Culture, Heritage and Learning Futures is a 10-credit elective course on the MSc in Education Futures programme at EFI. It has now run twice, in 2022 and 2023, with a total of 53 participants from three different programmes: Education Futures, Creative Industries, and Narrative Futures. The course, led by Dr Jen Ross, examines the role of cultural heritage in developing rich futures for lifelong learning – drawing on speculative method and heritage and anticipation studies. The course engages with lifelong learning themes of learning in later life, young people and social activism, and workplace learning.

The assignment for the course takes the form of a ‘story from the future‘. Each story assignment builds on at least one key issue in informal and lifelong learning, some heritage materials, and the speculative methods students engaged with during the course. Students are asked to bring their knowledge together with their creativity to tell a speculative story about what lifelong learning could be like in the future. Their story needs to show the influence of literature on lifelong learning, and include at least one cultural heritage object in a substantive way.

This exhibition of stories show some of the brilliant ways students have responded to this assignment brief. Students from the course were invited to include their story in the exhibition, and the stories here are ones that people wanted to share with a broader audience. Please note that the versions here may not be identical to the ones that were assessed for the course.

2023 stories:

2022 stories:

If you have any questions about the course or these stories, please contact the course organiser, Jen Ross.