Multiple futures literacies: An interdisciplinary review

Abstract

It is no surprise that concern for the future is on the rise. Several catastrophes obscure our future(s) imaginary, such as climate change, a global pandemic, racial inequality, and political polarization. Students are feeling a disconnect between what they learn in classrooms and the futures that populate their media platforms. Futures literacies provides one proposed pedagogical intervention that takes up future(s) possibility as a context for inquiry across the disciplines. Building upon and extending from the discipline of futures studies, which involves inquiry into possible, probable, and preferable futures through social and technological advancements, futures literacies refers to the ways we perceive, sense, enact, envision, and create the future in the present. In this interdisciplinary review, we synthesize research that investigates the ways humans engage with future potentiality, moving toward an expansive model of futures literacies and mapping generative connections between literacy research and other discourses including futures studies scholarship.