This has nothing to do with the article. I just thought I needed a picture of our remarkable Icelandic football team on the site.

I’m involved in a European project that has to do with integrating social innovation in higher education so that learners understand how innovations can be made to benefit society (the website is forthcoming). Obviously, one of the things I’ve needed to do is to wrap my head around this concept of social innovation. I know that the basic idea is that an innovation is a social innovation when it provides some sort of benefit to society and not just the innovator. But, being an academic sort, I want a more formal definition; one that provides clear criteria that allow me to discern specifically when an innovation is a social innovation and when not. Also, being an educator, it would help to have examples relating to education. I found both of these on Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation website. But, I also discovered a problem.

When dealing with new concepts, I like to take a Popper-ian approach, i.e. to look for counterexamples that demonstrate the falsifiability of a claim involving the concept in question. So, if I’m trying to understand what a social innovation in education is, it helps to identify an innovation in education that is not a social innovation. What I have found, however, is that there is no such counterexample because, according to definitions of social innovation, all educational innovations are social innovations. Therefore, the concept of a social innovation in education is redundant and not necessary since it has no explanatory value beyond the concept of a simple innovation. In this article I’m going to explain how I have come to this conclusion and why not everyone will agree with me.

Here is an oft quoted definition of social innovation (one of the most commonly quoted as per Google Scholar) that appears on Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation (CSI) and was previously published in their journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR). A social innovation is:

“A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals.”

We have some clear criteria here:

1. The innovation is novel.
2. The innovation is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions.
3. The value created accrues primarily to society.

Some of these criteria apply generally to the innovation part. First: an innovation is novel for its context. That is, an innovation is a new process, product or idea for the situation into which it is introduced. This latter part is important because an innovation may be familiar in other contexts, but transferring it into another context is new. Second: an innovation makes something better. If we are worse off with the a new idea than we were before, then it’s not an innovation. The specific values that are stated in the definition above are somewhat tailored to social innovations, especially the last two. These speak to the expectation that a social innovation benefits society in some way. I’ve underlined “or” in the second criteria just to emphasize that an innovation need only meet one of these expectations, but can meet more. The third criteria is specific to social innovation, i.e. that the value created by the innovation accrues primarily to society rather than a business or individual. This does not preclude benefit to businesses or individuals but merely says that the primary intended outcome is some sort of social good.

What prompted me to write this article is that one of the illustrative examples of social innovation described on the CSI website is charter schools. This struck me as rather odd: how does the transfer of public funds to private parties for the purpose of providing educational opportunities qualify as a social innovation? The claim is that charter schools make it possible to address problems with mass education in new ways and thereby create value, i.e. better educated people, that accrues to society. I see a lot of problems with this example that go all the way down to the level of the definition of the problem, but I’m not going to get into that here. My task for now is simply to try to find examples that illustrate both sides of the equation, the non-social innovation in education and the social innovation in education.

Let’s consider an example. Say that I’ve started an innovative high school with a 6.5 year program, and, yes, this is meant to be somewhat problematic. Now, let’s apply the criteria:

1. Novelty: I don’t know of anyone who has a 6.5 year high school program. The idea is new to my context. So, we’re good here.
2. Makes something better…: Here, things get a little tricky. My 6.5 year high school program only qualifies as an innovation if it makes something better. In and of itself, the fact that my program is a whole 2.5 years longer than traditional high school programs, which is new as far as I know, does not qualify as an innovation unless it provides benefits that shorter programs do not. In fact, many would likely say that my program is worse than what already exists because it takes much longer and, thus, does not qualify as an innovation, social or not. So, for arguments sake, let’s say that my program provides better learning outcomes and is more flexible, providing easier access for some disadvantaged learners. That gives me a double-whammy: I score on effectiveness and justness.
3. Social value: Here we have to pause because this depends entirely on how we view the products of an education…

There are two opposing views on the nature of the value of education; education is considered either (and these are mutually exclusive) a private or public good (I’ve described these concepts in previous posts and will not dwell on them here, click on the link for more. And, if you understand Icelandic, you can read my argument regarding education specifically as a private or public good here).

The first, education as a private good, sees education as a personal investment that primarily benefits the learner. According to this view, you (the learner) purchase a product (an education), consume it (attend school), and the outcome (your knowledge) is your’s to do with as you please. You may sell it to the highest bidder (get a good job), toss in a drawer and forget about it (get a lousy job) or give it away. Your choice.

The second, education as a public good, sees education as an investment that society makes for the benefit of the greater good. According to this view, the society as a whole benefits from educating its people, even when it’s not able to education them all to the same level. You benefit from having educated neighbors that are capable of making informed decisions at election time. You also benefit from having educated neighbors that will create and/or provide new services and products that you will consume. And so on…

I tend toward the latter. No, that’s an understatement. Let’s say, instead, that I am convinced that the latter is true. And I’m willing to argue that point with anyone who disagrees in the comment section below.

Now, back to our third criteria: Does my 6.5 year high school program create value that accrues to society? If education is a public good then, yes. My program provides better education for more learners and since any education benefits society as a whole, it is a value that accrues to society. If education is a private good then this will not necessarily be the case. But, as I’ve already mentioned, I am convinced that education is a public good. Therefore, the value created by my 6.5 year high school program does accrue to society. Thus, it is a social innovation, right?

Here is the problem with social innovations in education. To qualify as an innovation in education, a new idea needs to provide some educational benefits. That ultimately means that the innovation makes it possible to educate more people better. If education is, as I believe it to be, a public good, then the value created by education always accrues to society. Thus, any innovation in education qualifies as a social innovation. If all innovations in education are social innovations then there is no counterexample to prove that an innovation is indeed a social innovation nor is there any need for the distinction that the two categories, i.e. innovation vs. social innovation, is intended to make. The only way to make a case for a social innovation in education as being distinct from another type of innovation is if we accept that education is a private good that tends to accrue to the individual rather than society. That would potentially provide us with a counterexample, i.e. an example of an innovation in education that is not a social innovation.

So, why is this a problem? The problem is that there’s something wrong with the way that social innovation is being defined that can lead to at least a couple of things that I find concerning. First, we don’t want the concept of social innovation to become a means of glorifying whatever anyone wants to do, like I think has happened with the concept of corporate social responsibility. Many businesses have used the concept of corporate social responsibility to justify questionable practices. Like, “We’re not passing out free branded bicycle helmets to children for advertising, it’s corporate social responsibility.” If it’s social responsibility, why does it have to be branded? Something similar could happen with social innovation, especially when the innovation has something to do with education because any innovation that has some connection to education can be defined as a social innovation. For example, “Our new high risk, high interest student loans aren’t a moneymaking scheme, they’re a social innovation that can increase education levels in society.” Second, if any innovation in given context is a social innovation, it diminishes the power of the concept to promote positive change. If all innovations are, by definition, social innovations, there’s no incentive to change the way things are done.

Discuss…

The recent Pokémon Go rage has brought a lot of attention to the possibilities for using augmented reality (AR) in teaching and learning. This is great and very welcome. AR has a lot of obvious potential for enhancing teaching and learning, and not only that, I think AR can have a transformative impact as well. But, for that to happen educators need to really dig into this technology and explore it from various perspectives.

This is a discussion that we could have started long ago. AR has been one of the most obviously predictable technological developments since smartphone technology really got going, first with the iPhone and then Google’s Android phones.

I first started exploring the possibilities of AR in education when I got my first smartphone in the late 00s. I think that my thoughts from then are still very relevant and could be helpful for the discussion that now seems to be emerging. So, here below are links to some of my articles from back then. I would especially like to see more discussion around the AR and “functional realities” theme:

Augmented reality and education
Prezi on AR in education
Learning in augmented reality: Extending functional realities
Shhh… My environment is talking to me

Installation piece by artist couple Eva & Adele. Photo by Ferdinand Feys

I recently attended a kick-off meeting for a new project, Partnership for Sustainable Development and Social Innovation (PASSION), that is meant to explore and address contemporary needs and challenges in higher education. In our kick-off meetings we read about and discussed various things such as competence frameworks and needs assessments. Here, I want to discuss two things in particular that came up in our meetings:

1. Competence frameworks for sustainable development education (SDE) – not surprisingly these are very similar to frameworks for foresight and futures education (FFE) but with some notable differences that I think could prove helpful to highlight.
2. Systemic elements of change – the framework introduced (but not much discussed) is similar to a framework that I have used in my teaching and work, but, again, with some notable, and I think helpful, differences.

While what follows here is more or less just me working my way through some of what I picked up at our kick-off meeting, I think it may also be helpful for our project, but also anyone involved with, or thinking about, sustainable development or foresight and futures in education.

A brief caveat, I haven’t yet received copies of all of the materials that were presented to frame our discussion at the meetings and am working from memory in some instances.

SDE competence framework

It’s not surprising that competence frameworks for SDE and FFE would be very similar. Both involve forward-looking endeavours that aim to address long-term needs and challenges. In fact, they are so similar that it begs the question, whether they are just two terms for essentially the same thing? Indeed, it’s happened that people that I have worked with have said to me that their “take” on foresight and futures is sustainable development, suggesting that the two are interchangeable. But, I don’t think they are interchangeable and clarifying some of the differences could be helpful for both SDE and FFE.

The SDE competence frameworks that I was introduced to over the past few days suggest some important differences between approaches and aims in SDE and FFE. One competence framework for SDE that was presented was developed by Wiek and others (see Source 1 (on Academia.edu, may require log in) and Source 2).

The primary components of the Wiek, et al framework are:
• Systems thinking competence
• Futures thinking (or anticipatory) competence
• Values thinking (or normative) competence
• Strategic thinking (or action-oriented) competence
• Collaboration (or interpersonal) competence

Wiek, et al’s competence model for sustainability education (Source).

Comparing SDE and FFE competence frameworks

Now, the similarities to FFE should be pretty obvious to anyone familiar with foresight and futures work. In fact, the SDE competences echo in many ways the essential aspects of the Association of Professional Futurists’ (APF) competence framework developed a few years ago by Andy Hines and his colleagues (keeping in mind however that the APF framework is a framework for working professionals, whereas the SDE framework is intended for education purposes – significant differences there). But, I want to go through the SDE competences and highlight some of the differences between it and what we would expect in FFE.

Starting with the Systems Thinking competence – this is spot on with FFE. In FFE, systems thinking is critical and informs pretty much everything else. In fact, I would (and often do) say that futures thinking is essentially just applying systems thinking to long-term change. I will discuss the systems thinking component of FFE some more below when I get into the systemic elements of change.

Second is the futures, or anticipatory, thinking competence, and here we start to see some differences. Whereas Wiek bundle a number of elements under anticipatory thinking, in the context of FFE a more fine-grained definition is common, and some might say, necessary.

In FFE we assume that there are different types of anticipatory knowledge, each of which requires different competences to work with. I generally differentiate between three types of anticipatory knowledge (I have seen a number of variations on this):
1. Possible futures – This includes all futures that we might imagine.
2. Probable futures – Is a subset of 1. and includes the futures that available evidence suggests are likely to occur.
3. Preferred futures – Another subset of 1. that likely overlaps (but not necessarily) with 2. and includes all of the futures that are considered to be most beneficial for those affected by the relevant change.

So, for example, let us consider the following:
1. Possible future – We could face an invasion by a superior alien race from outer space at some point in the future.
2. Probable future – It is unlikely that we would be invaded by anything from outer space because all evidence that we have today suggests that it would have to come from well beyond our solar system and space travel across such vast distances is not feasible for living beings.
3. Preferred future – We would rather not have to face such an invasion because the invaders might not recognise us sentient beings and inadvertently wipe us out.

The first, the Possible future, is really only limited by our imagination. If we’re thinking far enough ahead, then the old adage, “Anything is possible.”, really does hold a lot of truth. However, our imagination is somewhat more constrained the closer we move to our contemporary period. Thus, things are less likely to change from one day to another, whereas we should expect more significant change from, for ex. one decade to another, or one century to another.

The second, the Probable future, requires a more analytical approach. While everything may be possible in the future, not everything is as likely to occur. Probable futures are the products of our imagination, but we’ve whittled down the range of possible futures by considering the circumstances that would give rise to them and weighing the probability that each could be reasonably expected to occur.

The third, the Preferred future, arises from a more normative assessment of what is possible. Thus, preferred futures are the futures that logic and ethics suggest are feasible and desirable.

Each of these categories of futures require competences that are in many ways distinct to foresight and futures studies in the ways that they are applied. Possible futures requires that individuals be able to harness their creative talents to imagine and visualise events that have not (yet) occurred. Probable futures require analytical and skills to make inferences from available data about emergent changes and change forces in the environment. Preferred futures requires an understanding of ethics and how values evolve over time. Finally, as has been mentioned, all of the futures categories require an understanding of and capacity to apply systems thinking to considerations of how changes impact societies and environments.

There is some discernible overlap with SDE competences that is worth noting. Especially, aside from the critical role of systems thinking, is the normative element – what appears in the SDE framework as “Values thinking”. In FFE frameworks, this competence does not appear as a distinct category but rather is embedded in the concept of Preferred futures.

More notable, however, are the competences that are embedded in the FFE concepts of Possible and Probable futures that are not clearly outlined in the SDE framework. For Probable futures these are the analytical and logic skills needed to assess the feasibility of specific paths of change. Wiek et al seem to assume that these skills are encompassed by the Systems Thinking competences, but logic and systems thinking are quite different despite some similarities. Logic deals with the validity of propositions and assertions while systems thinking deals with the interconnectivity of things.

For Possible futures creativity is a key competence. Wiek et al seem hesitant to refer to creativity as a competence. We find references to creativity under the Anticipatory Thinking competence, but then qualified as “craft” or “crafting”. This, to me, is a gaping hole in the framework. Creativity is the cornerstone of any anticipatory thinking, which essentially involves imagining circumstances and events that have not occurred, and may never occur. Some may not agree that creativity is a competence, and indeed it is often described more as a trait than something that can be taught, learned, nurtured, and honed. But, I simply don’t agree with such positions, and I think that this is the general assumptions in relation to FFE. Applying creative talents is something that requires practice and work, and methods for doing that can be taught. Therefore, in FFE frameworks, creativity is included as a distinct competence that is more or less on a par with systems thinking, in terms of its relevance.

Having described what I see as key differences between SDE and FFE competence frameworks it’s useful to look at the two side by side:

The differences between the two are not great, but are, nonetheless, significant. Most significant is FFE’s Creative competence. In foresight and futures fields it is often said, “The future is not something that happens to us. It is something that we are constantly creating through all of our actions and decisions, whether they are individual or collective.” Working with futures is a creative process. It simply cannot be done without applied creativity. Also, I think it would be helpful for those in SDE fields to consider the finer granularity regarding Anticipatory competence that appears in FFE frameworks. At any time, when we look forward, there are infinite possible futures. They are not all the same, and working with the different types requires different skill sets.

Systemic change

The other point that I wanted to make here regards systems frameworks for analysing change looking towards the future. I do not have a reference for the framework that was suggested in our meetings but my understanding was that it is essentially represented as a triangle to demonstrate three forces that interact to moderate change: environmental, economic, and social.

But, here (again), I see a gaping hole. Where is technology? Technology is arguably the greatest driver of change in our societies and moderate other change forces in very significant ways. So, either we are not talking about a triangle, i.e. three axes, but rather a square, i.e. four axes; or we are talking about a triangle with three axes, but different values on the axes.

I have, indeed, used a triangle with three axes to model and analyse how three key change forces and moderators interact to produce (or resist) change. In my model the three axes are technology, environment, and socio-economic forces.

Some would want to separate the social and economic values, but I have yet to find a reason to do so. But, I am not an economist. I’m sure that there are those that would be happy to change my mind in this regard, and I invite them to do so. In the work that I have done I have simply found that, in general, the social and economic forces act together to moderate what people want and are willing to invite into their environment. Thus, for the sake of simplicity, I have modelled these as a single force.

Systemic model to explore how three key change forces promote or hinder change.

What my triangle represents is this: Opportunities for change are specific for individual contexts and are moderated by the forces on the three corners. These act as push/pull forces. The centre of the triangle is where change is most likely to occur. An object is evaluated for acceptability or resistance on each axis. As acceptability increases, the push force moves the object being evaluated towards the centre, indicating overall increased potential for change along that axis. Resistance, on the other hand, pulls the object from the centre, indicating overall decreased potential for change. Equal push forces will move the object to the centre of the triangle demonstrating the greatest potential for change, whereas uneven push/pull forces will offset the object. The offset object demonstrates less potential for change, but also indicates why the object being analysed is less likely to produce change.

Let’s look at an example and harness the benefit of hindsight. A lot of people remember Google’s Glass project. The aim was to develop eyewear that would grab data relevant to users from the Internet and project it into their field of vision in a way that it would interact with their perceived environment. To promote and test their product, Google launched a programme in which people in the US were invited to apply to be able to purchase advance issues of the glasses. If I remember correctly, about 2,500 people were carefully selected (they had to demonstrate relevance) to be able to purchase the glasses. Not surprisingly, the greatest numbers of individuals selected were in two areas in the US: Silicon Valley in CA, USA; and Seattle, WA, USA (area where Microsoft’s headquarters are). What happened next was quite interesting. Before anyone had even received their glasses, signs started popping up in Silicon Valley and Seattle restaurants, bars, and cafés banning said glasses – even though no-one had any, yet!

So, let’s use my triangle to see what happened:

Google Glass: Change forces promoting and resisting change.

What the triangle demonstrates is that technology-wise there was nothing hindering the adoption of Google Glass – the product was ready and about to ship. In terms of environmental impact, there was no significant resistance, i.e. the product was not perceived to threaten the environment in any way. However, on the social axis we see that there was considerable resistance (demonstrated by the bans that were put in place prior to distribution). This resistance was enough to offset the object (widespread Glass adoption) far from the centre of the triangle, indicating that change would be unlikely to occur. And, indeed, the project failed spectacularly and we have yet to see anything like widespread adoption of Glass or a similar product. But, change may again be nigh because attitudes change over time. I’m sure that the triangle would look very different if we did the same analysis today.

Using this tool, we could also model, for example, electric cars. I think in general we would see that there is currently little resistance on any of the axes. Electric cars are generally regarded as a good thing and are on a course to produce significant change in our societies. This might change in the future, however. Especially, I could imagine that resistance could grow on the environmental axis as concern grows regarding the resources needed to produce modern batteries and the environmental impact of gathering those resources. Thus, it is conceivable that the current rapid diffusion of electric cars could stall until new technologies are developed. We’ll see…

Summary

So, to sum up what I hope to have accomplished here:
SDE competence frameworks might benefit from examining better what has been done in FFE. FFE is, I believe, a field that has a longer history of development than SDE and, thus, has gone through more trial-and-error processes. Most important, is for SDE to clarify the role of creativity in their competence models and to better address different types of futures and the competences required to work with each.

Systems thinking is critical to both SDE and FFE, but it’s also exceedingly hard to do. Systems can be infinitely complex and wrapping our minds around them is very difficult. Therefore, it’s important that we start from well-reasoned positions. Obvious holes in our models are likely to cause immense problems in our analyses. Technology is, I believe, undeniably the greatest force driving change in all human endeavours. Overlooking it in systems models meant to represent human activity is akin to leaving the yeast out of beer – you’ll end up with something, but it won’t be beer. Likewise, without technology in human activity systems, you’ll end up with a model of some kind of activity, but will it be a human activity?