the curriculum, but what is missing is a systematic engagement in the community by formal education, and by researchers. As society gradually ‘learns its way forward’, shifting its values, norms, beliefs, and strategies towards a more sustainable model of development, it offers an array of opportunities for learners of all ages to witness, critique, be inspired by and become a part of the changes taking place around them. If we are fully to understand the effectiveness of such community-based programmes and initiatives, and help these grow and develop, then educators and educational researchers need to be much more intimately involved than they currently are.