Between personal futures and the future of the world: young people’s perceptions, sustainability and agency in the ‘Ambassadors of the Future’ project

Abstract

This paper presents the first results of the new administration of the questionnaire “Views of the Future – Youth, Volunteering, Sustainability”, carried out within the Ambassadors of the Future project. In continuity with a pilot study on future perception, the analysis focuses on closed items concerning personal and collective/planetary futures and on three open-ended questions about the imagined future of the self, Italy and the world. The sample includes 459 upper secondary school students. Quantitative data show a more positive perception of personal future than of collective/planetary future. Open answers reveal imaginaries marked by individual planning, social uncertainty, environmental concern and intermittent trust in change. The findings are discussed from a pedagogical perspective, considering sustainability as a space for reconnecting subjective agency and collective responsibility.