Abstract
This paper argues that ideas of the future play a central role in educational thinking, policy and practice and that there is an urgent need to reflect upon how these ideas are produced and the sorts of work that they are doing in education. It outlines 5 broad orientations or traditions for thinking about and working with ideas of the future in education:
Orientation I: ‘Educational Futures’ is concerned with the question ‘what might education be like in the future’, it takes the form of scenarios, projections and visions of the future of education and is familiar in consultancy, policy, social movement and financial investment fields. Orientation II: ‘Education as preparation for the future’ is familiar in development arena and government policy, as well as characterising mainstream educational discourse, and is concerned with adapting young people to fit envisaged futures, or equipping them to create desired futures. Orientation III: ‘Education about futures’ engages with pedagogic questions about how students might be supported to think reflexively about futures and is concerned both with Futures Literacy and developing students ‘capacity to aspire’. Orientation IV: ‘Liberating education from the future’ derives from new developments in educational philosophy, posthumanism, complexity theory and quantum physics and questions the association of education with futures, making the case for education as a time of suspension from futures. Orientation V: ‘Reparative Futures’ is concerned with education as a space for addressing the injustices of the past and for radically pluralising and provincialising western temporalities.
The paper outlines the distinctive contribution and core questions and practices in each of these orientations as well as the intergenerational tensions and ethical questions that they raise. It also draws attention to the emerging field of financial futures speculation in education and the risks that this poses to education.
From these five orientations, the paper proposes nine areas of ethical examination for ethical futures work in education: reflexivity and multiplicity; transparency; curating decay; repair and healing; intergenerational responsibility; emergence and observation; organising hope; limiting pathological speculation; and care for the distinctive temporality of education. It concludes by offering nine questions for policy makers, consultants, researchers, educators or students seeking to work with the idea of the future in education. These are:
What and whose knowledges are being used to create these ideas of the future and where are the absences? What processes were used to make these ideas of the future, and why? How does this work address the necessity of decline as well as the possibilities of the new? What are the injustices upon which futures are being envisaged and how are these being addressed? How do principles of intergenerational justice inform the practice? Who will attend to the consequence of these ideas of the future being put into the world and how? What is the role of these futures in creating hopeful politics and practices in the present? Might these futures be used for pathological and extractive speculation, if so, how might this be prevented? How can the distinctive temporality of education be preserved not subordinated to the futures proposed?
These questions form the basis for self-reflection and dialogue amongst educators, futures professionals, governments and and others seeking to work ethically with futures in education.
Orientation I: ‘Educational Futures’ is concerned with the question ‘what might education be like in the future’, it takes the form of scenarios, projections and visions of the future of education and is familiar in consultancy, policy, social movement and financial investment fields. Orientation II: ‘Education as preparation for the future’ is familiar in development arena and government policy, as well as characterising mainstream educational discourse, and is concerned with adapting young people to fit envisaged futures, or equipping them to create desired futures. Orientation III: ‘Education about futures’ engages with pedagogic questions about how students might be supported to think reflexively about futures and is concerned both with Futures Literacy and developing students ‘capacity to aspire’. Orientation IV: ‘Liberating education from the future’ derives from new developments in educational philosophy, posthumanism, complexity theory and quantum physics and questions the association of education with futures, making the case for education as a time of suspension from futures. Orientation V: ‘Reparative Futures’ is concerned with education as a space for addressing the injustices of the past and for radically pluralising and provincialising western temporalities.
The paper outlines the distinctive contribution and core questions and practices in each of these orientations as well as the intergenerational tensions and ethical questions that they raise. It also draws attention to the emerging field of financial futures speculation in education and the risks that this poses to education.
From these five orientations, the paper proposes nine areas of ethical examination for ethical futures work in education: reflexivity and multiplicity; transparency; curating decay; repair and healing; intergenerational responsibility; emergence and observation; organising hope; limiting pathological speculation; and care for the distinctive temporality of education. It concludes by offering nine questions for policy makers, consultants, researchers, educators or students seeking to work with the idea of the future in education. These are:
What and whose knowledges are being used to create these ideas of the future and where are the absences? What processes were used to make these ideas of the future, and why? How does this work address the necessity of decline as well as the possibilities of the new? What are the injustices upon which futures are being envisaged and how are these being addressed? How do principles of intergenerational justice inform the practice? Who will attend to the consequence of these ideas of the future being put into the world and how? What is the role of these futures in creating hopeful politics and practices in the present? Might these futures be used for pathological and extractive speculation, if so, how might this be prevented? How can the distinctive temporality of education be preserved not subordinated to the futures proposed?
These questions form the basis for self-reflection and dialogue amongst educators, futures professionals, governments and and others seeking to work ethically with futures in education.
Original language | English |
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Publisher | UNESCO Paris |
Number of pages | 29 |
Publication status | Published - 1 Mar 2021 |