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A Futures Perspective in the School Curriculum
Abstract
The future has captivated many people, from astrologers to trendsetters. However, it is rarely explicitly studied in the school setting. While businesses frequently develop five-year plans and government departments look to the immediate future, educational institutions have been slow to adopt forward- looking foci in their curricula. Futures studies is an established global field of study that is now gaining greater prominence and covers a spectrum of practices, ranging from examination of current trends to critically working for the creation of specific futures. It offers techniques, methodologies and concepts that have relevance in the classroom. This paper is an exploration of the need for education to be more futures-oriented and of ways in which established futures concepts and methodologies can be incorporated as part of a futures perspective across curriculums.
... Engaging students in analysis of the future requires various types of knowledge: surface-level, interpretive and critical (Rawnsley 2000). Surface-level knowledge is mainly descriptive, based on observations, and is the first step to engaging in discussions of the future. ...
... Critical knowledge urges students to examine value-based power relationships and how this ties to the future. Looking at different cultural perspectives requires students to both examine and deconstruct while analyzing future possibilities, an aspect of future studies not possible if the students use only surface and interpretive knowledge (Rawnsley 2000). ...
... As addressed by Tullock and Jenkins (2005), Doctor Who is an encapsulation of modernity, and modernity is best signified through science and technology. Students can be engaged in alternative futures by asking them what they believe is probable or prescribed, what else they can imagine, and which scenario they hope will happen (Rawnsley 2000). Doctor Who provides students with a platform from which to build and envisage future scenarios using their creativity and imagination. ...
Metacognition is the understanding and control of cognitive processes. This mixed-methods study examined elementary teachers’ beliefs about meta- cognition and integration in science through the following research questions: (1) How do elementary teachers conceptualize metacognition? (2) What is the relationship between elementary teachers’ beliefs about metacognition and their classroom practices?
(3) How do elementary teachers integrate metacognition into their science lessons? In-service teachers were recruited through professional networks to complete a questionnaire titled “Student Metacognition in Elementary Science,” which contained open- ended questions and Likert-type items. Additionally, five respondents completed semistructured inter- views informed by the questionnaire. The Likert-type items were analyzed through reliability analysis, independent t-tests, and multiple (hierarchical) regression. All participants were grouped into veteran (n=19) or early (n=22) teachers. Regression analysis demonstrated that participants’ actions and beliefs varied based on their years of experience but not their gender. Years of experience was significantly corre- lated with teachers’ actions. Generally, teachers understood metacognition and were able to identify reflective thinking as the foundation for metacognitive thinking. However, some gaps remain in their conceptual understandings. Participants emphasized the need for explicit instruction and ongoing opportunities to practice metacognitive skills. Most partici- pants believed that metacognition was appropriate for elementary students because the students had the cognitive capacity to think metacognitively. A lack of consensus around the domain specificity of meta- cognition remains; all interviewees believed that metacognition was not domain specific, compared to more than half of the questionnaire respondents who held the opposite opinion. Participants reported struggling when their students were not explicit about their thinking. Professional development should focus on sharing new ways of measuring students’ meta- cognitive thinking and making students’ thinking visible to help support teachers.
... As this quote illustrates, moral evaluation is the complex, essential final phase of scholarship of futures. As a discussion about possible, probable and preferable futures is inevitably linked to ethics and criteria on which weighing and choosing is based (Rawnsley, 2000), it requires self-knowledge and clarification with regard to opinions, beliefs and values of the learner. Since futures learning involves the heart as well as the mind (Rogers & Tough, 1993), the intuitive position of a student should be made explicit. ...
Documents about "skills for the twenty-first century" envisage an increasingly competitive, globalized and technologically advanced world that schools should prepare for by focusing on a range of "skills". Policy documents and position papers about geographical education mainly assume that the world of the near future will be highly problematic, with many pressing issues, which is presented as legitimation for the importance of geographical knowledge and skills. Both types of future images are taken for fact and lack reflection in the documents. Futures education takes a very different approach to the future. Futures-plural since many different futures are imaginable-should be the object of teaching and learning, using powerful knowledge as well as envisioning and reflective practice. It will be argued in this article that geographical education would be enriched-and could move beyond unreflective rhetoric about "the future"-by taking the suggestions from futures education seriously. Futures-oriented school geography requires the use of powerful knowledge and an awareness of the situatedness of all knowledge. It is also a natural setting for pedagogical innovation. And finally, future orientation in geography will help in taking a critical position with regard to sense and nonsense of the "twenty-first century skills" movement.
... Pluralformen markerar att en mångfald av framtidsalternativ står till buds (Slaughter, 1995). När alternativa framtider diskuteras ligger det nära till hands att också diskutera vilka etiska överväganden som aktualiseras i valet mellan alternativen (Rawnsley, 2000). ...
The comprehensive ambition of the present thesis was to acquire knowledge about expectations on and preconditions for environmental moral learning within the education for sustainable development (ESD) in the Swedish upper secondary school. The expectations on ESD were explored by examining the description of “sustainable development” in the curriculum, and the prerequisites were examined by analysing environmental attitudes, commitments, and actions of 18-year-old students. The thesis focuses in particular on attitudes to solidarity as a value that unites the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of sustainable development. The theoretical foundation is based on curriculum theory and learning theory, incorporating influences from pragmatic philosophy, while theories of environmental psychology were applied to explain commonalities in attitudes to altruistic and biospheric values. The thesis comprises four studies, and mixed methods were employed as methodological approach. The first study involved a discourse analysis, and aimed at clarifying the description of sustainable development in the curriculum, and to reveal what subject position(s) the discourse implies. The second study was a questionnaire, where statistical methods were used to analyse attitudes to solidarity, equality, and respect for nature. The third study was also a questionnaire, focusing more specifically on attitudes to different aspects of solidarity. The fourth study was an interview study, utilizing a thematic analysis in order to elucidate how students think about solidarity and the future, and how they have encountered the concepts of solidarity and future in teaching. The results disclosed that the expectations on ESD is characterized by an ecological modernization discourse, in which two subject positions are articulated, one scientific and one technical, the latter with expectations on students to be ethical agents. The quantitative studies in the present thesis corroborated previously found correlations between attitudes to altruistic and attitudes to biospheric values. The significant correlation between future orientation and solidarity unveiled by the present thesis constitutes however a pioneering result. The interview analyses imparted that students have experienced little moral reasoning in school with regard to sustainable development, and furthermore conveyed that the future dimension had basically been missing in the teaching they had encountered. The present thesis furthermore contributes methodologically and theoretically by the development of a new scale for appraising solidarity.
... As this quote illustrates, moral evaluation is the complex, essential final phase of scholarship of futures. As a discussion about possible, probable and preferable futures is inevitably linked to ethics and criteria on which weighing and choosing is based (Rawnsley, 2000), it requires self-knowledge and clarification with regard to opinions, beliefs and values of the learner. Since futures learning involves the heart as well as the mind (Rogers & Tough, 1993), the intuitive position of a student should be made explicit. ...
In a world of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement there is increasing need for students to become equipped and empowered to contribute meaningfully to social change, both at a socio-political level and as contributors in the work-place. Within this context of rapid change, futures thinking is starting to find a place in school curricula as ‘futures education’. This chapter considers the potential place for futures education in school science. Classroom-based case study with 13 year old students of lower mixed ability highlights the potential of a futures thinking framework to engage reluctant learners in thinking about science—including the social, cultural and political milieu to which science contributes, and the relationship between science and technology.
Futures thinking involves a structured exploration into how society and its physical and cultural environment could be shaped
in the future. In science education, an exploration of socio-scientific issues offers significant scope for including such
futures thinking. Arguments for doing so include increasing student engagement, developing students’ values discourse, fostering
students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, and empowering individuals and communities to envisage, value, and work
towards alternative futures. This paper develops a conceptual framework to support teachers’ planning and students’ futures
thinking in the context of socio-scientific issues. The key components of the framework include understanding the current
situation, analysing relevant trends, identifying drivers, exploring possible and probable futures, and selecting preferable
futures. Each component is explored at a personal, local, national, and global level. The framework was implemented and evaluated
in three classrooms across Years 4–12 (8 to 16-year olds) and findings suggest it has the potential to support teachers in
designing engaging science programmes in which futures thinking skills can be developed.
KeywordsClassroom research–Futures thinking–Primary–Secondary–Socio-scientific issues–Teacher professional learning
The term ‘megatrends’ was coined by John Naisbitt in the early 1980s and used to describe a series of changes ostensibly taking place in the USA and elsewhere. It passed into the language and has been used widely ever since. However, the term and much of what has been attempted under its banner are not without problems. This article looks at a number of attempts to survey various trends and seeks to answer several questions. What do these sources tell us? Can a reliable overview of global change be derived from them? Is there any value in the concept of a ‘megatrend’? If so, how might it be used? If not, what pointers may be derived for the near-term future? Some of the limitations of empirical work are noted and the role of critical and epistemological approaches is discussed.
