Collaborative research on the human capacity to understand, anticipate, prepare for, and embrace the future.
About Futures Consciousness
The futures consciousness concept and scale has been developed by researchers at the Finland Futures Research Centre (University of Turku) and University of Geneva, with help from other contributors. Teach the Future received a grant from the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF) and the Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University (PMU) to adapt the Scale for use by young people, ages 12-18. The results of that grant are being submitted for publication by the partners. After that, the Scale will be available for use by schools and other organizations that work with youth. The details will be published on this page shortly.
Take the test.
The Five Dimensions of Futures Consciousness are:
- time perspective; the ability to be aware of the past, present and future, as well as the way events follow each other over time
- agency beliefs; basic sense of confidence that an individual has in their own ability to influence the external world
- openness to alternatives; abilities used to critically question commonly accepted ideas and influences an individual’s willingness to consider alternative ways of being and doing
- systems perception; the ability to recognize human and natural systems around us including groups, societies and ecosystems
- concern for others; relates to the degree to which an individual pursues favourable futures for a group beyond themselves
Our partners
Teach the Future collaborates with the University of Turku in Finland, the Finland Futures Research Centre and Digital Futures to research and promote the work in the context of education and (young) students. Sanna Ahvenharju, Matti Minkkinen and Fanny Lalot are the research experts that developed the futures consciousness concept and scale.
Our activities
Teach the Future supports the de velopment of a scale matching the language and level of young people. This project is in collaboration with schools in the Netherlands, Italy, Turkiye, United States, and United Kingdom. And we thank our sponsor the Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd, Center for Futuristic Studies.
Next to this we support the testing. Erica Bol has wo rked with Martin de Wolf of the Master Learning and Innovation at the Fontys University of Applied Sciene. She designed a futures lesson program supporting the Master program and tested if the students futures consciousness improved. The students did a test before and after the lessons program. A paper on the project and results are published in FUTURES issue 12-2022.
