{"id":4212,"date":"2026-03-19T11:28:56","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinktank-transit.ch\/?p=4212"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:32:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T15:32:19","slug":"can-the-future-be-learnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinktank-transit.ch\/en\/can-the-future-be-learnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the future be learnt?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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How can the future be not only imagined, but learnt? The article on\u00a0Futures Literacy\u00a0in the latest issue of \u00abweiter bilden\u00bb explains why our ideas about the future are crucial and how they can be consciously reflected upon and developed. An impulse for the TRANSIT community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TRANSIT sees itself as a forum for questions about the future. At the heart of our projects, discussions and publications lies the aim of understanding societal trends and developing perspectives for adult learning and education. For us, the future is a field of work: something to think about, debate and imagine together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the more interesting, then, is the current issue<\/a> of the journal weiter bilden<\/a><\/em> (DIE Journal for Adult Education), which is dedicated precisely to this topic. Under the theme \u201cFutures\u201d, it brings together contributions from adult education on how education can enable people to deal with uncertainty, change and open futures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the contributions in the issue are worth reading. They address different aspects of the topic, ranging from historical perspectives to philosophical reflections on education. In this short post, however, I would like to focus on one article that is particularly relevant for the work of TRANSIT:\u00a0\u201cFutures Literacy: Competence-based approaches to the open tomorrow\u201d\u00a0(Futures Literacy: Kompetenzbasierter Umgang mit dem offenen Morgen<\/a>) by Angelika Neudecker and Stefan Bergheim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future as a competence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The authors begin by introducing the concept of Futures Literacy, coined by the futurist Riel Miller. Futures Literacy refers to the ability to consciously engage with different possible futures. It is less about making predictions or forecasting the future as accurately as possible. Rather, the focus lies on making future imaginaries themselves an object of learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every decision people make is based on assumptions about the future. Yet these assumptions often remain implicit. Futures Literacy aims to make these images visible, to question them, and to develop them further in a conscious way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neudecker and Bergheim describe Futures Literacy as a competence that enables us to use the future as a space for thinking and shaping. It combines six interrelated capacities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n