Youth Futures

JENNIFER GIDLEY is an Educational Psychologist and Futures Researcher. She has published widely in education and youth futures, most recently co-editing The University in Transformation (Bergin & Garvey, 2000).SOHAIL INAYATULLAH is Visiting Professor, Department of Future Studies, Tamkang University, Taiwan, Visiting Academic, the Communication Center, Queensland University of Technology, and Professor, International Management Centers Association. He is co-editor of the Journal of Futures Studies. Among his books is Macrohistory and Macrohistorians (Praeger, 1997).

How do young people see the future? Are they optimistic or pessimistic? Do their views vary from culture to culture? Are young people actively engaged in creating their desired futures or are they passively receiving the future? What effect has globalization on youth culture? How is the future taught in schools? These and many other questions are dealt with in this volume of comparative empirical research from around the world on how youth see the future.Generally, youth are considered immature, irresponsible toward the future, cliquish, impressionistic, and dangerous toward self and others. They are considered as a mass market-two billion strong-the passive recipients of globalization. Most recently in OECD nations, youth have become fodder for political speeches-they are the problem that reflects both the failure of the welfare state (dependence on the state), the failure of globalization (unemployment), and postmodernism (loss of meaning and the crisis of the spirit). In the Third World, youth are seen not only as the problem, but equally as the force that can topple a regime (as in Yugoslavia). However, youth can also be seen as carriers of a new worldview, a new ideology.These and other views concerning youth are examined in this volume of comparative empirical research. Studies from around the world provide intriguing answers to questions about how youth see the future and their future roles. This book will be of particular interest to scholars, students, researchers, and policymakers involved with youth issues and future studies.

Provides comparative empirical research from around the world on how youth see the future.

Preface: Youth Futures: The Terrain by Jennifer Gidley and Sohail InayatullahMapping Youth FuturesGlobal Youth Culture: A Transdisciplinary Perspective by Jennifer GidleyYouth Dissent: Multiple Perspectives on Youth Futures by Sohail InayatullahFuture Visions, Social Realities, and Personal Lives: Young People and Their Personal Well-Being by Richard EckersleyPartnership Education for the 21st Century by Riane EislerCultural Mapping and Our Children's Futures: Decolonizing Ways of Learning and Research by Francis HutchinsonFrom Youth Futures to Futures for All: Reclaiming the Human Story by Marcus BusseyYouth Essay 1: Optimistic Visions from Australia by Raina HunterComparative Research from Around the GlobeJapanese Youth: Rewriting Futures in the "No Taboos" Post-Bubble Millennium by David WrightReflections upon the Late-Modern Transition as Seen in the Images of the Future Held by Young Finns by Anita RubinImagining the Future: Youth in Singapore by Alfred OehlersThe Future Orientation of Hungarian Youth in the Years of the Transformation by Eva Hideg and Erzsebet NovakyCitizens of the New Century: Perspectives from the UK by Cathie HoldenLonging for Belonging: Youth Culture in Norway by Paul Otto BrunstadHolistic Education and Visions of Rehumanized Futures by Jennifer GidleyYouth Essay 2: Voice of the Future from Pakistan by Bilal AslamCase Studies: Teaching Futures in Educationl SettingsFrom Rhetoric to Reality: The Emergence of Futures into the Educational Mainstream by Richard SlaughterRe-Imagining your Neighborhood--A Model of Futures Education by Carmen StewartLearning with an Active Voice: Children and Youth Creating Preferred Futures by Cole Jackson, Sandra Burchsted, and Seth ItzkanI Don't Care About the Future (if I Can't Influence it) by Sabina HeadRural Visions of the Future: Futures in a Social Science Class by Shane HartYouth, Scenarios, and Metaphors of the Future by Sohail InayatullahYouth Essay 3: Shared Futures from the Philippines by Michael GuancoConcluding Reflections by Sohail Inayatullah and Jennifer GidleySelected BibliographyIndex