Educating to Inhabit Futures: Seeding a Critical Culture of Digital Innovation Among New Generations in the AI Era

Educating to Inhabit Futures responds to the urgent challenge of preparing young people not just to navigate a rapidly changing digital world, but to critically engage with and shape it. In an era defined by artificial intelligence, robotics, and accelerating technological change, this book reframes innovation as a cultural and ethical project—one grounded in critical thinking, futures literacy, and collective responsibility. Blending theory and practice, the volume explores how futures thinking can be embedded in education to empower students to question dominant narratives, explore multiple possibilities, and imagine just, inclusive, and sustainable digital futures. With a particular focus on schools, this book highlights anticipatory pedagogies—such as backcasting and speculative design—and provides real-world examples of how these approaches can be integrated into formal curricula. The authors argue that fostering a critical digital innovation culture requires more than technical training; it demands systemic thinking, ethical imagination, and educational practices that make space for dialogue, care, and creativity. Contributions from educators, researchers, and designers offer conceptual insights, methodological tools, and case studies from across disciplines—including science education, AI ethics, and civic technology. This book is a vital resource for educators, policymakers, and researchers seeking to equip the next generation with the awareness and agency needed to engage with digital transformation—not passively, but as active co-creators of the future. It invites a shift from adapting to change to inhabiting complexity with vision, courage, and care.