Students' perceptions of future politics

The ambition of social studies education is to prepare students for life in a future society. By learning about different ways of organizing societies as well as engaging in analysis of social issues and by developing critical thinking we hope that students develop relevant action competences to be able to deal with political, economic and social issues (Schnack, 1994; Sandahl, 2020). Furthermore, we want social studies education to instil certain values and attitudes while allowing students to deliberate on normative topics connected to social issues (Barton, 2017). However, the concept of action competence remains largely theoretical. In this paper we argue that we need to know more about how students imagine and perceive the future in order to better understand how we should teach to prepare them for future challenges. Previous research consist mainly of survey-based studies where specific topics are addressed, such as democratic engagement (Stattin et al., 2023) or students' perceptions of specific issues such as climate change (Ojala, 2016). Importantly, research has shown that such societal challenges can cause anxiety and resignation among youths (Ojala, 2016; Kramming, 2017), further emphasizing the relevance of casting light on students’ perceptions. The paper reports from a pilot study conducted in upper secondary school in Sweden, where around 100 students wrote a short essay describing how they imagine society in the year 2040. The paper aims to analyze and discuss how the students perceive the future of political issues and their own roles in shaping the future as citizens. The results will be compared to a previous study from the 1980’s where researcher Christer Bjurwill (1987) explored how students perceived an imagined future in 2000. The study is conducted within the context of a research network in Scandinavia where Nordic researchers are aiming to examine young people’s imagined futures in social studies education. References: Barton, K. C. (2017). Shared principles in history and social science education. In M. Carretero, S. Berger, & M. Grever (Eds.), Palgrave handbook of research in historical culture and education (pp. 449–467). Palgrave Macmillan. Bjurwill, C. (1987). Framtidsföreställningar. Analys och tolkning av 900 elevers uppsatser och semantiska skattningar. Lärarhögskolan i Malmö. Kramming, Kajsa (2017). Miljökollaps eller hållbar framtid?: hur gymnasieungdomar uttrycker sig om miljöfrågor. Uppsala universitet. Ojala, M. (2016). Facing anxiety in climate change education: from therapeutic practice to hopeful transgressive learning. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 21, 41-56. Sandahl, J. (2020). Geografi som handlingsberedskap. I L. Dessen Jankell & D. Örbring (red.), Geografididaktik för lärare 4-9 (ss. 141-158). Gleerups. Schnack, K. (1994). Some further comments on the Action Competence Debate. I B. Bruun Jensen & K. Schnack (red.), Action and Action Competence as Key Concepts in Critical Pedagogy (ss. 185-190). Studies in Educational Theory and Curriculum 12. Stattin, H., Amnå, E., & Russo, S. (2023). Setting societal engagement goals during adolescence amplifies the impacts of political interest on political activities during young adulthood. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 47(2), 135-145. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254221113465