Three Educational Scenarios for the Future: lessons from the sociology of knowledge

This article draws on social realist approaches in the sociology of knowledge and in light of them constructs three scenarios for the future of education in the next decades. The primary focus of the article is on one of the most crucial questions facing educational policy makers — the relationship between school and everyday or common sense knowledge. The different possibilities for how the school/non‐school knowledge boundaries might be approached are expressed in three scenarios —‘boundaries treated as given’, ‘a boundary‐less world’ and the idea of ‘boundary maintenance as a condition for boundary crossing’. The curriculum implications of each are explored and the article makes the case for the third scenario. The factors likely to make one or other scenario dominate educational policy in the next 20–30 years are also considered.