Teaching Futures Studies From Disciplinary And Student Perspectives

Abstract

Concepts from the Enlightenment and the historical origins of modern social sciences are used to discuss how futures studies deserves recognition as a social science in its own right and as a needed component of the curricula of other disciplines as well, especially in public administration. In focus groups, undergraduate students who had just completed a course in futures studies identified what they would emphasize if they become teachers of our field. They would emphasize critical thinking, individual relevance and empowerment, interrelatedness, technology as a two-sided agent of change, a risk management approach to understanding crises and opportunities, past efforts to anticipate possible futures, developing scenarios using the Societal, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political framework, environmental scanning and backcasting, and especially the importance of Enlightenment values in framing preferred futures. As teachers, they would use technology extensively but were sharply divided on whether futures studies should be taught in an online only format.

Keywords

teaching futures studies public administration enlightenment pedagogy student perspectives

Introduction

One of the greatest challenges to any discipline is learning how to teach it to each succeeding generation. This challenge is especially daunting for futures studies because it is a discipline in its own right as well as a body of knowledge that needs to be taught in other disciplines (Dator 1998; Miller, Poli and Rossel 2013). This study presents findings from several focus groups held with students who had just completed a course in futures studies. The objective was to learn how those students might teach futures studies if they were to do so in their own future careers.

The course is an introductory course in futures studies for upper division, undergraduate students. Open to students in any field of studies, it is especially designed for those preparing for careers in public service. It is, therefore, necessary to explain how futures studies relates to the field of public administration.

The Enlightenment Roots of Futures Studies and of Public Administration

In 1784, Immanuel Kant wrote an essay titled, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” He answered, “‘Have courage to use your own reason!’—that is the motto of enlightenment” (Kant, 1784). Critical thinking and questioning authority are hallmarks of Enlightenment thinking. So also is the concept that all humans possess an equal right to have a say in how they are to be governed. John Locke (1632–1704) and others stressed the dignity of individuals, all of whom possess fundamental rights including the right to reason for themselves. In his expression of Enlightenment values in the American Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that each individual has an unalienable right to seek preferable futures for themselves, a right to the “pursuit of happiness.”

Modern academic disciplines are rooted in the Enlightenment. They reflect the commitment to reason and empirical inquiry that was championed by the likes of Rene Descartes (1596–1650), Frances Bacon (1561–1626), and David Hume (1711–1776). The maturation, however, of modern academic disciplines did not occur until well into the 19th and early 20th centuries. Historian Ross (1991) studied the origins of the social sciences in American universities during those years. She learned that the founders of each discipline hoped to develop knowledge that could enhance the functioning of social institutions. Developing knowledge to enhance the functioning of social institutions seems to be a defining feature of social sciences across the globe. Economists seek to enhance the functioning of economies. Sociologists seek to enhance the functioning of social institutions ranging from families and neighborhoods to businesses. The closely related academic fields of political science and public administration were founded in the United States to enhance the success of that nation’s democratic institutions.

Futures Studies is the discovery and dissemination of information to facilitate the making of decisions, grounded in well-ordered conjectures, that enhance opportunities to make preferred futures come into existence. Futures Studies is intended to facilitate the decisions of individuals and of social institutions such as governments, businesses, and charitable organizations. Futures studies is grounded in both theory and sophisticated methods of inquiry (see especially Bell 1997; de Jouvenel 1967). It is a well-established precept that futures studies is intended to enhance the functioning of social institutions through the provision of knowledge that improves the prospects of preferable futures for them. Futures studies emphasizes evidence-based reasoning and critical thinking, especially the questioning of underlying assumptions. Failure to question underlying assumptions is a primary cause of error in thinking about the future (Ascher 1978). A solid argument can be made for the recognition of futures studies as a distinct social science discipline.

If any social science fails to teach ways to envision futures, especially the possible futures of the social institutions in which they specialize, then the ability of that social science to enhance prospects for improving the human condition is diminished. Seen in this light, Dator (1998, 302) admonition that “each academic discipline should become future-oriented” is particularly important. That is why the authors of this piece teach futures studies to students of public administration.

For democracies, public administration can be defined as follows: Public administration is service to others, in the context of democratically established laws, that is, accomplished through the management of people, money, and information in the development, implementation, and evaluation of policy in governments, in public-serving charitable organizations, and in businesses that contract to deliver public services. A half century ago, Dror (1970, 3) posited, “The main test of future studies should be its impacts on policymaking.” The desire to create information that will enhance the development of public policy is a central theme in the literature of both futures studies and public administration.

The need for public administration to be futures oriented extends well beyond policy development. Teaching a topic like leadership is enriched by introducing a futures perspective. Bennis and Nanus (1985) showed that the most effective leaders help others to envision preferred futures for themselves and their organizations. Sharing a vision of a preferred future in an organization increases motivation and better coordinates individual actions. A desire to be well remembered by future generations can be a reason for choosing top executives. That criterion for selecting executives was used by the founding public administrator of a new United States, President George Washington (Cook and Klay 2015).

Although governments are usually resistant to change, the academic discipline of public administration is inherently proactive. In the United States, for example, the standards for accrediting graduate programs in public administration require them to show evidence of preparing students to become agents for change and promoters of democratic values, especially social equity. Futures studies scholars and practitioners also advocate a proactive stance (Millett and Staley 2009). This raises the question as to which values are promoted in influencing future outcomes. As Bell (1997, Vol. 2) argued, critically assessing the values used to judge which possible futures are preferable is fundamental to the doing of futures studies. For public administration, good futures are those in which democratic institutions thrive in service to their citizens. Its scholars and practitioners seek greater efficiency, effectiveness, and social equity in order to earn the trust of citizens in their democratic institutions. The success of a newly established American republic depended heavily upon the ability of its founding public administrator to make the government worthy of being trusted by its citizens (Cook and Klay 2015).

The concepts of civic duty and service to others are central to the field of public administration (Cook and Klay 2014). They are rooted in the broader concept of benevolence which was elucidated by Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), a teacher and friend of Adam Smith. Hutcheson’s contributions included pioneering the importance of utility and self-interest in economic theory. Hutcheson’s reasoning, however, also led him to conclude that humans have an inherent capacity for benevolence and that acting on behalf of others is requisite to a well-functioning society.

Futures studies are examples of benevolence. They are undertaken so that others might benefit. For the most part, the beneficiaries of futures studies are not those who do the studies; the true beneficiaries are those who benefit from wiser policy decisions. Hutcheson anticipated futures studies when he wrote that humans should use their moral sense and their capacity to reason to discover “what conduct tends either to the common prosperity of all, or that of individuals, and what has a contrary tendency” (Hutcheson 1753, 104).” In teaching futures studies, the authors unabashedly seek to promote the Enlightenment ideals of critical reasoning and benevolence as expressed through civic duty and service to others.

The Course

The course is an introduction to futures studies for undergraduates from any discipline. Most major in social sciences but others range from the humanities to physics. Critical thinking is stressed throughout the course. We seek to enable each student to develop the capacity to analytically examine evidence, or the lack thereof, and the underlying assumptions, often not evident, that are used to frame conjectures about the future. In doing this, we seek to emulate the perspectives of de Jouvenel (1967) who established the importance for futures studies of analytically examining both evidences and assumptions. From the beginning of the course, students learn what de Jouvenel meant when he said that exploring possible futures can expand awareness of possible options and enhance prospects for success.

Enlightenment thinkers emphasized that teachers of future decision makers should emphasize the study of history (Cook and Klay 2014). In the course, students study how past efforts to envision the future succeeded or not. Students are encouraged to examine the underlying assumptions that seemed to influence the persons who were doing the studies. For example, demographers in the late 1940s in the United States repeatedly failed to recognize the emerging “baby boom.” They persisted in clinging to the demographic transition theory that populations in industrialized countries would inexorably reduce their fertility behaviors to something close to a replacement level. Citing the example of those demographers, Ascher (1978) concluded that such failures to critically examine underlying assumptions were a primary cause of forecast errors.

We use Ascher’s perspective repeatedly to encourage students to demonstrate their own abilities to think critically, especially in their required research paper on the possible futures of a topic of their choosing. In each paper, students are expected to show they can effectively use the Societal, Technological, Economic, Environmental, and Political (STEEP) framework in organizing their thoughts. For assignments such as the term papers, the time horizon is usually left up to the student and depends on the subject they choose but is never less than a decade or so. Topics have ranged from the futures of technologies, such as blockchains, to the futures of places, of industries, of groups, and of humanity itself. The underlying assumptions that students seem to be most inclined to question and criticize are ones associated with future uses of technology. Here are some of the assumptions challenged by students in their papers and other contexts such as class discussions:

1. Assumptions that a free economy will assuredly create enough new jobs to replace those made obsolete by smart technology;

2. Assumptions that new technology will be able to solve the climate crisis without the need for people to make fundamental changes in their current behaviors;

3. Assumptions that AI will yield greater wellbeing for humans and that careful oversight of AI algorithms can assure a system of ethics that aligns with human values and basic rights; and

4. Assumptions that making information widely available on the Internet will reduce gaps in wealth and incomes.

We agree with Dator's (2003) recommendation to use the STEEP framework throughout the course. We also agree with Dator (2003) in using the insights of William Fielding Ogburn (e.g., 1937). A leading sociologist in the early 20th century, Ogburn sought to understand the industrial revolution. He concluded that significant new technologies inevitably change societies. Ogburn also emphasized that the ways in which new technologies change things are not predetermined; societal outcomes are a result of differing cultures and the values that prevail in shaping how a new technology is employed. To help students think about the duality of new technologies, we discuss a well-known biblical admonition from the Book of Isaiah, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

The quote shows how humans, nearly three millennia ago, understood the duality of new technologies—that they can be used for good or for harm, depending on the values that prevail in determining how they will be used. Students find it very easy to jump ahead from a discussion about the uses of ancient metallurgy to the possible futures of something like artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Ogburn (1936) also wrote about how industrial technology had changed families. For most of human history, extended families were the primary providers of employment, of education, of health care, and of protection. Obliterating extended families in many places, industrial technology made it necessary for governments to assume important roles in meeting each of those needs. Students find this perspective helpful in thinking about possible futures of governments.

Risk assessment is emphasized in public administration courses. One approach to teaching it is to have students identify the possible risks associated with following the recommendations of two contending groups, each claiming to be right about something but one of them turns out to be wrong. We help students to identify possible futures if each side in the climate change issue proves to be wrong. The risks of doing what climate change deniers propose, and they turn out to be wrong, are evident—sea rise, uprooted populations, desertification, wildfires, and heightened risk of military conflicts. The downside of doing what the proponents of averting climate change want and they turn out to be wrong? More fossil fuel will be left in the ground for future generations, less money spent on health care, and more jobs producing alternate energy than were needed.

Students in the course are introduced to several methods of doing futures studies. Students learn a bit about methods such as econometric forecasting and the Delphi method. All methods of futures studies require specialized training, but students in an introductory course can apply the basics of some methods. We emphasize the development of scenarios to stimulate thought about alternate possibilities. Scenario development is accompanied by an introduction to future mapping/backcasting (Inayatullah 2012, Robinson 1982, Glenn 1997). Students are required to write scenarios and to backcast from their descriptions of preferable futures to frame recommendations for current policy actions. The students in the course seem to be especially drawn toward scenario development. This is perhaps not surprising since scenario development lends itself to the bridging of theory and practice (Yeoman and Curry 2019), and most students in the course are pursuing careers in which they will need to apply knowledge.

Students are introduced to environmental scanning from the perspective of our discipline. Developing future leaders is a continuing challenge. We, therefore, help our students see how environmental scanning can help an organization to become more anticipatory while also identifying persons at various levels who possess important talents. One of the authors, for example, has encouraged police chiefs to call for volunteers from all ranks to scan sources of information and share their implications for the futures of their organization and their community. A patrol officer, who would otherwise not have an opportunity to show that she or he is capable of anticipatory thinking, could be identified and fast tracked to higher levels of responsibility.

After students are introduced to general concepts and methods, they are then helped to apply those perspectives to several different policy arenas. Students learn about possible futures related to the following topics (as listed in the course syllabus).

1. Ecology and the Economy.

2. Terrorism and Crime.

3. Knowledge, Technology, and Power/The Fast versus the Slow.

4. Health and Medicine (and Robo-Humans).

5. Families.

6. Florida.

7. Governance.

The Focus Groups

Focus groups are widely used to obtain information from multiple persons simultaneously. Focus groups formed from pre-existing groups are likely to be less threatening than individual interviews. Using focus groups, researchers can structure discussions around themes that are of particular importance. Moderators should be well familiar with focus group methods and with the topics discussed. Systematic analysis of recordings and transcripts, although time consuming, is a requisite in professionally done research. (Note: Each of the preceding statements in this paragraph is discussed more fully, with supporting literature, by Onwuegbuzie, Dickinson, Leech, and Zoran 2009.)

For this research, focus groups were conducted in each of six sections of the course, taught over a time span of two academic years. Each focus group session was conducted on the last day of classes. The sessions generally lasted an hour and a half. The course makes considerable use of electronic technology in all sections, with all readings available electronically as well as assignments to watch a number of videos and access some websites. Four of the sections met together in traditional face-to-face classrooms and two were taught entirely online. The total number of students was 188, 89 in the two online sections and 99 in the four face-to-face sections. The students in the classes mirrored the demographics of the research site, Florida State University: 57% women and approximately 58% white, 20% Hispanic, 10% Black, and 12% from other backgrounds or not identified.

Both instructors participated as moderators in all six focus groups. The moderators created some questions in advance, but the resulting discussions ranged widely in subject matter. Each of the prearranged questions was asked of each class section. Students were asked to imagine themselves as future teachers of a futures studies course. They were asked how emerging trends and conditions, especially future threats and opportunities, might affect what they would teach. Participants then discussed what additions, deletions, or other changes they would make relative to the contents of the course they had just completed. The broadest question asked of the “future instructors” of a futures studies course was, “How do you think the course should be taught?” The resulting responses to that question ranged from discussions of contents to how they would use technology.

In research involving focus groups, the text of what is said is the primary source of data. The mediators made notes during the focus groups. The focus groups were also recorded, and printed transcripts were made. Qualitative analysis software (specifically Nvivo) was used to analyze transcripts. The software did not reveal any overlooked themes. In reporting the results of focus group discussions, it is especially important to report areas of disagreement and minority opinions. In these focus groups, there were surprising levels of consensus and little to no disagreement on issues with one notable exception, whether or not a futures studies course should be taught entirely online.

Students’ Perspectives

One of the most consistent findings, in each focus group, was that students found all of the course’s contents to be relevant and appropriate for an introductory course in futures studies. The participants said that it was difficult to think about what to remove from the course. When asked what there should be “less of” in the course, the only suggestion made was to reduce emphasis on the emerging multi-polar world topic. They felt the topic was important but recommended less emphasis on it. We were worried that the presence of the instructors as focus group facilitators might bias student responses, but students were critical in other contexts such as recommending less lecture time and more class discussion time, so we believe they would have recommended removal of course topics if they were inclined to do so. The course they had just taken was, by design, similar to other introductory courses in futures studies elsewhere. If the opinions of the students in these focus groups are any indication, the contents of futures studies courses in the future might resemble the contents of present and past courses.

Individual Relevance and Empowerment

Without being prompted to do so, students repeatedly indicated that a futures studies course should help students to see the relevance for themselves of what they were studying. Follow-up questions revealed that the students had two concerns in mind—careers and personal empowerment. Most of the focus group participants were between 19 and 21 years of age, and they made it clear that their future career paths were very much on their minds. In addition, students clearly indicated that they wanted help in thinking how they might personally make a difference in moving toward preferable futures.

The adage “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally” is well known to futurists; it was the theme of the 1980 conference of the World Future Society. In the course, instructors repeatedly encourage students to think globally and act locally. Students like the concept because it is empowering; it helps them to think about their own roles in the future. They would emphasize the concept of “governance” which deals with the capacities of people to come together to address problems at all levels of society, from local to global. For instance, they talked about how rising sea levels are causing local governments in Florida to spend large sums to alter their roads and sewer systems. A student, interested in a political career, said he could see that local governments must lead the way to achieve national and global policy changes on climate issues. Others readily agreed.

Students liked how the course helped them to think about the implications of technological change for their own future careers. Thinking locally helped students from Central Florida, where tourism relies heavily upon technology to attract visitors, to envision new forms of immersive theme parks. Several pre-law students were surprised to learn how technology is transforming the practice of law. They envisioned new careers doing things like specializing in patents for small manufacturers that use 3D printers. Others talked about using distance-learning technology to become teachers who are not bound to one location. A budding Bitcoin entrepreneur stimulated a discussion on careers in such areas as cybersecurity and data mining. Several students said they would use something like the class assignment to watch a TED talk by a futurist employed by the Ford motor company (Connelly 2013). They indicated that her descriptions about what she does, helping her employer think about the future, helped some students to envision careers for themselves as futurists.

Interrelatedness

Participants agreed that one of the course’s greatest strengths was helping students see how varied topics come together. They said that it is important for students to learn that futurists need to know about a wide range of topics. Readings that helped them see the interconnectedness of different policy arenas were especially valued. Several students cited one of the assigned readings, Jim Dator's (1994) essay “Surfing the Tsunamis of Change,” as a thought provoking example of the importance of seeing interrelationships.

Focus group participants indicated that they would try to help their students understand ways in which history is connected to the future. To illustrate, a student who was preparing for a career in diplomacy indicated that the course showed him how a knowledge of the history of a place is essential to envisioning positive futures for it. In particular, students indicated they would place more emphasis on studying why past efforts to promote favorable futures were sometimes ignored. Understanding the barriers to using futures research, they said, can help to improve strategic thinking about preferable futures.

Technology and Values

Participants emphasized that technology needs to be heavily emphasized in a futures studies course. They especially liked the course’s emphasis on the duality of technology. Assignments and discussions about technologies, such as AI and the altering of DNA, helped them to see how futures thinking must explore both threats and opportunities. They see AI as a true game changer—offering opportunities to make things like medicine more error free and more widely available while threatening privacy and employment on a massive scale. The students were especially concerned about the potential downsides of AI, worrying about its capacity to widen wealth gaps and threaten personal identity and self-worth through unemployment. In the teaching of a futures studies course, students recommend using examples of current misuses of technology to emphasize how the values underlying the uses of technology affect the future for good or bad. Teaching about technology, they said, is also a good way to teach about seeking win–win solutions; an example given was to help companies, such as Facebook, to see that government regulations to protect privacy can help companies to improve their relationships with customers.

Critical Thinking

A futures studies course should be a tool for teaching creative thinking. Participants repeatedly expressed this view. They have no memory of a world without the Internet. While they see its benefits and use the Internet intensely, they also worry considerably about the threats posed by it. In one focus group, students described the Internet as being full of “factoids” that can delude people into thinking they are well informed, but they lack the ability to think critically about the information to which they are exposed. These students worry about those who select news sources, especially from social media, to confirm their biases rather than think critically. They see extremist ideologies as major threats that can be magnified when people who are unskilled at thinking critically are exposed repeatedly to only one set of messages.

Several participants said the best way to teach critical thinking is to help students learn the importance of questioning underlying assumptions. Learning that failure to question underlying assumptions is a major cause of error in thinking about the future made a considerable impact on students. One said that a futures studies course is so important that it should be paired with courses in logic and rhetoric in universities’ liberal studies requirements. Several participants would have their students think about things from the perspectives of others, including future generations. They would assign students to develop scenarios of preferable futures from the perspectives of persons of different backgrounds and generations. A futures studies class seems to be a particularly good place to utilize Rawls (1999) concept called the “veil of ignorance” as a tool to foster critical thinking. Some suggested using technology futures as a vehicle to sharpen critical thinking skills. They feel that exploring alternative futures, ones that vary due to differences in the underlying values that guide the uses of technologies, can stimulate thinking about underlying assumptions.

Threats and Opportunities

Many participants believe that they will live past 100 years of age and that, they said, means they have both an opportunity and obligation to think far ahead. They appreciated that the course helped them to see how threats can give rise to opportunities. A physics major, for example, said the course helped her to see how physics and technology can help create opportunities from tackling threats. The participants said they would help their students to envision futures for themselves that can help to ameliorate threats. Participants generally agreed that the best way to teach about emergent threats is to also teach about associated opportunities, such as jobs connected with ameliorating threats.

Climate change was the threat most often mentioned by participants. They indicated that the course’s risk management approach, looking at possible future risks of doing what each side in an issue wants to do, helped them to see strategic risks and opportunities in a new light. There was a consensus among participants that alternate energy has no appreciable downside. Alternate energy was highlighted as a clear example as to how threats can give rise to major opportunities. Thinking locally for Florida, students talked about the opportunities to tap the power of the ocean, especially the Gulf Stream, and to adapt hydro-engineering technology from the Netherlands to cope with sea rise where many of them live.

Students were especially impressed with how new technologies can extend better education and health care to the poor. One student, who said she loves science but is not adept at memorization, spoke about using memory enhancing tools to become a scientist in a field that starts with heavy doses of memorization. At least one student wanted future teachers to emphasize that AI, by doing routine tasks, opens doors for people to do more “executive problem-solving.” Focus groups were very concerned about the potential of AI technology to replace people in the economy. According to these students, AI is a topic that should be strongly emphasized in futures studies classes.

Students worry that future losses of jobs could lead to simplistic solutions. Universal basic income policies might become necessary they said, but humans must also have opportunities to have a sense of meaning and purpose from engaging in their communities. They worry that technology often suppresses creativity, as happens when instant news stifles creative journalism. One student suggested that instructors might show the movie Wall-E to stimulate discussion about preventing technology from changing humans into passive, pampered, overweight consumers instead of physically and mentally fit innovators. Others chuckled and concurred.

Teaching FS Methods

In the focus groups, students repeatedly said that they highly valued their frequent opportunities to discuss things in class and to interact with other students. This feeling influenced how they felt the methods of futures studies should be taught. In particular, students wanted opportunities to actually participate in the doing of futures studies. Seeing that they might want to do environmental scanning in their future organizations, students suggested that each class might conduct an environmental scanning project over the span of a term, thereby enabling them to interact with others in looking for emerging threats and opportunities. They would also like to hear from practitioners who have done scanning in their organizations.

In the courses they might teach, students said repeatedly that they would strongly emphasize skills in developing scenarios. All focus groups agreed that writing well-reasoned scenarios should be central to teaching futures studies methods. They especially recommended that the STEEP framework should be taught to future students. Students in an online focus group said the STEEP framework helps them to think simultaneously about different arenas and that helps to foster their ability to do creative thinking. Linking the teaching of methods to the fostering of creativity was important to all groups. Reflecting their desire to make futures studies relevant to individuals, some focus group participants suggested that students should be helped to develop scenarios about their own possible career paths.

Modes of Instruction

Electronic technology is used extensively in the teaching of both traditional and online sections of the course. No hard copy texts are used. All readings are made available electronically, at no cost to students (participants thanked instructors for reducing costs to them). Other assignments are also done electronically such as viewing videos and visiting futurists’ web sites. Focus group participants repeatedly said they would make extensive use of technology in teaching a futures studies course. None said otherwise.

The participants, however, were sharply divided about whether a futures studies course should be taught in an online only mode. Not one student in a face-to-face class said they would prefer to take a futures studies class online. Many participants in the traditional face-to-face sections of the course had taken online courses and none would prefer to take a futures studies course online. Some of the students in online sections of the course, which are taught asynchronously, strongly prefer taking online courses. Some of those students were in geographically distant locations and some were pursuing a degree entirely online. Schedule flexibility was the primary reason for favoring online instruction. Flexibility was especially important to students who had to balance work and family demands with their schooling.

Degrees in public administration are increasingly offered entirely online. Moving programs online, however, remains highly controversial. An important aspect of public administration education involves socialization (Brower and Klay 2000). Students are being prepared for careers in which they will exercise the powers of governments. If they fail to respectfully serve their fellow citizens well, the long-term viability of democratic institutions is lessened. Socialization is often not an issue in a field such as statistics, in which many programs focus only on conveying facts and techniques. Socialization is an essential concern for programs that prepare students to interact with others in contexts that often include substantial power differences. Many students who take futures studies classes will go on to exercise power over others. With this in mind, it seems incumbent upon instructors of futures studies classes to help their students to think carefully about the norms and values that shape their framing of preferred futures. This is no less true if the mode of instruction is online only.

Focus group participants, in all groups, were of one mind in emphasizing that technology should not replace human interaction in futures studies classes. Back in 1982, John Naisbitt wrote that the more a society is inundated with technology, “high tech,” the more people would feel compelled to create and strengthen their social interactions with others, “high touch” (Naisbitt 1982). Focus group participants repeatedly said the same thing—futures studies classes need to make full use of technology while also fostering social interactions. As one student said, “Ultimately, no matter how much people say we’re changing because of the technology, we’re going to be humans. We’re going to have human interactions. We’re going to have to use technology to serve that.” Students in both traditional and online classes repeatedly emphasized how they valued the opportunities to interact with other students, and to learn from their peers, in discussions and in doing things like developing scenarios together.

Where technology is used to convey information, the limiting factor is not what the latest state-of-the-art technology can do, but what technology is available to the student with the least access. Assuring access to all people, through such technologies as “universal broadband,” is increasingly seen as a moral obligation (Simana 2020). Focus group participants indicated that growing gaps between information haves and have-nots is a major concern for the future. From this perspective, each technology intensive futures studies class can become a laboratory in which instructors help their students to enable the least accessible among their peers to participate fully.

Environmental Security

The last focus group was conducted a few months before the SARS-CoV-2 virus upended life across our planet. In the course, students learned that a global pandemic could fundamentally alter the future. That possibility, however, was only briefly discussed as a “wildcard.” In the focus groups, the general feeling was one of optimism and belief that technology will enable humans to avoid a disease-induced cataclysm. As we write this article in the Fall of 2020, it seems that the vaccines now under development will be sufficiently effective to eventually arrest the virus. A tragedy continues but a cataclysm seems to have been averted with the help of technology … and perhaps some luck as well. Viruses can have much higher mortality rates than that of SARS-CoV-2.

Paul Ehrlich and Dennis Pirages (2012) argued that the concept of “security” needs to be broadened beyond the prevention of wars to include global “biophysical” threats such as climate change, disease, and hunger. We suggest that the term “environmental security” be used to include the biophysical threats that can emanate from our planet as well as the threat of collisions with objects from space. Using a broadened definition of security, teachers of futures studies classes can encourage students to do things like explore the potential risks and rewards of alternative uses of space technology—reaching Mars or diverting the course of an asteroid. Technology to do the latter is now within reach, as is evidenced by the successful landings in this century of the NEAR, Hayabusa, and OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on asteroids. Similar topics include spending money on weapons or for antiviral research and stockpiling Personal Protective Equipment. We can encourage students to develop visions of preferred futures that are more secure from multiple threats, terrestrial or extra-terrestrial, and do backcasting to reveal strategies for present actions. Exercises like these will help to meet students’ clear desire to learn how they can make a difference in the present.

Conclusion: Remembering Our Enlightenment Roots

Focus group participants repeatedly emphasized the importance of understanding the past. In doing this, they were underscoring that futures studies is perhaps more an art than a science. Natural science students do not have to read biographies of past scientists to understand contemporary science, but art students need to study the biographies and times of past artists to comprehend what those people were trying to accomplish and to learn from them. Emphasizing honesty in research is about as far as ethics education goes in many natural science curricula. For futures studies, however, careful attention to human values is essential in the framing of preferable futures. As Dator (1998, 302) explained, “Ethical considerations are central to futures teaching and futures research.”

In many ways, the ideas promoted by Enlightenment era philosophers have become widely accepted across much, although not all, of our planet. Smith (1759), for example, especially in his Theory of Moral Sentiments argued that enabling individuals to have the right to be entrepreneurial in pursuit of their own ideas and economic self-interest is the surest way to increase wealth, but he did not stop there. He also argued that in a moral society, all individuals have a right to live lives of “dignity,” freed from poverty; that governments should do things like adopt progressive taxation to reduce poverty; that it is a duty of governments to protect individual rights; and that moral virtues are widely distributed among the cultures of the world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, is grounded in Enlightenment concepts. That Declaration provides an important normative framework for judging the desirability of alternative futures.

Sadly, the nations that gave rise to Enlightenment thinking also, at the same time in history, embarked on planet-wide colonialization that institutionalized bigotry, suppressed human rights, and even promoted slavery. Enlightenment philosophers were sometimes complicit. John Locke, for example, sought to justify slavery under certain conditions, and the authors of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, which champions equality and human rights, were an odd mixture of slaveholders and abolitionists.

While recognizing the Enlightenment roots of modern academic disciplines, including futures studies, some futures studies scholars are now seeking to broaden the intellectual base of the field to include perspectives from non-Western cultures. This is an important undertaking, one to be encouraged. It has been a common tendency for some academic disciplines, including social sciences, to become inwardly focused. Their scholars become fixated more on doing research that passes the scrutiny of gatekeepers to their journals than they are on producing knowledge that can help others. By remembering that the ultimate purpose of futures studies is to enhance the prospects for preferable futures to come into existence, and by encompassing perspectives from across the globe, futures studies is likely to remain outwardly focused and a promoter of positive change.

Focus group participants emphasized that futures studies teachers must help their students to learn how human values influence future outcomes. We are likely to be on solid ground if we design courses with a firm understanding of the Enlightenment roots of futures studies. The Enlightenment era gave rise not only to the concepts of empirical inquiry associated with the practice of science but also to the importance of fostering creativity and applying knowledge to the betterment of humanity. George Turnbull (1698–1748), who delved more deeply into education than other writers of the Enlightenment, offered some suggestions that are relevant to the teaching of futures studies (1742).

Turnbull believed that children are capable of learning to reason at an early age and he encouraged teachers to use Socratic methods to stimulate creativity and logical thinking. The curriculum proposed by Turnbull, and reiterated by Benjamin Franklin, has a contemporary feel to it (Cook and Klay 2014). Turnbull, for example, opposed corporal punishment for children, believing it resulted in making adults more prone to violence. Turnbull’s proposed topics of study included a strong emphasis on history and philosophy as well as natural sciences, mathematics, and the arts. Encouraging students to embrace Enlightenment values was a vital component of education. As Turnbull (1742, 40) put it, “The whole business therefore of liberal education, and it is called liberal for that very reason, is to cherish into proper vigor the love of liberty.” Two and a half centuries later, Poli (2011, 409) reiterated that one of the “duties” of futurists is to promote “liberty and welfare for future generations.”

As we indicated earlier, developing knowledge to enhance the functioning of social institutions has been a defining feature of social sciences. Seen from this perspective, futures studies is clearly a social science that is deeply rooted in Enlightenment logic and values. Its practitioners seek knowledge that can help the institutions of society to function in ways that benefit humanity. Futures studies, however, differs from other social sciences in one respect. Most social science disciplines focus on a limited range of social institutions. When futures studies are done well, all social institutions should benefit, especially democratically oriented ones. The challenge for future teachers of futures studies will be to prepare their students to envision doable preferable futures and entice others to work collaboratively to make those visions a reality.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

William E. Klay

Author Biographies

William Earle Klay, PhD, is professor emeritus and former director of the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy of Florida State University. The Askew School was rated third globally in the number of articles published by its faculty in the major journals of its field during the first decade of the present century. His practitioner experiences range from being a carnival roustabout and a captain in the US Army, to a systems specialist, a policy analyst for a legislature, and a senior planner in a governor’s office. He created the futures studies course described above.

Portia Diñoso Campos, PhD, is a faculty member of the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy of Florida State University. Her research and teaching interests center around civic engagement, social capital, and futures studies. Beyond academics, she is an active participant in the community, a technophile, and a self-proclaimed techy.

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