Seminar 1: speaker abstracts
8 December 2009, by Richard
We’re looking forward to the first seminar in the series next week. Below are outlines of the two papers being presented during the day.
Perspectives on methods for futures research in education
Professor Tom Schuller
I shall draw on three rather different sources of personal experience:
- a general interest in time as a social phenomenon
- international policy analysis at OECD
- the Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning
I shall use these to offer some perspectives on the claims and utility of futures thinking. A particularly hard question which follows from this is how we distinguish ‘good’ or ‘successful’ futures thinking from their obverse.
Research and the Future of Education; higher education’s contribution
Professor John Furlong
This paper will explore some of the challenges facing those in higher education – and particularly university schools and departments of education – if they are to make a serious contribution to theorising and thinking about the future of education. It will address, in different degrees, three questions: what is current contribution of universities to such debates; why is that current contribution so restricted; what sorts of contributions can and should universities make in the future and how can that be achieved?
