Global Histories and Futures of Educational Futures:

An Analysis of UNESCO’s Educational Agenda

Imagined tomorrows have an important history. Visions of predicted, probable, and preferred futures of education are interlaced with the projection of human agency and power–over others, over chance, and over the natural world. Schools are often called upon to produce and to respond to a future world that is imagined as transformed. International organizations like UNESCO are prominent among the multitude of actors and entities active in the education futures space. Since its founding in 1945 the work done by UNESCO on education for the future, about the future, and in the future has taken diverse forms. For example, it has encompassed educational planning, futures literacy, and, most recently, a Futures of Education initiative that produced a 2021 flagship report entitled Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. This lecture will examine the range of futuring work undertaken at UNESCO as a step towards understanding the changing contours of global  governance in education.

Noah W. Sobe is Professor in the History Department at Loyola University Chicago. From 2019-2022 he worked as Senior Project Officer at UNESCO on the Future of Learning and Innovation team where he helped to lead the research and drafting of the UNESCO flagship report Reimagining our futures together: A new social contract for education. His scholarship looks at the histories and futures of education.