“Futurising Science Education”
This talk introduces the emerging research field of Futures-Oriented Science Education (FOSE), focussing on its potential to revalue physics teaching as a source of rich and important competences for navigating societies where acceleration and uncertainty are intensified by multiple, intersecting crises. Drawing on the history of Futures Studies, I will discuss how FOSE prompts us to reconsider the epistemic and axiological foundations of physics, and to draw on interdisciplinary approaches that bridge the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities to foster futures literacy. Examples from empirical studies and classroom implementations developed in the European project FEDORA will be used to illustrate two key findings. The first concerns the persistence—and the strong influence—of Modernity’s dominant conception of the future within contemporary schooling. The second shows that core ideas from complex systems science can strengthen secondary students’ futures literacy by opening them to alternative forms of temporality and by supporting more positive and imaginative engagements with possible futures.
Date: 10 February 2026, 17:00
Venue: St Cross College, St Giles OX1 3LZ
Venue Details: St Cross Seminar Room
Speakers: Professor Olivia Levrini (University of Bologna), Professor Sibel Erduran (University of Oxford)
Organising department: St Cross College
Organiser: St Cross College
Organiser contact email address: joanna.ashbourn@stx.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?: Required
Booking url: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/1FQZB8CEVz
Cost: FREE
Audience: Public
Editor: Joanna Ashbourn