A major subgroup of futures studies develops methodologies for decolonizing the assumptions, epistemologies, and cultural biases that inform prevailing notions of ‘the’ future (called in Inayatullah 2008 “used futures”) to make space for new choices and new capacities to emerge ( Inayatullah 2008 Milojević 2005). This view considers our futures as something created through the thinking, actions, and choices an entire population is making now, in the present ( Facer 2011). We cannot assume that current processes and assumptions will continue much as they are now: rather we should be assuming, and preparing to work with, uncertainty and a multiplicity of different possible futures ( Sardar 2013 Gidley 2017). Instead, a key idea is that, by definition, the future cannot be known in advance.
Futures studies is a well-established (50-plus years) body of work that distinguishes itself from approaches designed to forecast, react to, or “proof against” future trends ( Dator 2014 Gidley 2017). Others discuss the implications of these ideas for education’s future. Some of the citations below are introductions to this field’s key ideas. The future-focused education literature references concepts drawn from the broader academic field of futures studies. For space reasons, not all of these concepts are covered here. In policy contexts, future-focused education is rhetorically linked to many other concepts, including personalization, inclusion, school-community partnerships, sustainability, citizenship, enterprise, digital literacies, computational thinking, innovative learning environments, and competencies.
Others have worked on reorienting traditional curriculum content to be not an end in itself but a context for building “learning power” and the “C-skills” of creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, and so on. In other strands, educationists explore how changes in the meaning and use of knowledge, increased cultural diversity, and the sustainability movement strongly challenge prevailing notions of curriculum. Educational futurists argue that major change is needed to build the higher-order, more ‘evolved’ forms of thinking everyone needs to function well in a world characterized by uncertainty and complexity. Others say that it is based on impoverished views of both education and the future. For some educationists, this focus is linked with, and driven by, the demands of global capitalism, not by educational considerations. Other strands of future-focused education work are strongly critical of the focus on work skills and learning. Learning is also emphasized: Education’s primary purpose is to foster ‘learning skills’ and the ‘disposition’ for independent, lifelong learning. But references to a range of other ‘soft’ skills- for example, innovation, agility, entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and design thinking-are common. In some work they are called the “4Cs”: creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication. This work emphasizes the skills people need to participate-and drive economic growth-in today’s knowledge-based, networked economies, and argues that education’s purpose is to develop them. In one influential strand, education’s links to work and the economy are foregrounded. In today’s context, future-focused education work has several very different strands. Educationists started to talk about future-focused education thirty or forty years ago, but although we use many new words, our education systems have not changed very much. However, there is little consensus on what these needs are or how they are best met. The unifying idea, if there is one, is the contention that major change is needed in education if it is to meet future needs. It is best described as an emerging cluster of ideas, beliefs, theories, and practices drawn from many sources, within and outside education, that are mobilized in different ways to support different purposes. ‘Future-focused education’ is not an easily definable or coherent body of knowledge.