Browsing by Subject "future visions"

This article-based master’s thesis explores the relations between futures education and systems thinking. By exploring a cross-curricular approach on futures education, this study focuses on futures thinking, systems thinking, and the city as a complex system. Previous research has shown that futures education can increase agency to change the future. Students have, however, been shown to be facing unprecedented levels of anxiety related to the future. Hence, the objectives of this study are to explore the impact of a futures education course on students’ systems thinking by approaching futures though wishful visioning. This study aims to discover how students’ systems thinking is supported by a course on visioning the city of the future, encouraging multiple perspectives of futures. The data was gathered during a futures education course at an upper secondary school in Helsinki, Finland. In groups, 11 students wrote their visions of the city of Helsinki in 2050. The visions were challenged and revised, and all versions of the text were collected. This study looked into the revisions made to the students’ visions between the first and final versions. Using an inductive qualitative thematic analysis, this paper explored the themes emerging in the visions. The inductive themes were categorized into social, natural, and technological thematic spheres. This study explored how the interconnectedness of those themes developed during the course. Through the analysis of the overlap between the thematic spheres, this paper analysed how students’ perceptions of complexity emerged and showed developed systems thinking. This study found that students’ systems thinking developed during the futures education course. Students’ future visions portrayed deepened understandings of the interconnectedness between social, natural, and technological spheres. The revisions of students’ future visions showed increased complexity in the topics they initially discussed from merely a singular point of view. The results indicate complex development of systems thinking, pointing to the wide-ranging cross-curricular benefits of futures education. The article pertaining to this master’s thesis is to be submitted to be considered for publishing in Frontline Learning Research.