Abstract:

Educational discussions towards the Anthropocene started two decade ago and are spreading quite fast around different countries and communities. Even though the beginning of Anthropocene - a new phase of the Earth’s history - announced by Paol Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer (2000) is still under discussion (Colebrook, 2016, 2019; Haraway, 2019), however the scholars agree that it expose consequences of capitalistic progress leading to total destroy of the planet (climate worming, ocean acidification, extinction of species etc.). Scientists pay a lot of attention concerning further perspectives of the human and planet Earth. Prognosis of the future of education also occupies thinking of educational scholars, practitioners, and politicians (Facer, Sandford, 2009, Cole, 2012, White, 2020, Chermack et all, 2020).

Guides of the official educational policy, which should give the directions and values for the future are often criticized and questioned, finding in their roots the cooperation with capitalistic commercialism and acting towards further intervention of the rhythm of planet Earth. New competencies as well as methods and content often work for strengthening of “green” capitalism, further competitions, and commodity (Cole, Bradley, 2018; Kouppanou, 2020, Jagodzinski, 2018, Snaza, 2018). On the other hand, it is evident, that new educational policy can become strong tool to change people and first of all students’ thinking and values through the education in the time of Anthropocene. As David Abram (2017) states: “Sooner or later, that is, technological civilization must accept <…> varied contours and rhythms of a more-than-human earth”, meaning closer cooperation with a nature instead of technologies (161-162).

If the target of education is children and their future, can we ensure new conception of being and thinking through the educational documentation? For this purpose the authors of the paper analyze policy documentation of international organizations that have a significant role in global educational governance - UNESCO and OECD. The examination of selected future-projected documents is conducted as a qualitative conceptual analysis. This methodological choice is motivated by a constructivist perspective on concepts, emphasizing their contested, controversial, and transforming nature (e.g. Koselleck 2002; Guzzini 2005) and combining with a posthumanist perspective (Braiddoti, 2013, Snaza, 2014). The analysis of the education policy documentation focuses on the performance of different concepts related to the Anthropocene: human agency, non-human, more-than-human, becoming-with and some other concepts. Documentation analysis let us to diagnose what theoretical implications and projections have been done already and how differently they appear in OECD and UNESCO documents for the future of education.

Keywords:

Anthropocene, education, future, human agency, non human, more than human.