Hope in the Face of Uncertainty: The Value of Futures Literacy

date: February 18, 2026

What if we designed learning spaces where uncertainty became a catalyst for creativity, collaboration, and collective imagination? Young people across Canada are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety driven by economic instability, the climate crisis, polarization, and social isolation. These pressures are having profound mental health impacts, particularly for racialized and 2SLGBTQ+ communities (Mental Health Research Canada, n.d.). At the same time, the gap between what education offers and what young people need to prepare for the future continues to widen. Traditional education systems, designed for stability and predictability, often leave learners ill‑equipped to navigate a present—and future—marked by rapid change (Richardson, 2024). Aligned with efforts to decolonize teaching and learning, futures literacy helps bridge this gap by enhancing critical thinking, fostering a growth mindset, and expanding civic capacities. By engaging with uncertainty and emerging change, futures literacy encourages students to move beyond false certainty and singular narratives of progress toward more just and inclusive futures.

Why Futures Literacy

Futures literacy, as framed by UNESCO, is the ability to imagine, question, and use the future as a resource for understanding the present and for acting intentionally (UNESCO, n.d.). It involves identifying and questioning assumptions, interrogating dominant systems, and exploring trends and emerging changes. It can be integrated across disciplines. By anticipating change, futures literacy enhances the ability to prepare for and recover from change as it occurs. Futures literacy also reframes the present, engaging the imagination by exploring multiple narratives of the future and fostering adaptability and innovation.

Futures literacy encourages self-reflection by inviting us to explore how the futures we imagine reveal what truly matters to us now, and how we might live those values in the present. This process can foster community and comfort with complexity as students take ownership of their future and develop strategies to shape the future they want, thereby increasing feelings of hope (UNICEF, 2023). These are key components to resilience, which young people need to overcome long-term challenges and work toward individual and collective well-being. Creating spaces for youth to openly grapple with today’s challenges in a supportive environment not only strengthens key civic skills but also aligns closely with the skills identified as essential for employment. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report (2025), the core competencies include creative thinking, flexibility, curiosity, emotional intelligence, leadership, and social influence.

Futures Literacy and Decolonizing Education

Futures literacy can support the decolonization of teaching and curriculum by enabling educators and learners to critically examine how Western assumptions about progress and the future shape what is taught and valued, while creating space for Indigenous ways of knowing to inform collective possibilities (Battiste, 2013). Indigenous knowledge systems are inherently futures‑oriented, emphasizing long‑term stewardship of and accountability for the land and community and intergenerational responsibility (Peterson, 2025). Indigenous knowledge systems also challenge Western scientific dominance by offering plural worldviews that resist singular, linear narratives of the future. Indigenous futures thinking foregrounds community‑led, equitable co‑design, emphasizing, among others, ethics and reciprocity (Cheok et al., 2025), principles that strongly resonate with futures literacy’s learning‑by‑doing orientation and its use of lived experience, storytelling, and creative practices in sense‑making (Peterson, 2025). Together, futures literacy and decolonization shift curriculum away from reproducing Western assumptions and predetermined futures toward cultivating critical awareness, relational accountability, and the capacity to imagine plural, just futures.

Enhances Critical Thinking

Futures literacy can enhance critical thinking by incorporating the ability to navigate complexity and ambiguity. Critical thinking is typically defined as the ability to analyze, evaluate, and synthesize information and ideas through reasoned judgement. Although an important skill, it is necessarily focused on the present and often asks students to transcend their emotions and values. Being exclusively tied to present rationality can disable imagination and impede deep reflection on the value structure underlying current systems. Futures literacy brings creativity and imagination to critical thinking, as students move away from seeing the future as predetermined and instead engage with it actively; what is true now need not be what is true in the future. Working toward a long-term horizon can move them beyond present challenges, refocus them on shared futures, and open new and unforeseen opportunities (UNICEF, 2023).

One strategy to bring critical thinking skills into the future is to engage creatively with assumptions. This can be done by identifying current assumptions about a particular system, such as the housing system. For example, homeownership is a privilege, and rental costs vary by market and location. Then you can ask students to create a world in which the opposite of these assumptions is assumed to be true. New assumptions could include housing is a right and rental costs represent a percentage of a person’s income. This will encourage students to question how, why, and for whom society functions as it does. Another way to encourage taking a more distanced view of the present is to create a timeline of key events related to your topic that occurred over the last 100 years (UNICEF, 2023). Once these changes have been outlined, ask students to consider whose voices are represented and whose are omitted. Then ask what changes may be possible over the next 100 years, keeping in mind previously omitted voices. This kind of activity emphasizes how current decisions and perspectives shape our view of the future.

Supports a Growth Mindset

By valuing curiosity and creativity, futures literacy fosters a growth mindset, which is particularly critical at a time when learning must be understood as a lifelong process. In times of volatility and uncertainty, futures literacy helps students reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth, thereby building emotional resilience and confidence. It moves beyond seeing intelligence as a fixed trait by valuing determination and adaptability. Students who adopt a growth mindset are more likely to embrace difficult tasks, seek feedback, and improve their performance over time (APA, n.d.). Students become more engaged in their learning, take ownership of their progress, and are willing to try new strategies to solve problems. Believing that mistakes are an important part of the learning process, students with a growth mindset are more likely to take intellectual risks, experiment, and innovate—skills that are essential for success in a rapidly changing world. A growth mindset also encourages students to support each other and collaborate. By understanding that learning is a continuous journey, students with a growth mindset are better prepared to adapt to new situations, acquire new skills, and thrive beyond school.

A typical futures literacy activity that fosters a growth mindset is finding trends and exploring their possible implications. A trend is a shift in how something is done, understood, or experienced. It has a directional pattern that may increase or decrease with the potential to impact systems such as education, society, the economy, or technology (King & West, 2018). A current trend could be how artificial intelligence (AI) has increased the proliferation of misinformation – including videos – online. Once you have identified trends, you can use them as a starting point for getting students to think about the future by asking, “What if this trend continues?”. A plausible answer could be that if the trend of AI producing misinformation increases we may no longer be able to rely on online spaces to get reliable information. To push students’ thinking a follow-up question would be “Then what would happen?”. Students are encouraged to get creative as they might think of solutions or alternatives. For example, they might think about how to share reliable information, either through online spaces that block AI or local community hubs that are funded and bound to provide reliable information offline. You might also bring together different trends together. For example, students may point to the decrease in housing affordability as well as the increase in loneliness. If these two trends continue on their current trajectories, what could the future look like? Maybe alternative living arrangements, such as multi-generational households, co-living, and shared ownership would become the norm. By providing space to think through the implications of different changes, playing out different futures can help students feel more comfortable with uncertainty and optimistic about different possible scenarios.

Expands Civic Capacities

Enhancing critical thinking and a growth mindset through futures literacy may help address current challenges in civic education. While dialogue on controversial issues is recognized as a best practice in civic education it is still rare and the challenges are well documented, especially in time periods marked by perceptions of polarization. Futures literacy’s focus on working toward a shared future(s) can provide opportunities for dialogue that may feel safer—for both teachers and students—than directly engaging with current contentious events. By engaging in meaningful discussions about the world they want to live in, students can move beyond polarizing debates and take on the challenge of living together through a visioning process. Futures thinking necessarily engages participants with differing worldviews and requires that students seek to understand others’ standpoints. Regardless of differences, young people are likely to find at least one point of agreement. These departure points could include the desire to support themselves economically, access to clean air and potable water, and a sense of belonging within a community.

Defining a shared vision can be a catalyst for dialogue, providing young people with an opportunity to articulate their frustrations and grievances in the present while considering ways to address them over the long term. It provides a forum for discussing pressing issues that students face, including technological advancements, economic instability, polarization, climate change, and social isolation. Considering different perspectives, without seeking resolution, fosters empathy, inclusivity, and mutual understanding. The process also builds capacity for collective action on issues they care about, empowering school communities to co-create responses to uncertainty and to strengthen trust, collaboration, and a shared sense of agency. Seeking change in the world can be important for identity development, helping young people develop a sense of purpose and social connections (UNICEF, 2023). UNESCO’s Futures Literacy Laboratory (FLL) model offers a structured, participatory process in which students examine assumptions, reframe perspectives, and develop action pathways through the steps of reveal, reframe, rethink, and act (Transforming Climate Education, n.d.). FLLs also emphasize diverse ways of knowing and collective intelligence, creating a natural home for Indigenous future‑making practices. Finally, including educators, students, families, and community partners broadens perspectives and fosters collective agency and well-being.

Example Activities

200-Year Present Exercise: Students map historical events, reflect on their contemporary influence, and envision future possibilities shaped by emerging trends. Part of UNICEF: Designing a Youth-Centred Journey to the Future.
Finding Trends: Students gather information about how things change and uncover the possible changes that might affect the future. Part of Teach the Future’s Futures Thinking Playbook (King & West, 2018).
Three Horizons Framework: Students explore the future by organizing ideas into three stages—current realities, shared visions for the future, and pathways to innovation (Sharpe, n.d.). Summarized in the University of Waterloo’s Three Horizons Workbook.
Futures Literacy Labs: Structured workshops where students explore and challenge their assumptions about the future, culminating in action plans. Part of UNESCO: Futures Literacy Laboratory Playbook.
Make the Future Happen: Students tell the story of the transition between now and the future(s) that they have imagined. Part of a Futures Literacy Toolbox supported by the European Union’s Erasmus+ program.

Conclusion

Futures‑oriented learning offers a counter‑narrative rooted in connection, imagination, and responsibility. When learners are engaged in questioning, imagining and shaping collective futures, they gain practical skills for navigating change and a deeper sense of agency, purpose, and belonging. Futures literacy equips learners with essential capacities such as self‑awareness, sense‑making, collaboration, and perseverance—capacities that sustain well‑being and resilience in the face of ongoing change. While a broader transformation of education systems remains necessary, integrating futures literacy now provides a meaningful step toward preparing young people not only to cope with uncertainty but also to actively shape the futures they wish to inhabit. Embedding futures literacy in schools through interdisciplinary, intergenerational and community-centred project‑based learning offers a powerful and hopeful response to this uncertainty.

References

APA. (n.d.). Growth mindset classroom cultures. https://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/psychology-teacher-network/introductory-psychology/growth-mindset-classroom-cultures

Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Purich Publishing.

Cheok, J., van Velden, J., Fulton, E. A., Gordon, I. J., Lyons, I., Peterson, G. D., Wren, L., & Hill, R. (2025). Framings in Indigenous futures thinking: Barriers, opportunities, and innovations. Sustainability Science, 20, 613-633. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-024-01615-1

King, K. B., & West, J. R. (2018). The futures thinking playbook: What might the future be like and what can we do to shape it? CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Mental Health Research Canada. (n.d.). Generation under pressure. https://www.mhrc.ca/generation-under-pressure

Peterson, G. D. (2025). Indigenous futures thinking: Four approaches to imagining a better world. Stockholm Resilience Centre. https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-stories/2025-02-21-indigenous-futures-thinking-4-approaches-to-imagining-a-better-world.html

Policy Horizons Canada. (2024). Future lives: Uncertainty. Government of Canada.
https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/future-lives-uncertainty/pdf/Future_Lives_Uncertainty_EN.pdf

Richardson, W. (2024). Confronting education: A manifesto for complexity, chaos, and collapse. https://www.downes.ca/files/docs/Richardson.pdf

Sharpe, B. (n.d.). Three horizons. University of Waterloo. https://uwaterloo.ca/legacy-leadership-lab/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/3_horizons_report_-_v3.pdf

Transforming Climate Education. (n.d.). Tool 4.2: Growing futures literacy. https://transforming-climate.education/portfolio-item/opening-up-to-diverse-climate-resilient-and-regenerative-futures/tool-4-2-growing-futures-literacy/

UNESCO. (n.d.). Futures literacy. https://www.unesco.org/en/futures-literacy/about

UNICEF. (2023). Designing youth-centred journey to the future. https://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/designing-youth-centred-journey-future

World Economic Forum. (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025. https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2025/

Meet the Expert(s)

Dr. Nicole Fournier-Sylvester

Education Consultant

Dr. Nicole Fournier-Sylvester is an Education Consultant and Senior Research Advisor at the Canada Centre for Community Engagement and Prevention of Violence, which leads the Government of Canada’s efforts to prevent and counter radicalization to violence. With more than 20 years of experience in education and primary prevention, she has worked as a teacher, researcher, facilitator, manager, and consultant with organizations including the Global Centre for Pluralism, Policy Horizons, UNESCO, the OECD, and Project Someone. She holds a Ph.D. in Education and has a record of publications, presentations, and professional development on global citizenship education, dialogue facilitation, digital literacy, futures literacy, social polarization, and building resilience to hate.