Future design as temporal-ethical pedagogy: Towards “open futures” in education
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Futures studies continues to grapple with the tension between reproductive practices that stabilise dominant imaginaries and emancipatory ones that open space for alternative ways of being. Education faces a parallel paradox: positioned as a vehicle for ecological transformation yet complicit in reproducing the extractivist and presentist logics driving environmental crisis. This paper develops a theoretical framework for future design (FD) as an educational intervention and tests its plausibility through an exploratory study. Our primary contribution is conceptual: we theorise FD—a participatory method widely applied in policy contexts but rarely in education—as a temporal-ethical pedagogy, drawing on futures and education scholarship. We identify five mechanisms through which FD reorients learning: locating learners in time, consequence imagination, widening moral concern, deliberation across difference, and reframing agency. We probe the empirical plausibility of this framework through a workshop with secondary students in Japan and follow-up interviews, which indicate three dynamics: destabilising the normalcy of the present, (re)activating the ethical dimension of learning, and encounters with “futurability selves.” Mapping these themes onto our theoretical mechanisms reveals the strongest support for temporal-existential mechanisms (locating learners in time, consequence imagination, reframing agency) while identifying the relational-deliberative mechanisms (widening moral concern, deliberation across difference) as promising but requiring sustained engagement. We caution against tokenistic adoption of FD as a curricular add-on and argue instead for its integration as distributed, reflexive practice. The study opens a research agenda at the futures-education nexus, demonstrating how participatory futures methods may be repurposed as pedagogical tools for expanding education’s emancipatory potential.
Source: Futures
Authors: Peter Sutoris, Yoshinori Nakagawa
Institutions: University of Leeds, Sophia University
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,370
OpenAlex ID: W7202296809