Abstract

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Title:: Research on Future Education in the Current International Community:Four Approaches and Their Implications

Keywords:: futures of education; technology-based forecasting of futures; evolutionary education; futures literacy lab; Causal Layered Analysis(CLA)

Abstract:: From a worldwide perspective, future education has been a forward-looking and hot topic in recent decades, but there are different opinions on how to explore this issue. Out of the previous studies, four major approaches can be identified: the approach of technology-based forecasting of the futures of education; the approach of knowledge evolution-based “evolutionary pedagogy”; the approach of Anticipatory System Theory-based “futures literacy” education; and the approach using Causal Layered Analysis(CLA). The enlightenment of these approaches is as follows. The future is plural rather than singular: i.e., we have “futures” rather “a future”. Technology cannot determine the futures of education, and the purpose of education is the fundamental starting point of futures education. The purpose of educational futures research is not to predict, but to explore a preferable future to guide the management of the present. And post-structuralism is a kind of important basis of theory in the process of future educational exploration, which can help us to clearly understand our limitations and explore and create a desirable futures education by proceeding with the purpose of education.