Mapping the past to predict the future: Interview with Radio New Zealand on October 31, 2022

Topic: Mapping the past to predict the future

Program: Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan

Conducted by:  Jesse Mulligan

Visit Radio New Zealand 

Complete Audio Transcription

Jesse: (00:00):

Studying the future is not about predicting it, but rather understanding the forces that shape it. Universities all over the world now teach future studies, giving students the tools to explore the future. The way historians study the past. Dr. Sohail is the UNESCO chair and future studies and a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles to anticipate change and plan for it. He helps governments and organizations grapple with some big questions. Can we stop global warming? Will we switch from being meat eaters to mostly vegetarian? How will the shape of families change in the next 50 years? Well, he is in Christchurch right now to hold some workshops with Think Beyond a Future-Focused Leadership organization. And Sohail joins me now. Hello there. Welcome to New Zealand.

Sohail: (00:55):

Uh, thanks so much. Great to be here.

Jesse: (00:57):

Uh, I know you’re hugely respected, uh, in your field and we’re very privileged to have some time to talk to you, so thanks for your time today. Um, is thinking about the future a natural human instinct?

Sohail: (01:11):

Uh, the kind of science suggests no, we’re more comfortable with the past is kind of what’s called Velcro thinking. Some trauma happens to us, some pain. And so that becomes our set point, our emotional intellectual equilibrium. So we go back, futures thinking suggests, can you use vision as a way to help you decide what you should do today? So I won’t say it’s counterintuitive, but it is, as you suggested, a muscle that we have to work on develop.

Jesse: (01:41):

Yes, it sounds that way. So we are not inclined to do it. We must teach ourselves to do it. And how difficult is that? Um, what do we have to unlearn?

Sohail: (01:52):

Uh, well, it’s, part of it is a conceptual framework, right? So if we look at indigenous people, that the notion of 200 or present that helps from grandmother to grandchildren, grandfather of grandchildren who has suddenly moved us away from, uh, the future as an abstract idea to when you’ve placed it in future generations, it’s easier to access, easier to understand. And most people are very clear what type of planet do they want to leave for their grandchildren? That’s easier to access. It’s more family based. And I think there’s an emotional connectivity to it that makes futures thinking far less abstract than someone would want us to think.

Jesse: (02:32):

Nonetheless, you need some training, right? For future studies. You need to equip yourself with the tools and, and work out how to use them.

Sohail: (02:43):

Yeah. In, my approach is a book called What Works, uh, the Practice of Foresight. And basically, what I’ve seen over quite a few decades, you first have to start off seeing the future as a learning journey as opposed to a prediction. So it’s a prediction then people want us to give us the right answer. And as you hinted earlier, uh, the right answer, you may know from today, but the world is changing. We’re part of the way the world is being redesigned and recreated. So prediction becomes problematic. So what do you do? Well, you go from seeing how can I use the future to learn about today? That’s step one. Then we ask ourselves, what’s the used future? What are we doing today that’s not working, but we keep on doing it? So some people say education is the factory. Many people say it’s hierarchy just for the sake of hierarchy.

Sohail: (03:35):

Some people say it’s the nine-to-five job framework. So every organization, every country has certainly used futures. And so that’s once we say, Well, what’s the used future? What are we doing that doesn’t work? That frees up space for doing what does work. Now, if we’ve done that well, then the next part is, oh, what’s coming down the road? These are the disruptions. What are some of the weak signals? The emerging issues, we don’t know for sure, but we have a hint. Something’s about to change. And then we start to explore those in selves. If this occurs, what might it lead to? So again, what you mentioned earlier, what if 30 to 50% of the protein comes from cell agriculture or new sources of protein? How will that impact livestock, farmlands, uh, national innovation? And then we move towards scenarios. So with scenarios, we’re saying we don’t know, but here are four possible pictures, four ways of thinking no change, marginal, adaptive, and radical one. So now we’ve gone from what doesn’t work to what are some possibilities. If we’ve done that well, we can go towards what’s our preferred future. Cause this is going from I can’t change the world. There are threats to what might be some opportunities, and some possibilities, and there are some steps forward. But I’ll let you if you wanna respond to that and I can go on with the next steps.

Jesse: (05:00):

Yes, thank you. And, and hearing you talk about that, um, what, what’re the terms that cellular protein, um, or cellular grand, basically looking at replacements for traditional meat. Um, interesting to have you talking about that here in New Zealand. And I was gonna ask you about the value of future thinking. I guess if you’re a farmer or otherwise involved in New Zealand’s primary sector industry, it would be fairly obvious to you why you might want to think about the future because it will affect what you are doing today and, and maybe the role, um, you see yourself having in future years.

Sohail: (05:39):

Yeah, so part of the threats I ran, I won’t say which country, a project with the farming federation and I’m, you know, there was a three-day, two-day thing. So there are lots of very complex, great argument scenarios. But, one of the funnier workshops was when we said, Okay, how will this impact the seller agriculture farming industry? One group said, I said, What’s your strategy? Well, it’s obvious we just go kill the vegans, <laugh>. And I said I said, Well, you know, legally you can’t do that. What’s your strategy number two? Oh, he said, That’s easy too. I said, What’s that? Well, we’ll kill the scientist. I said, Okay, well you really can’t do either one. Is there a third strategy? They said, Yeah, kill the city-based coffee drinkers, <laugh>. I said, Okay, I understood your threats before. What’s about the city-based coffee drinkers said, Well, they’re early adopters of new technologies.

Sohail: (06:27):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And finally, the conclusion was, we feel under threat in terms of salaries, diseases, and pandemics. This is one more threat we don’t want to hear about. And then my task with the game, Okay, you don’t want to hear about it, I get it, but it’s may become a huge trillion-dollar industry. If that’s the case, what can you do to use it wisely? Have the technology actually, uh, optimize what your, you know, your products make ’em safer? Or do you help in the transition from meat to post-meat as we’re seeing from fossil fuel to renewables? These are tough transitions, but in case there is one, are you ready to make some opportunities out of it or are you gonna say it’s never gonna happen? So if futures thinking, we don’t quite know the future, but we have some hints. So the notion then is, okay, if this is gonna occur, should my country, my farm actually be looking to be a player in the game?

Sohail: (07:27):

Or even better can we be the best player in the game? So Holland, which was leaving this leading this, of course, is a leading agricultural exporter and they’re disrupting their own industry. They’re saying, We, we know we’re the best at agriculture, but what could disrupt it? Well, obviously southern agriculture can, So it’s, let’s lead in both. So now we have two horses and we’re gonna win in one of those. So that’s to me, a more clever way to use foresight, not just to make the castle optimize your castle, but to leave the castle, put the drawbridge down, and look for other forests to actually innovate in.

Jesse: (08:05):

This is a more negative example, but when you were talking about that, it made me think of cigarette companies and, and the way they started, um, getting into the vaping game. They saw what was going to happen and they thought, Well, let’s dominate the thing that’s here to replace us.

Sohail: (08:20):

So this, I mean, that’s where scenarios are good. Exactly your point. I was working with a large car company in the region. Scenario one was bigger in Boulder, right? Where you, might, if you’re a detractor, call car obesity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> scenario two was future washing, let’s just call it tailored cars, where you change the facade, and make it look green. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we put some nice paintings on it and three became, and I said, Okay, that’s your marginal change where you’re just doing that to keep your market and making customers feel better about themselves. Is there a third scenario? And they said, Well, the adaptive, I said, What’s adaptive? Will we move towards greener driverless pods and start to rethink the city and scenario forwards that radical, which was too far, right? I mean, radical is too far for most companies and people. This said, Well, let’s imagine a world after the car. Maybe our new product is mobility. So we become like a telco selling a subscription as opposed to you buying a car in aloha. Mm-hmm.

Jesse: (09:17):

<affirmative>.

Sohail: (09:17):

So the thing they got out of it, and I got out of it thinking, well, we can decide where do you wanna play on no change, marginal, adaptive radical, Those are four possible areas of, you know, uh, innovation. You can decide, no, we actually wanna keep on selling tobacco and we’ll do the vaping just to make sure some people are happy. But it essentially keeps us going. And you think, well, okay, that’s keeping you going. But I think what uh, the former CEO Pepsi said, Well, aren’t we here to develop a planetary purpose? Is not just about a sugar-coated drink. We’re here to actually make a difference. And she said, You can’t decide what markets do, but you can shape ’em for the better if you try. And I thought that was very possible. And so when we were working with them, she started this process, What would it look like if we changed who we are to the greatest wellness company in the world? Which goes to step four. After you do the scenarios, what’s your vision? Where do you wanna be? What type of company, or country person do you want to be in the future? So you’re guided by the future in terms of where you could go.

Jesse: (10:28):

I’m talking to Dr. Saha Ella, who’s the UNESCO chair and future studies, a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles. And he’s in Christchurch to hold workshops with Think Beyond a Future Focused Leadership organization. You gave us an example of the idea that is too radical. Is that a useful way to think about the future though for businesses and organizations and individuals, to consider the wacky idea? Might it get our thinking into an area of imagination that’s useful for making a realistic plan?

Sohail: (11:02):

So it depends on your role, right? My role with the future is to be radical, right? I have to push them. I was working with a very large company, a huge, a large country. It was a budget and they were looking at the future of museums and at the future of art and museums. And so in the workshop, it came off, what if art was designed by AI, was the role of the artists. Now, this was a year ago that seemed very radical that mm-hmm <affirmative>. And they said, Okay, that’s perfect for 2050. Let’s rethink the large museums in the world that have AI paintings. What happens to the artists? What happens to Mon Lisa? And they had a billion dollar budget behind the, behind us to rethink the museum. Now that was 2050. We already know what’s going on today, right? I mean the whole notion of AI software winning awards for best art. So our role, the radical one seems far away, but sometimes the technological, rate of change can be so quick. It’s tomorrow. So it’s really pushing them. So the far-away imagination isn’t so far

Jesse: (12:07):

Why you do encourage people to break up the future, uh, into different time spans and different horizons?

Sohail: (12:17):

That’s helpful. So I mean the common thinking is uh, three horizons, right? Today, Oh, I’m too busy long term. My vision and midterm is the area of possibility, uncertainty, anxiety, and fear, but also here are areas we can change. So that’s a good business tool. But at the same time, I think it’s more to know all of us live in different time horizons all the time. Some days we’re future-focused, some days we’re present-focused. If you’re saving for retirement, you’re of course future-focused. So I think one of the things we try to rethink is the nature of time. If you’re into mindfulness meditation, then every day you’re spending some time in a timeless time. Outside of time when you’re doing things you truly love, you’re no longer in the future or the past, you are in the extended present. So I think the useful part of futures thinking is to step back, and look at the way you’re timing the world.

Sohail: (13:13):

Most of us live in colonized time. We’ve adopted a view of time that’s not ours. So I know when I was young, we moved to the US and the first thing I learned is that second grader was the early bird gets the worm. So that’s a metaphor of time, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>, be quick, be first, be agile. And that may work. But then after a while you think, well, you know, do I really want to be eating worms <laugh>? Do I really want to get up so early? Is that really the purpose of my life? To think what’s a better metaphor? And that’s actually, once you do the visioning, we’re pretty clear visions and strategies where they occur or don’t occur do so because it’s a supportive metaphor or a metaphor. Let’s suggest we shouldn’t change. And everyone has that. Today we are with Sport New Zealand and working on the future of sport in New Zealand.

Sohail: (14:01):

And I think one of the metaphors that people set is no longer so useful cuz the goal is inclusion. Sports for all. Exercise for all well-being for all is a metaphor of the gladiator. The gladiator leads to heroism the Michael Jordan of basketball for example. But it’s individualism, it’s rugged, it’s competitive and there’s some value to that. But it doesn’t help you create a wellbeing, culture, wellbeing society. So then we see the gladiator metaphor gives you strength and power and success in some ways, but it fails in terms of creating society of wellbeing where everyone is healthy and diabetes level keep on falling <laugh>. So then you have to find what’s a new, a better story. So I know in one country we were working with, they went from a poor country and now they’re I think the third or fourth richest in the world. I said, So what’s your issue?

Sohail: (14:48):

They said, Our issue is diabetes. We went from farming, fishing, we’re working all this. So diabetes was not an issue to now we got so wealthy you were watching TV. And what’s I said, what’s the core metaphor? The core, the core metaphor is we live to eat. And so the purpose of life has become now the six, seven meals a day. And that may give you temporary joy. It work when you’re working 12 hours in the field and now in our world, it’s okay. The new metaphor is the purpose is eat for life, eat to live. So living becomes wellbeing, healthy community being with nature. And thus we have to rethink taxation for sugar, rethink plant based economy, rethink, subsidizing, uh, uh, foods that aren’t good for you. So they said we need a new story. Purpose of eating is for life and we have to change our taxation system. Incentivizing local food, incentivizing whole range of green buildings, et cetera. Um, urban farming. So this is the last part of the fust thing is you go from here’s the world you don’t want, here’s the vision I want what’s my supportive story? Which increases the plausibility of it happening that often, more often than not, it’s a narrative that inspires that coheres that helps, that resonates with the world we want.

Jesse: (16:13):

That’s interesting because um, I mean a metaphor seems like just a nice thing to have a nice way of thinking about something. But I guess what you are saying is that you’ll be operating under a metaphor whether you like it or not. So you may as well pick one that um, that suits your desired outcome.

Sohail: (16:33):

Now your point is brilliant. I mean I think, I mean whether you’re a critical theorist and read lock off or an indigenous person and live in story stories define us, stories create us. I remember during the global financial crisis, Financial Times had an amazing article. This said there’s a crisis in search of a narrative. None of us knows what it is. Huh? Is this because of saving high rate of savings in East Asia? Is this a shift to Asia? Is it just about mortgage rates? Is it a financial crisis? Is it actually a creative destruction, new tech? So no one knew, is it a tech crisis, a rise of East Asia, a minor mortgage crisis or is a financial system in per is the metaphor they used was given the whole system a good crash, they decided let’s save Wall Street, not Main Street. So they saved Wall Street.

Sohail: (17:22):

But I think we’re still living in the peril of a system that doesn’t quite work. So the metaphors are stories, but there’s stories that help us understand the world. So I was working with W H O in Mongolia and is that they did the futures work, but for the people there, they needed stories that made sense to them and their stories didn’t make sense to me. Cuz I’m not Mongolian. I think one of the ones was neither can nor carrot don’t make your mouth the garbage can. And they said as they went from a command control economy to a market economy, they went for living in the steps to living in the city. Their food, their diet changed such that they lived on junk food. Mm. So I’d never heard of the metaphor of don’t make your mouth a garbage can. And so when it came to time we had one senior director of a hospital, she said, uh, she used to be the step girl, s t e p P e working in the Mongolian steps.

Sohail: (18:18):

There’s no sense of time there. This is before lunch, after lunch, that’s it, <laugh>. And now she’s right, she’s there and now she’s a city girl. And to optimize her strategy in a hospital, she had to change her story cause the step world makes sense, but not in a hospital with covid ramp you can’t just show up some day. The hospitals have rules and regulations and efficiency out there, efficiency imperatives. So what they got from it, in terms of national strategy on health, we have to use stories that make sense to our citizens, our patients, our doctors, our surgeons. When the best one, one head of a hospital, she said to succeed she had become the golden fish making everyone happy. And that helped her rise to the top. But given the crisis in health systems, it no longer worked co the golden fish actually can’t make everyone happy.

Sohail: (19:13):

The health system has so many different stakeholders. Her better story about herself was the bamboo forest. The bamboo tree allow the proms to right go through her like bamboo was flexible, could meet the needs, but the bamboo’s also strong could actually in board meetings say actually no, I can fund this but I can’t fund that. And so what was unique for me was of course learning about core stories from a different culture. And if we don’t do that, then we get the just sense. So the justice is the colonized time. I went on a new, I think da A L L e, you know, one of those new AI art sites. And I think, okay, let me for this talk I gave today for Sport New Zealand. Let me just Google sport robot future, let’s see what the algorithm said. And what came out was two gladiator robots trying to kill each other.

Sohail: (20:07):

And so I said, okay, so the official reading of the future from whoever planned it design and algorithm, it is basically sport is about robots, cloud ideas attacking each other. So I thought, well I don’t wanna live with that future. So then it becomes imperative if I’m at, how do I redesign the software, the algorithms so they better resonate or express my values. So if you’re an indigenous person, those may be a community, those may be nature, those may be spirit. And clearly those weren’t represented in that. So that’s what decolonizing the future or to use the future to better fit the world you wish for becomes quite powerful in how we design technology. The technology design, I would argue is always based on story.

Jesse: (20:55):

So Hal, just a minute or two left And um, we’ve talked a lot about mapping the future as it applies to institutions or organizations, but anything you’d like to leave us with in terms of how to apply it to one’s personal life and, and why futures studies is important at a personal level?

Sohail: (21:12):

So the core part as a personal level is again, you know, you can do, here are four scenarios for your own life. But the personal part is very powerful. I was working with law one law enforcement agency and there were senior detectives in your junior detective. And I’ve said this story before, the junior detective, his issue was, you know, feeling a bit ostracized, right? But also feeling better than everyone. And that got expressed in his battle between being inferior and being superior. But when it came telling a story, he, he’s an iPhone in a room full of Nokia, an iPhone and a room full of Nokia. Now the other detectives heard this and they all put their heads down and they go, What is smart Alec kid? And, and then he said, Well actually that story expresses my today it doesn’t make me feel good. I said, What’s the better story that gets you the world you want?

Sohail: (21:58):

And he said, Aha. A co-designing chip maker. So now I’m collecting my youth experience with the knowledge of the senior detectives we’re co-designing and finally said, go to a meditative state. We did a little meditation and now what do you see? And he said he saw the warm sun. So he went from feeling agro, tension between them and him, more inclusive scenario. And finally it hit him that actually wherever you are, people remember you in terms of how you feel, how you connect with them. And so he moved to very much a spiritual inner experience. So the main point there was he applied futures thinking to his own storytelling and found a better story and a better way to live and be

Jesse: (22:45):

Enjoy your time in New Zealand. I so appreciate,  you having a conversation with us this afternoon, Sohail and all the best for the future.

Sohail: (22:54):

Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Thanks. This was great. Thank you.

Jesse: (22:57):

Dr. Sohail Inayatullah UNESCO chair in future studies and a world-leading authority on how to develop our foresight muscles. He’s in Christchurch to hold workshops with a New Zealand organization called Think Beyond, a Future-Focused Leadership Organization.

This is a System generated transcription.

Alternative Educational Futures: Pedagogies for Emerging Worlds (Book Info, 2008)

Edited by Marcus Bussey, Sohail Inayatullah & Ivana Milojević

Sense Publishers, Rotterdam

Non-fiction/Academic | ISBN Paperback: 978-90-8790-511-8 | ISBN Hardcover: 9789087905125 | ISBN E-Book: 9789087905132 | 2008 | 324pp

Available from: www.sensepublishers.com

Alternative Educational Futures brings together theoretical and practical work in a challenge to mainstream thinking on the practice and purpose of education. The book promotes multiple futures by presenting works that range from the child-centred, through those that promote a futures oriented critical pedagogy to open ended explorations of the implications of technology for education and the possibilities of rethinking and deepening human potential.

The editors – Bussey, Inayatullah and Milojević – are all educators and describe this book as another small step towards rethinking the present in the light of possible futures. They see that whatever steps we take as a species towards the future – be it a proto-global civilization, a fractal cosmopolitanism, a gaian-technolopoly, or a return to the past – education both as an institution and as a social process is key to how we get there, remembering that the future is created and changes with every step we take.

The book contains chapters on futures strategies, tools and techniques for a range of educational contexts, global education and neohumanism, the futures of universities, the changing shape of textual authority and learning in the face of the internet, access and equity, democracy and learning, Buddhist and Vedantic insights and offering on education, Steiner education, creative pedagogies and a number of case studies on the successes and failures of futures studies in a range of educational and institutional contexts.

Along with chapters by the editors, there are contributions from David Hicks, Jim Dator, Erica McWilliams and Shane Dawson, Patricia Kelly, Julie Matthews, Robert Hattam, Kathleen Kesson, Basil Savitsky, Jennifer Gidley, Gary Hampson, Richard Slaughter, Martin Haigh and Billy Matheson.

All authors in this collection are committed to transformation of assumptions about education and its social function. These chapters bare witness to various manifestations of an emerging global mind set that is marked not by coherence and a single story but by multiple and layered possibility. The authors all see, from often quite different positions, that the future health of society lies in diversity and a social activism that is grounded in the local actions of individuals. Education will play a central role in empowering this activism and it is to this multiple future that this book turns its attention.

Reviews and Comments

Comments on Alternative Educational Futures: Pedagogies for Emergent Worlds


We desperately need the dynamic revolution in education that this book offers us, reflecting the new ways of thinking and being on this planet that will permit us to live in peace as a global family even through massive climate changes. Read it and put these ideas into practice as quickly as possible in any ways you can!  

Elisabet Sahtouris

Evolutionary biologist and futurist

Author of EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution


We have more than enough books that under-estimate what is called for where educational change is needed, that only rearrange deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic. This edited book goes where change must go and its case for alternative pedagogies is exhilarating. Drawing on 18 wide-ranging new essays the editors both challenge conventional educational analysis and forge beyond it to explore a deeper transformative potential of self and culture. The book promotes visions, rather than roadmaps, and pioneers thereby a fresh agenda for a new type of lifelong schooling that honours spirituality, sustainability, and empowerment. Bold, eclectic, and original, it leaves a reader eager to get on with a major overhaul of education, from birth throughout life, the better to replace the dominant enervating education narrative with one that soars. Distinctive and revealing, the book will reward a close reading by all eager to help education finally achieve what has always been possible, but needed the creative jumpstart this book offers.

Arthur B. Shostak

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Drexel University
Author of Anticipate the School You Want: Futurizing K-12 Education


This collection provides an insightful, panoramic view of this precarious moment in the history of humankind. These uncommonly perceptive essays consider the "range of alternative futures" before us and describe how we might work and educate toward a future that offers more humane, nourishing, and genuinely sustainable ways of living. These are stirring, provocative, exciting writings that explore the most vital questions of our time.

Dr. Ron Miller

Holistic education theorist

Editor of Education Revolution magazine.


Alternative Educational Futures is a daring attempt to break out of the endless cycle of school/university reform. This volume offers a rare combination of imagination and rigor, pointing towards the possibility that what is happening in the world around us today is the end of education and the rebirth of learning.

Dr. Riel Miller

UNESCO


Fasten your seatbelts before you enter this collection of provocative, sometimes brilliant, essays, because it will take you at warp speed on a journey to many places you have not conceived of before, places where your past understandings and current beliefs may be shaken up. Basing their work on theory, imaginative thinking, empirical social research, or case studies, the authors map, create, explore, and evaluate alternative futures for education, from grade schools to universities and beyond. Every educator—indeed every citizen—ought to read this book as an inspiration and guide to making teaching and learning more effective, appropriate, equitable, and flexible in a rapidly changing world.

Wendell Bell

Professor Emeritus

Yale University

Author of Foundations of Futures Studies Volumes 1 & 2


Alternative Educational Futures challenges mechanistic models of curriculum and pedagogy predicated on linear thinking, control and predictability. Both individually and collectively, the editors and contributing authors generate multifaceted understandings of futures in and for education that are open, recursive, organic and emergent. This is a text that performs what it represents by questioning its assumptions, permitting contradictions, tolerating ambiguities, and resisting the pernicious and pervasive politics of complexity reduction in education and society. These adventures in thinking should be an invaluable resource – and source of inspiration – for all who care about the quality of education for immanent yet unpredictable futures.

Noel Gough

Professor of Outdoor and Environmental Education

Director, Centre for Excellence in Outdoor and Environmental Education

President, Australian Association for Research in Education

 

 

Youth Futures (Book Info, 2002)

Youth Futures: Comparative Research and Transformative Visions
Edited by Jennifer Gidley and Sohail Inayatullah
Praeger Publishers. Westport, Conn. September, 2002.

ISBN 0-275-97414-6. C7414

Contributing Authors:

Bilal Aslam, Paul Brunstad, Sandra Burchsted, Marcus Bussey, Richard Eckersley, Riane Eisler, Michael Guanco, Shane Hart, Sabina Head, Eva Hideg, Cathie Holden, Raina Hunter, Francis Hutchinson, Seth Itzkan, Cole Jackson, Erzsebet Novaky, Alfred Oehlers, Anita Rubin, Richard Slaughter, Carmen Stewart, David Wright.

 

Description
Generally, youth are considered immature, irresponsible toward the future, cliquish, impressionistic, and dangerous toward self and others. They are considered as a mass market–two billion strong–the passive recipients of globalization. Most recently in OECD nations, youth have become fodder for political speeches–they are the problem that reflects both the failure of the welfare state (dependence on the state), the failure of globalization (unemployment), and postmodernism (loss of meaning and the crisis of the spirit). In the Third World, youth are seen not only as the problem, but equally as the force that can topple a regime (as in Yugoslavia). However, youth can also be seen as carriers of a new worldview, a new ideology.

These and other views concerning youth are examined in this volume of comparative empirical research. Studies from around the world provide intriguing answers to questions about how youth see the future and their future roles. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, researchers, and policymakers involved with youth issues and future studies.

 

Table of Contents

Preface: Youth Futures: The Terrain by Jennifer Gidley and Sohail Inayatullah
Mapping Youth Futures

  • Global Youth Culture: A Transdisciplinary Perspective by Jennifer Gidley
  • Youth Dissent: Multiple Perspectives on Youth Futures by Sohail Inayatullah
  • Future Visions, Social Realities, and Personal Lives: by Richard Eckersley
  • Partnership Education for the 21st Century by Riane Eisler
  • Cultural Mapping and Our Children’s Futures by Francis Hutchinson
  • From Youth Futures to Futures for All: Reclaiming the Human Story by Marcus Bussey

Youth Essay 1: Optimistic Visions from Australia by Raina Hunter

Comparative Research from Around the Globe

  • Japanese Youth: Rewriting Futures in the “No Taboos” Post-Bubble Millennium by David Wright
  • Reflections upon the Late-Modern Transition as Seen in the Images of the Future Held by Young Finns by Anita Rubin
  • Imagining the Future: Youth in Singapore by Alfred Oehlers
  • The Future Orientation of Hungarian Youth in the Years of the Transformation by Eva Hideg and Erzsebet Novaky
  • Citizens of the New Century: Perspectives from the UK by Cathie Holden
  • Longing for Belonging: Youth Culture in Norway by Paul Otto Brunstad
  • Holistic Education and Visions of Rehumanized Futures by Jennifer Gidley

Youth Essay 2: Voice of the Future from Pakistan by Bilal Aslam

Case Studies: Teaching Futures in Educational Settings

  • From Rhetoric to Reality: The Emergence of Futures into the Educational Mainstreamby Richard Slaughter
  • Re-Imagining your Neighborhood–A Model of Futures Education by Carmen Stewart
  • Learning with an Active Voice: Children and Youth Creating Preferred Futuresby Cole Jackson, Sandra Burchsted, and Seth Itzkan
  • I Don’t Care About the Future (if I Can’t Influence it) by Sabina Head
  • Rural Visions of the Future: Futures in a Social Science Class by Shane Hart
  • Youth, Scenarios, and Metaphors of the Future by Sohail Inayatullah

Youth Essay 3: Shared Futures from the Philippines by Michael Guanco

Concluding Reflections by Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley


Endorsements of Youth Futures

“This book is astounding. In a time of rapid, world-wide transformation dealing with globalization, genomics, terrorism and much else, constructive and creative views of possible futures are essential. This book makes a monumental contribution on youth futures. While we are accustomed to hearing universal rhetoric on the importance of youth to the future, it seldom goes beyond platitudes. In 20 essays the authors present extensive theory and practice, including up to date trans-disciplinary research from around the world. This remarkable book will be a lasting resource for educators, policy makers, youth workers and all people committed to creating a better, brighter and wiser future for future generations.”

Professor David K. Scott, Former Chancellor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst


“Young people are increasingly viewed by scholars, practitioners, and policy makers as vital assets in the development of civil society. This book both gives voice to this positive conception of youth, and documents the power of young people to be active agents in actualizing their own healthy futures and in contributing to social justice and equity across the global community. This book is an impressive resource for all people concerned with understanding and enhancing the strengths of youth to build, sustain, and extend the quality of life in all nations of the world.”

Professor Richard M. Lerner, Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science
Tufts University, USA


“This exciting and timely book is a milestone, bringing together for the first time international research on youth as both inheritors and creators of the future. Their hopes and fears for tomorrow, as reported here, are central to the future well-being of society – we would do well to listen to them. Essential reading for all those involved with young people, whether in formal or informal contexts, at home, in education or at work.”

Professor David Hicks, School of Education, Bath Spa University College, UK


“The Youth Futures book by Gidley and Inayatullah is a very important contribution because there is so little cross cultural material on adolescence. It is a much needed antidote to our ethnocentric presentation of adolescence here in the States”.

Professor David Elkind, Professor and Chair, Elliott Pearson Department of Child Development,
Tufts University, Medford. Author of Best-selling Book: The Hurried Child

The University in Transformation (Book Info, 2000)

The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University

Edited by Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley

Bergin & Garvey. Westport, Conn. 2000. 280 pages

LC 99-16061. ISBN 0-89789-718-8. H718

 

Contributing Authors:

Tom Abeles, Marcus Bussey, James Dator, James Grant, Anne Hickling-Hudson, Greg Hearn, Patricia Kelly, Peter Manicas, Ivana Milojevic, Shahrzad Mojab, Ashis Nandy, Deane Neubauer, Patricia Nicholson, David Rooney, Tariq Rahman, Michael Skolnik, Philip Spies and Paul Wildman.

 

Book Summary

Taking a long-term historical and future perspective on the university is critical at this time. The university is being refashioned, often by forces out of the control of academics, students, and even administrators. However, there remain possibilities for informed action, for steering the directions that the university can take. This book maps both the historical factors and the alternative futures of the university. Whereas most books on the university remain focused on the European model, this volume explores models and issues from non-Western perspectives as well.

Inayatullah and Gidley draw together essays by leading academics from a variety of disciples and nations on the futures of the university, weaving historical factors with emerging issues and trends such as globalism, virtualization, multiculturalism, and politicization. They attempt to get beyond superficial debate on how globalism and the Internet as well as multiculturalism are changing the nature of the university, and they thoughtfully assess these changes.

 

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

Forces Shaping University Futures by Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley

WESTERN PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY

University Traditions and the Challenge of Global Transformation by Philip Spies

Higher Education at the Brink by Peter Manicas

Will the Future Include Us? Reflections of a Practitioner of Higher Education by Deane   Neubauer

The Virtual University and the Professoriate by Michael Skolnik

The Futures for Higher Education: From Bricks to Bytes to Fare Thee Well by Jim Dator

Why Pay for a College Education? by Tom Abeles

Of Minds, Markets and Machines: How Universities might transcend the Ideology of Commodification by David Rooney and Greg Hearn

At the Edge of Knowledge-Towards Polyphonic Multiversities by Paul Wildman

NON-WESTERN PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURES OF THE UNIVERSITY

Recovery of Indigenous Knowledge and Dissenting Futures of the University by Ashis Nandy

Pakistani Universities: Past, Present, and Future by Tariq Rahman

Civilizing the State: the University in the Middle East by Shahrzad Mojab

Scholar Activism for a New World: The Future of the Caribbean University by Anne Hickling-Hudson

Internationalizing the Curriculum-for Profit or the Planet? by Patricia Kelly

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSITIES

The Crisis of the University: Feminist Alternatives for the 21st Century and Beyond by Ivana Milojevic

Homo Tantricus: Tantra as an Episteme for Future Generations by Marcus Bussey

Universities Evolving: Advanced Learning Networks and Experience Camps by Patricia Nicholson

Consciousness-Based Education: A Future of Higher Education in the New Millennium by James Grant

TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY

Corporate Networks or Bliss for All: The Politics of the Futures of the University by Sohail Inayatullah

Unveiling the Human Face of University Futures by Jennifer Gidley


Comments On The University In Transformation

This book is admirably comprehensive. Its authors look at the impact on universities of all the major trends of our times. Even better, they go beyond the usual western focus and attempt a genuinely world view. A very stimulating contribution to the debate.

Sir John Daniel, Vice-Chancellor, The Open University


Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer Gidley have responded to the present crises of higher education by bringing together a must-read collection of papers. Firmly grounding their work on past trends, both the Western and Non-Western authors of these papers challenge conventional thinking as they explore possible, probable, and preferable futures for the university. A first-rate piece of work that might help us avoid a potential coming educational catastrophe.

Professor Wendell Bell, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Yale University


…University in Transformation is highly recommended as an engaging, informative, and visionary text for those concerned with the critical role of universities in personal and national development in the 21st century.

Professor Robert Arnove, Professor of International and Comparative

Education, Indiana University, Bloomington


This book is a `must’ reading for all professionals in higher education and those policy makers who have influence upon the direction of higher education in the U.S. as well as other countries….While thoughtful in insight, it is also practical in ideas. Anyone who reads it will come away with the importance of higher education and its role in building a global society where humanity will ultimately prevail.

Professor Glenn K. Miyataki, President, The Japan-America Institute of

Management Science, Honolulu, Hawaii


A very impressive collection… This book arrives just-in-time for universities that want a future.

Gordon Prestoungrange, Global President, International Management Centers


This is an interesting and thought-provoking book that gives other perspectives to the important debate on the role and effectiveness of the university in modern society.

Professor John Rickard

Vice-Chancellor, Southern Cross University


Gidley and Inayatullah give equal weight to non-Western perspectives and … “alternative universities.”

Warren Osmond

Editor, Campus Review


Editors Inayatullah and Gidley have created a solid collection of     significant if tantalizing essays addressing the basic question:    Can–or should–the university as we have known it continue to exist in view of new forces engulfing the world? They observe an increasingly multicultural, globalized, and politicized world in which the Internet can virtualize a university’s walls. Will technologies reach Third World universities and modernize them, make them more open, less parochial, and more inclusive? As the university becomes more tied to the corporate world in a globally capitalist system, will it abandon its noble purpose as a repository of truth and knowledge and lose its potential to transform society? These are among the questions discussed.

The authors, most of them Futurists, all agree that within the near future universities will be radically transformed. Some predict that in market-driven universities tenure, academic freedom, and commercially nonviable disciplines will evaporate and student-teacher contacts will dwindle in an atmosphere of human redundancy. Others see bright futures for alternative universities in which information technology and virtualization will play major roles. Optimists, they see current trends not as threats but as opportunities for professors, administrators, and policy shapers. The book, well organized and edited, will be especially valuable for graduate students in postsecondary education.

O. Ulin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Choice Magazine (Current reviews for Academic Libraries, published by the American Library Association) October, 2000


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