Education for the future: applying concepts from the new materialist discourse to UNESCO and OECD publications

Abstract

This paper analyzes concepts that represent future education and are related to the educational discourse in general and to environmental education in particular. The concepts of human agency, child agency, non-human, and more-than-human are reconsidered in view of the discourse of new materialism. Beginning with academic discourse, the authors are going to examine these concepts in the recent future-oriented publications of the OECD and UNESCO. Despite visible efforts to integrate these new concepts and a new understanding of their content, the authors reveal an existing tension between different positions regarding the future of education in the publications of the OECD and UNESCO, especially as they relate to the anthropocentric approach.

Keywords:

• new materialism
• agency
• more-than-human
• future
• OECD
• UNESCO

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank reviewers of the Journal of Environmental Education for taking the necessary time and effort to review the paper. The authors sincerely appreciate all valuable comments and suggestions which helped in improving the quality of the paper.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The name is written in the lower case at the request of its holder.

2 The report is informed by global consultation processes and outcomes, by background papers that advance thinking on the key issues, a review of 200 reports on the future of education, and UNESCO’s Education Research and Foresight Working Papers, among other documents.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-MIP-20-58.