Latest Module Specifications
Current Academic Year 2025 - 2026
No Banner module data is available
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Description The Education 2030 plan (UN General Assembly 2019) positions Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as pivotal in enabling students to respond to the challenges articulated within the Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A core competency foregrounded within ESD is the development of anticipatory forms of thinking, referred to as ‘Futures Thinking’, that enables students to investigate, forecast and prepare actions for possible, probable and preferred futures. Through futures thinking approaches implemented within this module, students will be enabled to critically consider and plan for a range of differing futures that respond to global developments and challenges within and beyond those outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The existence of a predictable, singular future for all will be challenged within this module through the adoption of a critical orientation to the past and the present and the generation of a range of alternative visions for ‘the future’. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Learning Outcomes 1. Discuss the origins, core concepts, key theorists, current debates and developments in futures thinking and futures studies. 2. Differentiate between ‘wicked’ and ‘tame’ sustainability-related challenges. 3. Identify and appraise signals, drivers and trends with regard to sustainable and unsustainable ways of being, working and living in the past, and the present. 4. Critically examine assumptions underpinning and trajectories towards possible futures. 5. Create and critique scenarios and forecasts for sustainable futures 6. Interrogate differing visions of ‘the future’ - possible futures, probable futures, and preferred futures, to enable decision-making on the most plausible future/s. 7. Devise and present plan/s of action for the enablement of preferred futures. 8. Critically examine and discuss the conceptual lineages that underpin methods for generating possible, probable and preferred futures. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml |
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Indicative Content and Learning Activities
Historical Context: Students will be presented with and engage in discussions on the origins, core concepts, schools of thought, historical developments, current debates, key theorists, and agents in the fields of futures thinking and futures studies. Students will furthermore engage in discourse on the application of futures thinking and futures studies across different academic disciplines, and within and beyond the lifespan of the Sustainable Development Goals. Wicked versus Tame Challenges: Students will engage with discourses on tame and wicked challenges across a range of contexts and settings. ‘Tame’ challenges have fairly obvious and straight forward solutions, that have been tried and tested across a range of contexts and settings. ‘Wicked’ challenges, such as poverty or climate change, in contrast are perceived as difficult or impossible to solve due to their complexity, ambiguity, interconnectedness with other problems, and grave repercussions (such as a threat to human existence) if left untreated. Students will examine ‘wicked challenges’ such as the current climate emergency through exploration of factors including industrialisation, capitalism, and colonisation. Mapping, Anticipating and Timing the Future: Key themes such as concepts of time, alternative futures and human agency are presented and discussed in more detail. Students engage in exercises that enable them to examine historic trends in our ways of being, working and living vis-à-vis sustainability through environmental, socio-cultural, political, and economic lenses. Students further learn how to identify and analyse signals and drivers of change in the present, and critically consider what this may mean for the future. Deepening, Creating Alternatives and Transforming for the Future: Students engage various forecasting approaches, such as the Foresight-Insight-Action or Futures Triangle, to imagine and generate ‘futures scenarios’ that articulate their visions for the future. Furthermore, students learn how to interrogate these futures scenarios using analytical tools to discuss these critically. Finally, student learn how to back-cast from the future, and plan action roadmaps to the most plausible or preferred future/s. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Indicative Reading List Books:
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