Future

From the beginning of time, humans have been driven by both a fear of the unknown and a curiosity to know. We have always yearned to know what lies ahead, whether threat or safety, scarcity or abundance. Throughout human history, our forebears tried to create certainty in the unknown, by seeking to influence outcomes with sacrifices to gods, preparing for the unexpected with advice from oracles, and by reading the stars through astrology. As scientific methods improve and computer technology develops we become ever more confident of our capacity to predict and quantify the future by accumulating and interpreting patterns form the past, yet the truth is there is still no certainty to be had. In this Very Short Introduction Jennifer Gidley considers some of our most burning questions: What is "the future "?; Is the future a time yet to come?; Or is it a utopian place?; Does the future have a history?; Is there only one future or are there many possible futures? She asks if the future can ever be truly predicted or if we create our own futures - both hoped for and feared - by our thoughts, feelings, and actions, and concludes by analysing how we can learn to study the future. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

We task fewer industries to think about the future than we ask from education. In societies where constant change is the norm, schools today must prepare students to be successful in environments and contexts that may differ greatly from what we experience today. But, are we really thinking about the future? With contributions from four continents, this book reveals a ‘snapshot’ of some of our best thinking for building new education futures. Diverse experiences, visions, and ideas are shared to help spark new thinking among educators and policymakers, provoke conversation, and facilitate new ideas for meeting human development needs in a rapidly transforming world. Edited by John W. Moravec Chapters authored by: Leona Ungerer; Lisa B. Bosman, Julius C. Keller, & Gary R. Bertoline; Audrey Falk & Russell Olwell; Silvia Cecilia Enríquez, Sandra Beatriz Gargiulo, María Jimena Ponz & Erica Elena Scorians; Robert Thorn; Erling N. Dahl, Einar N. Strømmen & Tor G. Syvertsen; John W. Moravec & Kelly E. Killorn; Pekka Ihanainen; Stefania Savva; Gabriela Carreño Murillo; Erik Miletić

Climate change and ecological instability have the potential to disrupt human societies and their futures. Cultural, social and ethical life in all societies is directed towards a future that can never be observed, and never be directly acted upon, and yet is always interacting with us. Thinking and acting towards the future involves efforts of imagination that are linked to our sense of being in the world and the ecological pressures we experience. The three key ideas of this book – ecologies, ontologies and mythologies – help us understand the ways people in many different societies attempt to predict and shape their futures. Each chapter places a different emphasis on the linked domains of environmental change, embodied experience, myth and fantasy, politics, technology and intellectual reflection, in relation to imagined futures. The diverse geographic scope of the chapters includes rural Nepal, the islands of the Pacific Ocean, Sweden, coastal Scotland, North America, and remote, rural and urban Australia. This book will appeal to researchers and students in anthropology, sociology, environmental studies, cultural studies, psychology and politics.

Agriculture, mining and related rural industries have been central to the development of Australia’s economy. This book details the role that the Australian Government has played in the making of rural and regional Australia, particularly since World War II. The book reviews these policies and evaluates them with regards the commitments undertaken by the Government to contribute towards vibrant, rural communities. Policy areas addressed include agriculture, water, education, welfare and population, natural resource management, resource extraction, Indigenous and affairs, localism, rural research and regional innovation, Youth Affairs and the devolution of regional governance. Overall two distinct policy strategies can be observed: one wherein the government saw its role as part of the entrepreneurial state and a sector wherein government has increasingly taken itself out of industry development, leaving this role to the market. Having considered these strategies and their impacts, the book concludes that policy over the past 40 years has not in fact contributed to a more vibrant, prosperous rural and regional Australia. Rural and Regional Futures concludes with several chapters looking to the future. One chapter explores what the role of the state can be within a social market economy while the final chapter gives consideration to the initial steps rural communities will need to take to begin the process of revitalisation. While these materials present as a case study of developments in Australia, the policy shift from the Government as entrepreneur to a focus on markets is an international one and as such, the insights offered by this book will have wide appeal.

Includes data for cotton, frozen concentrated orange juice, potatoes, wool, and imported frozen fresh boneless beef.

Get up-to-speed with some of the biggest challenges facing New Zealand with this bundle of high-profile BWB Texts. These four works are combined into one easy-to-read e-book, available direct and DRM-free from our website or from international e-book retailers. Seventy-five years after Labour’s social security reforms of the 1930s, Paul Dalziel and Caroline Saunders argue in Wellbeing Economics it is time for a major shift in New Zealand’s economic perspective. In Growing Apart, Shamubeel Eaqub highlights the changing economic fortunes of people in different parts of New Zealand – the growing gaps between our regions. Max Rashbrooke’s The Inequality Debate provides a succinct introduction to income inequality in New Zealand using the latest data. The meaning of The Piketty Phenomenon for New Zealand is explored by a diverse range of economists and commentators addressing the relevance of Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’. BWB Texts are short books on big subjects by great New Zealand writers. Commissioned as short digital-first works, BWB Texts unlock diverse stories, insights and analysis from the best of our past, present and future New Zealand writing.

This updated third edition contains new chapters on important issues—including race, gender, sexuality, and multiculturalism—affecting social studies education.