Located futures: Recognising place and belonging in narratives of the future

This paper explores the possibility that dominant accounts of the future in education privilege a primarily economic conception of education, and risk obscuring the role education has in shaping the future beliefs of society and in preserving the social structures that ensure access to learners’ future rights and opportunities. I consider how this may be enabled through representing the future as decontextualised, and suggest that educators concerned with social justice might benefit, when articulating possible futures, from paying attention to the territory in which narratives of possible futures are imagined to take place, recognising the material and social processes that will constitute those futures. These ‘located futures’ might better represent the concerns and interests of future learners.

► Mainstream education futures are regarded as exchangeable and tradable. ► Successive ‘present futures’ in education increase uncertainty and instability. ► ‘Located’ futures recognise spatial and social contexts and values. ► Creating located futures may support educators to make their priorities more visible.