What if compulsory schooling was a 21st century invention? A counterfactual study of future schooling

The design of compulsory schooling is a construct of the Industrial Revolution that has changed little over time. Many educational experts now believe schooling and the systems around schooling need major overhaul. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how futures methodologies may be utilised to create new models of schooling. The overall research question, “What if compulsory education was a 21st century invention?” was framed as a counterfactual problem and explored through a set of five papers in this thesis by publication. The first peer-reviewed paper describes findings from the systematic reviews of empirical studies comparing traditional and alternative approaches to instruction or assessment, as part of examining the potential for compulsory schooling to be redesigned. Counterfactual thinking and foresight strategy were utilised to identify sixteen weak signals for future practice. The second paper, a peer-reviewed book chapter, conceptualises possible models for a future system of compulsory schooling arising from an analysis of contemporary catalysts for remodelling. A comparative analysis of cities that have been designed utilising sustainable urban ecology concepts provides a springboard for exploring the impact of changing employment, economic, technological and social change on future schooling models by utilising anticipation as a futures approach. The third, fourth (peer-reviewed) and fifth (peer-reviewed) papers share findings from a modified Delphi process that sought responses from an expert panel to the overall research question, including what might be changed or lost in relation to (a) the purpose of schooling, (b) the role of teacher and learner, (c) physical design, and (d) system design. A framework of 29 Future School Elements and five scenarios have been distilled to inform future schooling models. Respectively, the papers describe (i) the use of participant developed scenarios to extend the traditional objective of seeking consensus using Delphi processes, (ii) a futures approach to policy making, and (iii) the use of backcasting to establish preferred futures for schooling.