If we admit the possibility of new, radical innovations, the educator’s task cannot be limited to preparing young people for a predetermined future that the educator has already imagined and known. On the contrary, her task will be to create and explore new spaces for action in the present. (Poli, 2021, p. 5)

1 Introduction

Educational systems aim at providing each new generation with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the opportunities and challenges of life and society. In the context of science and technology education, this goal is reflected in the concept of scientific literacy, which has been used to encapsulate what science-related knowledge and skills students should acquire via education (Roberts, 2007). However, not only can educational systems constantly be improved upon, but the target itself is moving as the challenges and opportunities of today and tomorrow take new forms (Gilbert, 2016). For example, this shifting is easily recognisable in the redefinition of the goals of education in response to the immense sustainability challenges we currently face. Accordingly, education overall, with science education included, is realigning its focus to produce teaching and learning that is relevant to individuals, society and to the future of the planet (Gilbert, 2016; Laherto & Rasa, 2022). Consequently, recent conceptualisations of scientific literacy (Sjöström & Eilks, 2018) emphasise the role of agency and transformation, i.e. the capacity for intentional (transformative) action (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998; Mangnus et al., 2021).

Meanwhile, various large-scale challenges are reshaping societies at an accelerating pace, often requiring “radical shifts to new kinds of socio-technical systems” rather than “incremental improvements and technological fixes” (Köhler et al., 2019, p.3). Indeed, alongside planetary health, a trend that links strongly to the topics of science education is that of technological change. Societies face a diverse set of societal, cultural and moral dilemmas relating to energy production, digitalisation, artificial intelligence, bioengineering and so on, with the rigidity of present institutions struggling to keep up with rapid technological development. Providing education in a rapidly changing world is certainly a challenge, as recent studies have revealed that young people associate the future with considerable worry. Furthermore, their images of the future may be dominated by technology-related hopes and fears (Lloyd & Wallace, 2004; Rasa & Laherto, 2022) alongside optimistic or pessimistic expectations around sustainability (Cook, 2016; cf. Schreiner, 2006).

However and crucially, how we perceive the future and our opportunities to influence it are central to agency. This idea is at the centre of futures education, based on the field of futures studies (see e.g., Page, 1996)—and the emerging field of future-oriented science education (see e.g., Laherto & Rasa, 2022; Levrini et al., 2021; Rasa et al., 2022), which adapts methods from futures studies and futures education, among other sources, to science education. This inherently multidisciplinary approach thus bears similarity to science education for sustainable development, which draws from the insights within education for sustainable development (see e.g., Eilks, 2015). A relatively underdeveloped field, future-oriented science education has yet to fully explore how future-oriented skills or pedagogies relate to agency and scientific literacy. How does one’s thinking about the future connect to ideas about agency, science and society?

To address this issue, the present study explores students’ images of technological futures, relating students’ socioscientific futures thinking to perceptions of value-based agency. We illustrate ways in which students can see transformative potential and agency in sociotechnical change by presenting a qualitative content analysis of Finnish upper-secondary students’ essays describing life in the future. Our analysis presents three abductively constructed dimensions that student depictions show variation in: what is the transformative extent of technological development and its social impacts, to what degree is sociotechnical change framed as problematic and relevant for societal deliberation, and who is depicted as having agency over such change.

Finally, we discuss the relevance of our findings to agency-oriented views of scientific literacy, and the potential of future-related contexts in research on students’ scientific literacy. We conclude by discussing the implications of students’ conceptions for the development of science pedagogies.

2 Background

2.1 Scientific Literacy, Agency and Futures

The fundamental technologisation of life and societies and the potential for science and technology to contribute to solving societal and environmental challenges have made science education extremely relevant for our times. In response to such challenges, there have been calls to e.g., “engage all of society in research and innovation processes”, providing “space for open, inclusive and informed discussions on the research and technology decisions” that shape our societies (European Commission, 2015, p. 5). In order to contribute to such goals, science education should bring “emerging technologies (…) closer to the classroom” and “ignite [students’] imagination” (ibid.). Importantly, these calls highlight the importance of involving people in active participation, which hinges on “the necessary knowledge of and about science to participate actively and responsibly” (ibid., p. 7).

Discussing what “necessary knowledge” or skills and capacities students should acquire through science education is closely equivalent to arguing what constitutes scientific literacy (SL). However, no consensus on the specifics of SL exists; for example, DeBoer (2000) has identified nine different definitions for SL, while also advocating a flexible interpretation of the term. Arguably, at its core, SL corresponds with the goals of science education (see Roberts, 2007); new definitions of SL have been proposed in the past in reaction to the changing goals of science education as well as to argue for such change. Taking the view that the concept of SL is a guiding principle rather than something strictly measurable (see DeBoer, 2000), we turn our attention to its recent evolution.

The goals of science education have largely been shifting from a “science for some” to a “science for all” approach (see e.g., Rutherford and Ahlgren, 1992; see also Bencze, 2017), and this trend has been reflected in discourse around what it means to be scientifically literate. More precisely, according to Roberts and Bybee (2014) and Sjöström and Eilks (2018), SL has moved through three “visions”, with scientific know-how (Vision I) first conjoined with socioscientific thinking (Vision II), and then with the capacity for transformative action (Vision III, or critical scientific literacy—see Hodson, 2011).

In a nutshell, Vision II SL relates to societally contextualising science content, while Vision III SL relates e.g., to “skills development for critical-democratic participation and for shaping our society and culture in a sustainable way” (Sjöström & Eilks, 2018, p. 4). The Vision III approach augments SL with a proactive component, the capacities required to shape the world in socioscientific contexts in accordance with one’s values, in line with the personal, cultural and democratic purposes of science education (Bencze, 2017). Furthermore, such SL may involve highly critical stances (Hodson, 2011); it connects to issues in critical capacities and action for social justice (see e.g., Roth & Barton, 2004). This proactive component corresponds well with the call to “engage all of society in research and innovation processes” (European Commission, 2015, p. 5), if engagement is interpreted as actively making a difference rather than passively “keeping track” of ongoing discourse.

The idea at the centre of Vision III—that it is in fact insufficient to aim at building students’ abilities to understand and think, even if critically, of the world around them—is captured by the concept of agency. Yet another concept with various meanings, agency in our argument denotes “purposeful action oriented towards future goals” (Arnold & Clarke, 2014, p. 739), i.e. projective rather than iterative or evaluative (reactive) action (cf. Emirbayer & Mische, 1998). This projective component of agency has become a central piece in formulations of future-oriented science education (e.g. Levrini et al., 2021; Rasa et al., 2022), arguing for a Vision III view of SL—the openness of the future allows for meaningful agency.

This link between futures thinking and agency has been quite extensively discussed in futures studies, especially through the concept of futures literacy (FL). FL is the capacity to “use the future”, i.e. “to think about the potential of the present to give rise to the future by developing and interpreting stories about possible, probable and desirable futures” (Miller, 2007, p. 347)—since, after all, thinking about the future is the only way to “use” it. In other words, the goal is not to know the future but to think about it in a useful way (see e.g., Facer & Sriprakash, 2021; Mangnus et al., 2021; Poli, 2021; UNESCO, n.d.; see also Page, 1996), i.e. to expose “the anticipatory assumptions and conceptions of the relationship of action to consequences” that “shape the imaginary futures that human consciousness is able to conjure” (Miller, 2015, p. 515). Our conception of the future influences our actions in the present (Mangnus et al., 2021; Poli, 2021; Schreiner, 2006)—for example, to act to improve our circumstances, we must first have the “capacity to aspire” (Appadurai, 2004). FL involves creativity, imagining “discontinuities” and embracing the sense of “not knowing” as opposed to simple preparation (Miller, 2015; UNESCO, n.d.). Here, future discontinuities may of course involve previously unseen possibilities as well as risks.

To turn our attention back to scientific literacy, we may revisit the previously mentioned European Commission (2015) calls to engage students in world-shaping technology decisions and to ignite their imagination. In this paper, we examine students’ images of the future, i.e. “snapshots” of certain aspects of the world at an (imagined) point in time (Raskin et al., 2002). The future, as argued in conceptualisations of FL, is used by thinking about it. Building on this idea, agency-oriented (i.e. Vision III) SL involves capacities to imagine (socioscientific) futures and to identify how and why such futures could manifest. Without such projective thinking, any actual agency is at best evaluative (reactive), to use Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) terms, whereas a person with futures and scientific literacy has a deeper sense of the value of scientific knowledge in shaping the future. In other words, a person with futures and scientific literacy has a deeper sense of the value of scientific knowledge in shaping the future, and can engage in value-based socioscientific thinking (an activity which may be more difficult for nonmarginalised STEM-oriented students—see Garibay, 2015).

Based on this theoretical framework, in this paper, we address students’ socioscientific futures thinking, framing this as a component of their scientific literacy. However, before turning to the methods and results of our study, we review some literature on young people’s images of the future, while also discussing the role of science and technology in these images.

2.2 Perceptions of Sociotechnical Change

There is considerable interconnectivity in people’s perceptions of futures, science and technology. Numerous studies have shown that science and technology are central to young people’s perceptions of the future (see e.g., Angheloiu et al., 2020; Cook, 2016; Heikkilä et al., 2017; Lloyd & Wallace, 2004; Myllyniemi, 2017). Indeed, technology is typically seen as a force transforming the present into the future (see e.g., Bishop & Hines, 2012), with future expectations conversely steering technological development (Borup et al., 2006).

In fact, the concepts of science, technology and futures are deeply intertwined: “science and technology are routinely depicted as the future” (Gilbert, 2016, p. 193, emphasis in original). For example, Special Eurobarometer 419 (European Commission, 2014) indicates a general belief that “science and innovation”, rather than “people’s actions”, will shape many of the key aspects of our future. Thought-provokingly, technology can be seen as a last refuge of hope for sustainable futures and positive progress (see e.g., Cook, 2016)—after all, almost half of Finnish young people may believe that “humanity is doomed” (Hickman et al., 2021). Thus, to quote Page (1996, p. 126), “There can be no more eloquent testimonial for the need for futures education than the growing body of international research on youths’ attitudes to the future.”

In science education, technology is often at the centre of socioscientific issues (SSI) and science-technology-society-environment (STSE) research and pedagogy (see e.g., Pedretti & Nazir, 2011; Roberts & Bybee, 2014; see also Bybee, 2013 for the case of STEM education). Little emphasis is usually given to differentiating science from technology. The consensus seems to be that societally aware, critical and argumentative skills relate to both, with technological applications often providing concrete cases to study—or that a broader STEM perspective promotes transdisciplinary skills in the context of “major contemporary challenge[s]” (Bybee, 2013, p. 78). Following this practice, SSI, STSE and other similar approaches can be seen as concerning societally and environmentally relevant aspects of scientific literacy. It is in this sense that we will use the term socioscientific thinking, including in it students’ views on the interactions between society and technology.

In this domain, scientific literacy overlaps with technological literacy which, depending on the strict definition, spans capacities to use technology and the critical evaluation of technological impacts (see e.g., Bybee, 2000; Hodson, 2011; Pearson & Young, 2002). However, in the context of socioscientific thinking and transformative agency, these literacies seem unnecessary to separate: it is clear that it is difficult to assess technology—to say nothing of becoming a technological expert—without some scientific literacy, which roots us firmly to the goals and practices of science education (for some discussion on this issue, see e.g., Bybee, 2000; Cajas, 2001; Hodson, 2011; Snow & Dibners, 2016). For consistency, we use the term socioscientific thinking to discuss the skill and activity students and citizens are expected to participate in, while the concept of sociotechnical change is used to denote how science, technology and society change over time, all influencing each other (see e.g., Bijker, 2001).

As noted before, images of the future are typically rich with sociotechnical changes. In recent studies, people’s images of the future have typically included robots, smart home technology, new modes of transportation and green energy production (Heikkilä et al., 2017; Rasa & Laherto, 2022; van der Duin et al., 2020), but also undesirable trends such as technology-induced inequality (Angheloiu et al., 2020; Rasa & Laherto, 2022; van der Duin et al., 2020). It appears that expectations of sociotechnical change may include positive and negative developments, as well as stagnant (minimal or static), incremental (slow and continuous) or radical (discontinuous, systemic and paradigmatic) dynamics in technology and society (see e.g., Dolata, 2013). Furthermore, attitudes towards the effects of sociotechnical change may be diversifying (Kerschner & Ehlers, 2016).

Socioscientific reasoning intertwines strongly with perceptions of what drives change (i.e. who, if anyone, has agency and to what extent). Technology can be construed as autonomous or socially constructed, neutral or value-laden, and so on (see e.g., Bauchspies et al., 2006; Bijker, 2001; Feenberg, 2009; Kerschner & Ehlers, 2016). In other words, discourse around technology may e.g. presuppose a unidimensional, autonomous or deterministic path that technological development is on (i.e. technology determines society and not the other way around; see e.g., Hallström, 2020 for further discussion), or take the premise that all technology is beneficial (or detrimental). From such perspectives, at best people have a say over the pace of this development (through e.g. breakthroughs, hard work and investments or awareness and opposition). Technology can also be seen as socially constructed, i.e. a site for constant sociocultural and technical negotiation (see e.g., Bijker, 2001; Fuglsang, 2001), in which case the design, development, adoption and control of technological artefacts and systems connect with values: the choices made during processes of sociotechnical change depend on e.g. what we think of as desirable, how we navigate difficult trade-offs and how we relate technology to responsibility. This socioconstructivist perspective on sociotechnical change gives relevance to nonexpert citizens’ participation, emphasising collective agency (see e.g., Bandura, 2000).

As Hodson (2011) among others has argued, certain deterministic narratives of sociotechnical change may limit not only students’ imagination, but also their sense of agency; students should be able to see that science and technology intertwine with social, value-based issues that can, through scientific literacy, be actively contributed to. However, perspectives of human agency, complexity and transformation are not typically at the centre of research on young people’s images of the future, even if they are central to the social science discourse on technology. It is for this reason that we find it valuable to investigate how students envision sociotechnical change and agency, and furthermore to contextualise these perceptions at the nexus of science education and students’ agency. To be specific, we aim to support the development of future-oriented science education by investigating the following question:

  • How do upper secondary school students' images of the future reflect their views of sociotechnical change?

3 Method

3.1 Data Collection

In order to respond to the research question, we collected and analysed students’ writings on the future. Somewhat similar methods on future narratives have previously been used in research on young people’s images of the future (e.g. Angheloiu et al., 2020; Rasa & Laherto, 2022) and agency (e.g. Cuzzocrea & Mandich, 2016; Heggli et al., 2013; Sools et al., 2022) as well as teachers’ agentic orientations (Varpanen et al., 2022). It should be noted that people rarely have a singular image of the future; rather, such images are situational and even contradictory, but still central to people’s worldviews. Futures narratives have been considered a highly relevant tool for educational research since such images of the future build on one’s knowledge, beliefs, values, hopes and fears, and connect closely to one’s perceived agency (see e.g., Facer, 2012).

The data for this paper consists of 58 student essays. The essays were collected by first giving students a title for their essay (“A typical summer day in 2035” or “A typical summer day in 2040”), and prompting students to think about what kind of general and technological environment they would like to live in (i.e. a preferable future—see e.g., Börjeson et al., 2006), this including what challenges such a time may have and what one’s own life could be like. They were then given a few additional sentence prompts to fill in separately at the end of their essay. The data is intentionally skewed towards images of desirable futures, but as we will soon discuss, the essays provide ample portrayal of undesirable developments as well.

In this manner, 20 essays set in 2035 were collected in 2018, and 38 more essays set in 2040 were collected in 2019. These were collected from 57 Finnish upper-secondary students (ages 16–19) from schools in the Helsinki region (one student wrote two different essays over the study). The students had all studied according to the Finnish curriculum, in which technology is not a distinct subject but is integrated in subjects such as environmental studies, sciences as well as the “transversal competences” (see Finnish National Agency of Education, 2016; 2019). For the purposes of our study, the five-year difference in the described year (2035 or 2040) is not important and will be disregarded. Students were also asked to fill in sentences beginning with “my dream is”, “my dream place is/has”, “my ideal world is/has” and “my biggest fears and concerns are”. The data collection was conducted within the European Erasmus+ project "I SEE" (2016-2019) (Branchetti et al., 2018).

While the essays were collected as prerequisites for volunteers attending experimental courses (see e.g., Rasa et al., 2022), they were written before the teaching interventions. All essays were translated into English before analysis, with student names replaced with pseudonyms. All these students (or with underage students, also their guardian) gave a written consent to participate.

3.2 Analysis

We began our analysis by identifying discussions and mentions of science and technology in students’ essays. This process created the set of our analysis units, i.e. short passages of text extracted from the full essays. Typically, an analysis unit would be one to five sentences long, and address either a specific area of science and technology or “technology” in general. A total of 389 units were extracted.

To address the research question (see Section 2.2), we employed abductive content analysis (Thompson, 2022). First, we set out to code the units with broad descriptive terms in a process guided by the theoretical framework outlined in Section 2. This process entailed multiple iterations of a coding scheme, until a set of categories and their coding criteria was found to be fit for describing students’ socioscientific futures thinking, i.e. to answer the research question. Simultaneously, the coding scheme was tested with the data to see if sufficiently clear criteria could be established. For example, categories relating to the skills, knowledge and competences that students’ images of the future framed as relevant were initially formed but were found to be too ambiguous to make substantive claims about. In this way, theoretical stances based on extant literature (as well as a general understanding of futures thinking) and the affordances of the data had a largely equal effect on the analysis (Thompson, 2022; see also Tavory & Timmermans, 2014).

At this point, a categorisation scheme based on three dimensions emerged (see Table 1). Specifically, these three dimensions were found to be qualities that manifested relevant characteristics in students’ socioscientific futures thinking, showed meaningful differences across the analysis units, and that could be sufficiently reliably interpreted from the data—reflecting “themes” as conceptualised by Thompson (2022). However, two of these dimensions (themes) were still found to be too ambiguous to warrant the construction of a fine-grained categorisation matrix. After constructive feedback from a peer reviewer, we chose to present these first two dimensions as a broad spectrum rather than a set of subcategories.

Table 1 Framework for analysing sociotechnical change in students’ images of the future
Full size table

The first two dimensions in our analysis (see Table 1) relate to the depicted degree of transformation and the problematisation of sociotechnical change. More precisely, the first dimension, “extent of change”, corresponds to how a unit frames the transformative potential of science and technology for the future; this spans the space between minimal and radical change. The second dimension, “problematisation of sociotechnical change”, describes how science and technology are related to the necessity of considering values and choice, i.e. whether they are relevant to value-based agency. This dimension spans the space between wholly nonproblematised and deeply socioconstructivist accounts of future science and technology (see Table 1 for examples). Fine-grained qualitative subclassification along these dimensions was attempted, but not found feasible especially in the case of the shortest analysis units. Thus, in Section 3, we illustrate and analyse the units as situated along these two dimensions without strict thematic subgrouping. Further research could well elaborate on these or similar dimensions.

The third dimension of our analysis concerns who, if anyone, is framed as having agency. Here we were able to construct four sufficiently different subcategories (see Table 1); however, it should be noted that the least frequent two categories shared some overlap (see Section 4.3). Completely incidentally, this coding scheme was later found to have converged on one somewhat reminiscent of another recent study (Sools et al., 2022), also on agency attribution in young people’s writings about the future. Two authors and a research assistant checked this coding for mistakes and inconsistencies. In Table 1, we present all three dimensions: for the first two, we describe and provide a number of examples that illustrate variation along the dimension, while for the third, we define the coding criteria for each subcategory.

Reflecting the theorising stage of abductive analysis (Thompson, 2022), mapping students’ images of the future onto the theoretical concepts around conceptions of sociotechnical change (see Section 2) required a deep familiarity with the data. Especially the definitions of the first two dimensions were discussed among all three authors until the descriptions given in Table 1 were agreed on. For these dimensions, Table 1 discusses various qualities that were found to reflect the same theme, as shown in overlaps in initial coding. As an example, the essays often touched on the scale of future sociotechnical change, but did so in differing ways: for instance, two essays discussed the emergence of mind-reading technology, one framing this change as disturbing and societally divisive (see Q17 in 4.2), while another essay envisioned very similar technology but discussed it very differently (see Q7 in Section 4.1). Here, instead of clearly differentiating between technology and its effects (see Bijker, 2001), the flexible descriptions given in Table 1 were constructed and used (see Section 4.1).

Finally, we note that while somewhat independent, the dimensions themselves also overlap due to the way they all relate to the question of whether technology can be used to influence the world in a value-based way. These overlaps will be discussed in Section 4.

3.3 Limitations Related to the Data and Methodology

First, it is noteworthy that we have not representatively sampled Finnish youth: the participants were volunteers enrolling for an additional science course, i.e. students interested in science. Furthermore, we did not systematically collect demographic data on the students such as their gender or ethnic identity, academic performance or socioeconomic status. Our study may underrepresent views that are common to some cohorts, especially students not interested in science.

Nevertheless, analysing perceptions of sociotechnical change among various age groups, genders and cultural backgrounds would demand broader samples, and is left for further investigations (for which our analysis may provide some groundwork). Our results however provide guidelines for how students’ futures thinking may be analysed in the context of, or using conceptualisations from (future-oriented) science education, e.g. by highlighting different ways students can frame sociotechnical agency.

Secondly, the narrative nature of the analysed essays does not simply mirror students’ thoughts and beliefs. For example, students were not instructed to address the issue of sociotechnical agency. Here, our intention was to identify relevant dimensions in students’ images of the future. With a different prompt, images of the future could contain more discussion of human agency. In fact, there is also need to construct ways of more robustly extracting students’ socioscientific thinking from their images of the future, and we hope the dimensions found in this study pave the way for such studies.

One should note the specific framing of students’ essays: a typical day in a desirable future in 2035 or 2040. This framing places the “future” no further than 2040, and does not address the full “future history” leading onto the imagined future, or what an unusual day could look like. After all, students can be expected to project different futures by extrapolation and “backcasting” (see e.g., Rasa et al., 2022). Furthermore, we have not explicitly addressed, nor asked students to address, what elements of the current world stay the same (see Facer, 2021 for some discussion on this issue).

Finally, it is clear that the dataset produced for this study cannot capture students’ futures thinking in its entirety. Perceptions of the future are complex, and any singular image is only a component of one’s full attitudes, thoughts and beliefs regarding the future. It is likely that within a given futures thinking task, different emphases on extrapolation, imagination and groundedness in one’s current knowledge produce differing images of the future. In addition, since perceptions of the future are linked with one’s worldviews and identities, futures thinking relates to power struggles and questions of inclusion (i.e. whose future is considered or prioritised). This should be considered in research attempting to understand or explain the inclusivity of students’ images of the future of the “social-ecological space” (see Leach et al., 2018). All in all, further research is needed to see how students assess and consolidate their various, even contradicting ideas about the future.

3.4 Overview of Technological Images of the Future

To contextualise the findings, we give a brief overview of students’ imagined technological futures. As the 58 essays describe a somewhat wide range of futures, instead of attempting to give a full picture of how students imagined life in 2035 or 2040, we aim to help the reader understand the contexts the following excerpts are drawn from and the nature of the writing task that gave rise to our data.

Our students’ essays ranged between one or two pages. In a typical essay, the writer is portrayed as content, modern life as manageable and technology as central to organising society and daily life. One’s time is not too stressful, as it is spent on intellectually stimulating work, human connection and enjoyment rather than chores and commuting. In some essays humankind has the tools (such as newfound will to correct course, or advances in fusion power or geoengineering) to overcome climate change; in others, an ongoing climate crisis functions as a gloomy backdrop. Meanwhile, technological progress may be building towards a perfect society, unforeseen risks or total alienation. However, the most typical single analysis unit concerns some practical everyday technological aid such as an electric scooter or a cleaning robot. Only four units discuss science (e.g. advances in theoretical physics) without referring to technology. A few essays discuss technology very little if at all, focusing, e.g. on sociopolitical issues or simply one’s hobbies.

In an earlier study (Rasa & Laherto, 2022), we analysed what technologies are present in students’ images of the future and the impacts they have on society. Here however, our focus is on exploring how agency and the extent and problematisation of sociotechnical change are depicted in images of the future. Furthermore, we have analysed conceptions present in the data in general, not by constructing socioscientific profiles for individual students (cf. Angheloiu et al., 2020). With this caveat, let us present our findings in three sections, each dealing with one dimension of our analytical framework.

4 Results

4.1 Extent of Sociotechnical Change

The analysed units span a range of descriptions of technologies and social impacts minimally and radically different to the present. Most typically, students’ depictions were found to portray incremental change relating to consumer-owned technologies that facilitate or enhance everyday life, ranging from smart watches and coffee machines to electric cars, video games and so on. Similarly, improvements in infrastructure such as solar panels, garbage management and public transport were typically discussed in quite incremental terms. Other units discuss similarly limited sociotechnical change in a nonspecific manner: see e.g., Q(uotation) 2 below.

(Q1) My apartment in a high-rise building has a smart lock that locks itself, so there are no keys. The smart lock recognizes me by my face. (Trent)

(Q2) Technology does not do everything for people, but it can be used to make everyday life simpler. (Trisha)

These typical examples give the impression of technology developing without much discontinuity or transformative effect on society and life. However, at the opposite end of the spectrum, radically transformative sociotechnical change was also discussed in various ways. Such change was usually attributed either generally to “technology” or to AI and robotics, with sociotechnical transformation contributing, e.g. to wholly carefree human existence or major shifts in economic systems. For example, one student imagined that “everyone has a hedonistic approach to life, because artificial intelligence makes it possible”, while others discussed the automation of all (presently) manual labour.

As specified in Section 3.2, analysis units were interpreted along this dimension based on the depicted societal effects of technology as well as the nature of the depicted technology itself. In fact, the essays often omit explicit discussion on one or the other, as seen in the following examples:

(Q3) Our community does, however, face a problem – unemployment. This is because machines have replaced people in most jobs. (Grace).

(Q4) It was amazing that science was revolutionized so quickly. Quantum mechanics were suddenly utilized in almost every device and activity. (...) Indeed, in many scientific articles it has been suggested that this era could be called the quantum mechanical period. (Cillian)

Here, the automation of “most jobs” and a new quantum revolution can be seen as more drastic transitions. However, while Q3 attributes a major change to technology, the technoscientific advances leading to it are not discussed; in the second unit, the effects relate to “almost every device and activity”, but focus is on the scientific advances. As these examples show, images of the future can strongly mirror the concept of “sociotechnical change” which is similarly impartial as to whether change is “caused” by discovery, application or consequent societal shifting.

Finally, it is notable how students’ images, even though set in the same six-year span of 2035–2040, contain such a wide spectrum of sociotechnical changes. Consider the following five examples:

(Q5) I assume that the interior of my apartment will be pretty much the same as it is today (...) I do not see myself using unnecessary technological inventions such as electronic nail clippers. (Patrick)

(Q6) I would like to live in a technologically advanced environment where a single lightweight, easy-to-carry device could be used to accomplish a lot of things. (Finn)

(Q7) In many workplaces, desktop and laptop computers have been completely replaced by tablets, and typing is done by converting speech or even thoughts into text rather than by using a keyboard. (Owen)

(Q8) Given how fast technology, especially digital technology, is evolving and will evolve in the near future, we can assume that a typical summer day in 2040 will be completely different from what we are able to imagine now. (Donna)

(Q9) The biggest fear is that with the advancement of technology and electronics, we might lose our humanity. (Max)

These examples quite vividly capture the various roles given to technology and sociotechnical change in imagined futures: from Patrick’s and Finn’s rather static depictions to Max’s loss of humanity, students’ socioscientific thinking may range both mundane and existential issues. Meanwhile, Owen’s essay rather casually touches on the idea of technological mind-reading (se also Q17), but places this technology only in the context of work ergonomy. Similarly, different students paired some technologies with very different societal transformations. This range is quite likely a defining feature of imagined sociotechnical futures, and furthermore highlights how students engage in evaluating the extent of sociotechnical change.

Obviously, it is not a mistake for a student to discuss minimal improvement in some area of technology, nor to imagine changes that currently seem unlikely. As socioscientific thinking, both incremental (e.g. Q2) and radical (e.g. Q9) transformations can act as a context for reflecting on the roles of technology. In fact, while one may expect that less extensive change rarely relates to value-laden choices—i.e. that incremental changes are exclusively framed as “improvements” while relatively radical transformations are assessed in more nuanced ways—this was in fact not the case in our dataset. Admittedly, some instances of more incremental change map onto the discourse of “technological progress”: devices that do their jobs better than before, currently hyped gadgets or “smartification” (see e.g., Q1). However, not all units that discuss less dramatic change fall under this category, such as the following:

(Q10) (...) travelling has become more common, and is again creating harmful CO2 emissions. Fortunately, we now have more energy-efficient alternatives to gasoline, but they are much more expensive to use. (Katherine)

(Q11) However, this would bring up privacy issues. The easier and faster we can share information, the harder it becomes to protect it. (Finn; see Q6 for context)

On the other hand, some more typically dystopian or utopian scenarios were phrased as rather straightforward or deterministic (for an example, see Q19). It thus seems that students could, in the context of futures thinking, problematise various degrees of sociotechnical change, even if imagined changes show considerable range. To further address the issue of problematising technology, we turn to the next dimension of our framework.

4.2 Problematisation of Sociotechnical Change

We have already noted that students problematised various sociotechnical changes in their essays. However, typically the analysis units do not address any values, tradeoffs or societal-cultural negotiation around technology. This is understandable given the writing task: the essays focus on narrative, matter-of-fact descriptions, and many units are brief and descriptive (e.g. Q1). Thus, to elaborate on this dimension, we will here mainly focus on units where problematisation or a socioconstructivistic view can be identified and units where it could be expected but is not explicitly present.

To begin, we may revisit a unit that was partly quoted in the context of the extent of change (see Q3). Here is the full passage:

(Q12) Our community does, however, face a problem – unemployment. This is because machines have replaced people in most jobs. A solution for this problem is, however, being sought all the time, and some people have gained jobs through the rapid growth of the technology sector and the need for the maintenance of information technology devices. (Grace)

Grace’s reasoning exemplifies a complex picture of sociotechnical change: shifts in technology systems pose a challenge to society which then seeks solutions that may also be technological. While it is unclear who is looking for a solution (an issue we will return to), there is a back-and-forth interaction between technology and public deliberation. We identified similar problematised or socioconstructivistic views of technology in various forms, relating technology to responsibility and foresight (Q13), democratisation (Q14), tradeoffs (Q15) or values and incentives (Q16):

(Q13) My biggest concerns and fears include the speed at which artificial intelligence evolves and the fact that it is being developed so quickly that the related ethical and safety issues are not considered thoroughly. (Zara)

(Q14) As technology becomes integrated in everyone’s lives in the future, the potential problems may be widespread and potentially devastating. Technology can cause power to be concentrated in the hands of one or a few actors. For this reason, I think it is important to keep the development of technology as transparent as possible, so that citizens can be involved and understand it. (Ronan)

(Q15) Similarly, people could misuse new technologies, and protecting society against such activities requires resources and can easily lead to collateral damage, for example by reducing privacy. (Lee)

(Q16) Renewable energy sources would be important to us and we would use them more. In summer 2035, I might also see fusion power plants on the horizon; they would finally have become profitable. (Molly)

All of these patterns show up repeatedly in the data. For example, students imagined futures where biotechnology and its applications advance with great caution but with positive results, cities where technology is used widely while not “doing everything” or overpowering nature, and states that maintain and ensure web privacy and security in the midst of further digitalisation. Some students’ images of the future contain traces of technomoral or cultural transitions (Q17), or describe wide societal discourse around technology (Q18):

(Q17) By 2040, our digital hand-held devices may also undergo radical changes: technology used to study the brain and the functional systems of digital devices will tightly integrated, and information technology can often be used just by thinking a few thoughts. This technology is not available to everyone yet, and some do not want to have anything to do with it. Our society is divided into groups: those who see nothing bad or unpredictably dangerous in this technology, and those who oppose it completely. (Donna)

(Q18) Today, it is almost impossible to establish social connections with others, as many people prefer to live in the virtual world in their own homes. I still have contacts with many people, but it is almost impossible to create social connections with today’s youth. This is one of the hottest topics right now. (Seamus)

Here we can identify a phenomenon that is likely to be missing in less future-oriented frames for students’ socioscientific thinking: the construction of culturally embedded sociotechnical systems. Donna’s vision (Q17) is a striking example: while her wording dismisses that some people may view such brain-computer interfaces cautiously but positively (as was seen in some students’ views on AI and biotechnology), she is able to imagine a deep ethical-cultural rift polarising society, and implies that how this future technology is ultimately adopted is still unclear in her scenario. Quite interestingly, the task to write about “a typical day” in the future yielded many cases of similarly intricate socioscientific argumentation. In these units, technology is portrayed as fundamentally socially-culturally embedded, prompting people at large to discuss or participate in its development (see Q14, Q18).

At the opposite end, we identified some units that differed noticeably from the previous examples. These were depictions of sociotechnical change (both minimal and radical) somewhat plainly framed as wholly unproblematic, or as undesirable but quite inevitable:

(Q19) In a society built around artificial intelligence, there are many applications and objects that bring the greatest possible enjoyment to everyone. Everything is like it was in science fiction movies from the early 2000s. (Grant)

(Q20) I am sure we will live in the era of amazing technology. We can expect huge breakthroughs in physics and information technology that can benefit everyone. The place where I want to live is a place where you can clearly see the development of technology and humanity as a whole (...) (Malcolm)

(Q21) Our society is unstable and environmental problems are a major problem, but people are not interested, because they are locked into their own bubbles. In their own virtual worlds. Sometimes I miss the old days. (Seamus)

The first two examples (Q19, Q20) seem to imply that technology is on a rather preset trajectory that is purely positive and involves no value-based deliberation. For these futures, there hardly is need for citizens to participate in steering sociotechnical change—instead, they can participate as consumers and recipients of development, or contribute to scientific and engineering projects ushering in these great times. Meanwhile, Seamus’s dystopia (Q21) paints a picture of a bleak future where people are numbed by VR addiction, hope is scarce and seemingly no-one is doing anything about it. From the perspective of how sociotechnical change is framed as complex or autonomous, both dystopian and utopian futures are similar in how they distance sociotechnical change from deliberation and action. This brings us to our final and very related dimension: that of who, if anyone, is portrayed as having agency over sociotechnical change.

4.3 Agency

Given that an image of the future is a “snapshot” of the world at some time, students’ essays expectedly did not contain many detailed accounts as to what activity drives sociotechnical change. However, a closer analysis seems to reveal a few different discourses around sociotechnical agency. Contrast, for example, Ronan’s view that citizens should be involved in sociotechnical change in order to avoid excess concentration of power (Q14), Cillian’s quantum revolution (Q4), and the following excerpt:

(Q22) I would be surrounded by a lot of advanced technology, such as powerful computers, cleaning robots and smart devices. (Tess)

Tess’s account of future technology differs from Ronan’s or Cillian’s in the sense that it does not refer to human agency: technology simply exists or sociotechnical change simply happens. Most of the units coded in this category are brief and “atemporal” in the sense that they describe one’s technological environment as it is, but some also seem to dismiss agency or frame sociotechnical change as autonomous, even if problematic:

(Q23) [Technology] will certainly be much more sophisticated than it is today, but I do not think it will be like in science fiction films and series where you often see transparent phones and so on. I do, however, hope that technology will still be safe and useful in our everyday lives. However, I do not want to live on technology’s terms in a world that is chock-full of technology. (Riley)

(Q24) Then, for some reason, I begin to think about the days when technology was not at such an advanced level. I used to think that life was simple. As human-like robots take over jobs, the value of human beings has recently fallen dramatically (...) and the only reason I have not been fired is that the company I work for does not own human-like robots. (Seamus)

These transitions (overtechnologisation, unemployment due to automation) were among the more typical contexts for rather autonomously depicted technology. It thus appears that images of the future could be augmented by instructing students to elaborate on the processes behind sociotechnical change; the shorthand of technology as an agent (see Q23), while a way to construct a narrative text, may obscure the involvement of human agency. However, some units clearly integrate human agency with technology. Most typically, agency was attributed to “people” or “us”, leaving open the interpretation of who is included in such collective agency:

(Q25) My dream is that, with the help of technology among other things, we could come up with solutions to problems around the world, including how to maximize sustainable development and how to minimize air pollution and environmental problems. In general, it would be ideal if we got climate change under control with the help of new inventions and artificial intelligence. (Janna)

Arguably this way of talking about technology, while more compatible with the idea that sociotechnical change can be actively directed based on one’s desired future, also “obscures” agency and can be read as stating (as was instructed) what kind of future one hopes to see. However, the discourse of “us” can also take the form of depicting sociotechnical change as democratic, driven not by individuals but by collective sociocultural debate. In fact, Janna addresses this in her essay:

(Q26) I am grateful for all the inventions and technologies that I get to use today. But at the same time I am a little worried (...) I talk a lot about this with my friends and family, and they, too, completely agree on both the opportunities and concerns. However, new things are generally welcomed in our neighbourhood with a positive and open mind. (Janna)

This more elaborated “us” framing—the collective agency of critical citizens—clearly corresponds to a view of socially constructed technology. The following example shows this quite clearly: Fiora’s thinking contrasts strongly with other, more inevitably framed depictions of automation and loss of jobs (see Q3, Q12, Q24):

(Q27) The development of artificial intelligence is sure to continue, and at some point, we need to ask how far people want to take artificial intelligence. How much can robots do, and is there a risk that they could take over entire industries? (Fiora)

Further along the scale of clearly ascribed agency, some units either reference a very specific technological advancement or name a group of experts or policymakers. These include Cillian’s advances in medicine through quantum chemistry (Q4), Zara’s worry that AI is not developed responsibly (Q13) and the following passages:

(Q28) With the help of the restaurant’s facial scanner, the payment process is effortless. (...) The payment system was created by commercial banks. (Trent)

(Q29) Controlling all this technology will surely be a challenge, because we need more knowledgeable people who can code and program instructions for the robots. (Brittany)

(Q30) A lot of new jobs have opened up, for example, in internet security monitoring and security system development research, because nearly all services and information are stored in the cloud. (Evelynn)

In all of these cases, development is driven by a somewhat specialised group, i.e. people involved in quantum chemistry, banking or programming. Crucially, by ascribing agency to identifiable individuals and groups, students construct a prerequisite for influencing sociotechnical change: achieving expertise or a position gives one the power to facilitate a desirable future. While not quite as democratically oriented, this framing is far less ambiguous than the more typical “us” that was discussed previously. However, it can be interpreted as technocratic and exclusive, if the student considers the required expertise or status to be out of one’s reach.

This brings us to our final category: units where students describe agency directly to themselves. Among the 13 such occurrences in our data are the following:

(Q31) Health care technology still offers many benefits, though. (...) We have developed highly effective solutions for the treatment of, for example, type 1 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, which is why I feel that my [medical technology] work is meaningful. (Ava)

(Q33) In an ideal world, there would be no serious problems, but natural disasters caused by climate change will probably be a major problem. I would like to become an environmental engineer, so that I could possibly help solve some of these problems. (Riley)

(Q34) My own work is related to the application of artificial intelligence in government, which will hopefully prevent many potential negative developments. (Mason)

Other students wrote that they would like to “solve a major problem” or “develop society” through technology, for example by “inventing something brilliant”. These typically brief units are very clear about one’s wish to influence the world through technology, and in Mason’s quite interesting case (Q34), not necessarily by simply inventing, advancing or applying technology but by steering sociotechnical change in a responsible, risk-aware way.

5 Discussion

5.1 Principal Findings and Implications for Science Education

In this study, we have analysed a non-representative sample of students’ images of technological futures. Based on our analytical framework, we have identified how students’ depictions of future sociotechnical change relate to the transformative capacity of technology (the extent of sociotechnical change), how students may problematise future technology and who is implicated as having agency over sociotechnical change.

In the first of these dimensions, we showed that students’ images of the future contained sociotechnical changes ranging from negligible advances in everyday devices to fundamental changes in society. Radical changes took many forms: automation of industries, hedonistic lifestyles, mind-reading machines and so on. Similar technological changes were paired with differing societal shifts, and changes framed from somewhat incremental to notably radical were sometimes discussed as straightforward progress and sometimes as more complex. This indicates that images of the future may discuss discontinuities (e.g. major shifts in how societies are organised) as well as extrapolations of the present. However, from the perspective of Vision III scientific literacy, there may be need to more explicitly address radical possibilities and risks, challenging business-as-usual scenarios and to elicit students’ values (see e.g., Hodson, 2011).

Our analysis also shows how some students integrated into their images of the future perspectives of technology as socially constructed or problematic. For example, students imagined futures where biotechnology and its applications advance with great caution but with positive results, cities where technology is used widely while not “doing everything” or overpowering nature and states which maintain and ensure web privacy and security in the midst of further digitalisation. This notion has critical implications for the construction of student agency. The problematisation of sociotechnical change, or employing a view of technology as socially constructed, makes technology deeply relevant for value-based action, shifting focus from mere engineering challenges to questions about stakeholders, tradeoffs and deliberation. Furthermore, these views expand technological agency onto the public discourse, corresponding more strongly not only with “science for all” scientific literacy (Vision II) but also socio-political action (Vision III; see Sjöström & Eilks, 2018).

Finally, our analysis revealed that in this context, students’ discussion of agency over sociotechnical change related mostly to more or less ambiguous collective agency. However, students also constructed narratives of specialised experts contributing to the betterment of societal circumstances, e.g. by creating new medicinal innovations through quantum chemistry. Some students also depicted themselves as agents of sociotechnical change, either as experts or active, critically thinking nonexpert citizens. For the development of future-oriented science education, it may be useful to more explicitly address these “modes” of collective and individual agency. For example, pedagogies could emphasise the systemic nature of sociotechnical change to subvert “lone inventor” narratives, while simultaneously addressing the role of individuals and helping students to find and create roles where they can influence the future. Here, students’ general beliefs about (sociotechnical) agency should be taken into consideration (see e.g., Angheloiu et al., 2020).

We have also demonstrated that patterns in students’ thinking, depending on both the student and the specific issue, may indicate perceptions of science and technology as value-free and nonproblematic, even in the case of disruptively radical sociotechnical change. However, students are also capable of constructing complex sociotechnical imaginaries or scenarios that problematise technology and call for active participation. Such constructions may typically involve seeing steering sociotechnical change as a collective activity, which leaves experts’ and nonexperts’ (and, in both cases, one’s own) agency ambiguous. Even so, images of the future offer insight into how agency and transformation can intertwine in a student’s futures thinking. For this reason, we argue that students’ images of the future have untapped potential for science education research and practice. In our view, images of the future are an integral part of students’ conceptions and scientific literacy in their own right, but also serve as a context for students’ socioscientific sense-making. For example, they seem to reveal different perceptions about the nature of sociotechnical change, an issue less explicitly addressed in, e.g. STSE research (see Pedretti & Nazir, 2011).

For the development of science pedagogies and science teacher education, the results also imply the need to address and imagine the future as different from the present, with this including radical transformations. However, as we have argued, expectations of fantastic progress or naïve “technological fix” are also problematic, emphasising the goal of learning to assess the extent or systemic effects of sociotechnical change (see Section 4.1). Secondly, our results indicate significant need to develop pedagogies and teacher skills that build students’ individual and collective agency. Here, future-oriented socioscientific thinking should be linked with values, choices, expertise and democratic citizenship. After all, in our analysis, it was often in conjunction with problematising imagined sociotechnical futures that students perceived themselves as future-makers, identifying (attainable) expert or nonexpert roles in society.

This paper links to our previous analysis of the same dataset (Rasa & Laherto, 2022). However, the previous paper discusses only how the desirability of technological change is discussed in students’ images, especially lacking further discussion on agency. Here, we have argued and with our analysis illustrated that thinking about technology in the future, and understanding sociotechnical change, is central to (Vision III) scientific literacy. To develop transformative agency, students should develop skills for imagining different sociotechnical futures and connecting such futures with one’s own active participation. Indeed, if students are to take steps toward becoming science-literate, active citizens, they should claim some degree of “ownership of the future” (Facer, 2012). Here, going beyond science education that merely “‘points out’” ethical dilemmas or controversies” (Zeidler et al., 2005, p. 359) requires not only addressing how we orient ourselves towards the future, but also how we regard the structures that facilitate sociotechnical change. This is a challenge, as it goes against the inclination of presenting technoscientific endeavours as objective and value-free (see Hodson, 2003; for an example, consider the case of genetics in Galamba & Matthews, 2021). From that perspective, the ability to address the desirability of a change is also necessary.

5.2 Conclusions

Our results echo various current trends and challenges in education as well as proposals to respond to these challenges using future-oriented pedagogies. For example, futures thinking is central to sustainability: instead of treating the future of the planet as a “distant colonial outpost” (Häggström & Schmidt, 2021, p. 3), detaching ourselves from our images of the general future (Threadgold, 2012) or simply coping with distress (Ojala, 2012), we should address the “lack of imagination” for sustainable futures (Angheloiu et al., 2020, p. 1) and develop thinking tools for the Anthropocene (Gilbert, 2016). In our data, we see students discussing technology as a source of large-scale solutions (e.g. green tech) as well as new problems (alienation, unemployment). It seems advisable for science educators to be cognisant of the role of science education in responding to such challenges and developing these “thinking tools”.

There exists some evidence that people can change how they relate to the future (Miller, 2018; Rasa et al., 2022). Accordingly, some have argued that in our uncertain times, students should be prepared for many vastly different futures: treating the future as a singular “something” narrows down our visions and actions (Gilbert, 2016; Häggström & Schmidt, 2021). As an example, in an analysis of students’ experiences on a science course on futures thinking and quantum computing (Rasa et al., 2022), students reported on learning to think more openly and more hopefully about the future and technology, especially through futures thinking techniques and a sense of collective agency.

Thus, there is potential in employing various modes and epistemologies of futures thinking (see e.g., Mangnus et al., 2021) in (science) education: practicing foresight as a socioscientific thinking skill, dealing with uncertainty (see e.g., Rasa et al., 2022) and opening up one’s imagination for alternatives seem equally worthwhile. Here, using narratives, metaphors and science fiction-inspired pedagogies may also be useful (for each case, see e.g., Liveley et al., 2021; Ylipulli et al., 2017; de Oliveira Moraes et al., 2021). In fact, work on tackling contemporary challenges in science education through futures pedagogies, reflection on narratives and transdisciplinarity is currently carried out in the Horizon 2020 funded FEDORA project (fedora-project.eu ).

Conceptually, if the way we perceive the future draws the boundaries for how we perceive opportunities for agency, and if the way we see the future is outlined by our “anticipatory assumptions” (Miller, 2015), then the otherwise implicit concept of future becomes central to promoting Vision III scientific literacy. In our view, promoting SL is not simply about preparing students to make individual judgements, but also engaging in “a dialogue with young people about the sorts of futures they might wish to see emerge” (Facer, 2012, p. 99). After all, education should take seriously “the reality that young people will have to live in the future with the real consequences of decision taken today about socio-technical developments” (ibid., p. 97).

On a broader level, the prevalence of technology in futures thinking has its own implications for the somewhat unresolved tension between technology and science in science education research. We argue that aspects of young people’s images of (socio-techno-scientific) futures could be addressed more deeply in science education, and that such issues relate strongly to scientific literacy. However, there is room for work on how futures thinking relates to scientific concepts, skills and the overall science curricula, so as not to frame science merely as a prerequisite for technology (see e.g., Bybee, 2000). Nevertheless, identifying and addressing students’ ideas and conceptions as well as their hopes and fears regarding technology contributes to understanding students’ attitudes towards scientific and technological careers and their notions of the relevance of STEM subjects, i.e. what is valued as knowledge (Lloyd & Wallace, 2004). Future-oriented frames seem to bring some of this relevance to the forefront. From the educator’s point of view, if scientific literacy is seen as a civic skill, facilitating open-ended thinking about sociotechnical change relates to promoting responsible research and innovation (Laherto et al., 2018) as well as what Bijker (2001, p. 21) calls the goal of “understanding, politizing and democratizing technological culture” (see also Hodson, 2003).

Furthermore, as Hurd (1998, p. 409) has long since argued, “a valid interpretation of scientific literacy must be consistent with the prevailing image of science and the revolutionary changes taking place in our society”. Thus with this paper, we call for a reexamination of the concept of scientific literacy: What is the role of long-term thinking, anticipation, imagination and future perceptions in SL? How does SL address the common association between scienceand technology and futures, be they dystopian, utopian or somewhere in between? The role of futures needs to be transformed from “a tacit background for educational action” into “an active resource to be used proactively” (Poli, 2021, p. 4). After all, as the incredible advances in science and technology over recent decades have shown us, it matters greatly for individuals and societies to nurture scientific knowledge and methods, but to also wield such knowledge with caution. It seems similarly wise for science education to promote mature, long-term responsibility alongside creativity and wonder to ensure a sustainable future of science and technology.