A Tale of Many Futures: Children in Finland and India Envision the Future of Education

Paper Title

A Tale of Many Futures: Children in Finland and India Envision the Future of Education

Publication Info

• Topic area: Participatory speculative design in educational technology futures.
• Keywords: Speculative design, participatory design, child-computer interaction, cross-cultural comparison, educational technology, generative AI, virtual reality, social robots, pedagogical imaginaries, scaffolding.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Universalist approaches to educational technology design often overlook the situated cultural, institutional, and pedagogical contexts that shape technology use and acceptance. Existing speculative design research rarely incorporates perspectives from under-resourced educational settings.
• Significance: Understanding how children imagine the future of education can inform more context-sensitive, equitable, and pluralistic approaches to designing educational technologies.
• Motivation and related work: Prior work in HCI and CCI highlights the importance of culturally responsive design but often focuses on Global North contexts. This study builds on speculative design methodologies to explore how children in India and Finland envision educational futures, addressing gaps in cross-cultural and decolonial perspectives.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Participatory speculative design workshops with children aged 12–14 in Finland and India to explore their visions of future classrooms incorporating emerging technologies such as AI, VR, and social robots.
• Novelty:
  1. Methodological insights into scaffolding as a critical condition for speculative design.
  2. Demonstration of how institutional and pedagogical ecologies shape children’s imaginaries.
  3. Comparative analysis of situated imaginaries across contrasting educational contexts.
  4. Contribution to decolonial and context-sensitive design practices in HCI and CCI.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Workshops included design fiction videos, technology demonstrations, and collaborative design activities.
  • Participants engaged with VR headsets, social robots, and generative AI tools.
  • Reflexive thematic analysis was conducted to identify themes within and across contexts, emphasizing the role of scaffolding and institutional conditions.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Finnish students envisioned technologically advanced yet human-centered classrooms emphasizing sustainability, wellness, and teacher indispensability.
  • Indian students prioritized emotional safety, fairness, and curricular choice, imagining robots as patient companions and AI as tools for empowerment.
  • Scaffolding significantly expanded speculative possibilities, with richer imaginaries emerging when design fiction prompts were provided.
• Advantage over baselines: Highlights the limitations of universalist design paradigms by demonstrating how local pedagogical ecologies shape technological imaginaries.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Workshops conducted with 92 students (45 in Finland, 47 in India) using hands-on technology demonstrations and speculative design activities.
  • Themes identified through iterative coding and comparative analysis, linking findings to theoretical frameworks in speculative design and socio-cultural HCI.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Limited to two countries and specific school contexts; findings are not generalizable.
  • Variations in scaffolding affected comparability; future studies should explore diverse speculative formats and contexts.
  • Did not analyze individual socio-economic or cultural backgrounds; future research could address these dimensions.

Summary

This study explores how children in Finland and India envision the future of education through participatory speculative design workshops. Findings reveal that children’s imaginaries are shaped by local pedagogical ecologies, institutional pressures, and the scaffolding provided during workshops. Finnish students emphasized sustainability and teacher indispensability, while Indian students focused on emotional safety and fairness. Scaffolding played a critical role in expanding speculative possibilities, underscoring the importance of context-sensitive design methodologies. By centering children’s voices, the study contributes to decolonial and pluralistic approaches in HCI and CCI, advocating for educational technologies that align with diverse lived experiences and values.