Browsing by Author "Hyvättinen, Tuija"

In a changing world, as we face new and surprising challenges in our daily lives, we need the ability to look to the future. The bigger the changes, the harder it is to anticipate the future. However, the future will not only happen, but it is made through decisions and choices. Agency combines awareness of the past and its typical perspectives. At the same time, it is oriented towards the future and the ability to imagine alternative futures. Despite the uncertainties, agency manifests itself as the ability to contextualize past habits and images of the future. Agency thus combines the effects of different time dimensions, both the perceptions and values formed in the past and the expectations and fears of the future. Attitudes towards the future thus reveal an individual's thoughts about his or her own position and opportunities in society. The purpose of this study is to look at how young people talk about the future and what meanings they give to the future in their speech. In addition, the aim is to methodically identify the ways in which young people talk about the future and to analyze the structure of agency in identified ways of speaking. The study was carried out by using phenomenographic method and discourse analysis to identify meanings given for the future. The research material was future-themed essays (n = 53) written by 16–18 years old high school students. They were written as preliminary tasks for the voluntary course in 2018 and 2019. Interpretations of meanings resulted different ways of talking about the future as a result of the analysis. The descriptions formed from these were further interpreted theoretically from the perspectives of agency, and generalizations about the most typical ways of talking about the future were formed. At the same time, the description of the method was a result and a basis for further work. Other results provided descriptions of both the ways of future speech and the linking of agency to these. Linear, scenario-based and desired futures were identified as ways to talk about the future. In the linear way the emphasis was on the past, knowledge, and current trends. Instead, the scenario talk built the future on new types of solutions as well as alternatives based on discontinuities. Desired futures, on the other hand, were the most subjective ways to see the future, and they were based on values, desires, and dreams. Examination of agency in future speech showed that speech style is important in terms of agency skills. Analysis of the three most typical combinations of speech patterns provided more detailed information on how speech can be used to understand the relationship to the future. The three types were named as “realists”, “executors”, and “utopians.”