Within the past century in North America, Europe, and elsewhere, brief episodes of student political activism and protest have alternated with much longer periods of apparent apathy and social conformity (fringe elements of artistic bohemianism notwithstanding). This article looks to the ideological origins of student protest in the Marxist tradition and to the relationship among generational protest, critical theory and the influence of Jürgen Habermas on the evolving issues of democracy, social justice, and environmental sustainability. While Marx remains central to the critique of capitalist economics and the exploitation of workers under capitalism, Habermas opens the path to a more expansive, communication-based understanding of domination with implications for transformative education that will contribute to a social change based on a wider platform than social class, including issues of ecology and social justice in a comprehensive approach to human emancipation.