Education is still an important reference point in discussions over the justification, purpose and critique of educational activity. But how can the concept be understood in such a way as to do justice to contemporary social conditions and link up with research into actual educational processes? This book presents a new view of the concept that regards education as a process that fundamentally alters the way in which human beings behave towards the world, other people and themselves. This process is initiated when people face problems that their previous capacities do not give them the resources to overcome. Drawing on concepts from the fields of educational studies, philosophy, sociology and psychology, a theory of transformative educational processes is developed that allows one of the fundamental problems in educational studies to be considered in new and different ways.