Urban Education Dystopia, 2050: A Response from North America

In his dystopia, Luke examines some contemporary conditions of urban life that might be harbingers of urban life and urban education in the mid-century. Drawing on science fiction because it offers “possible worlds for which there are plausible traces, precursors, necessary conditions and indeed, nascent cultural and political economies,” he deploys Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) to illustrate one possible scenario.

To be sure this dystopia addresses several of the major social and ethical issues – a dual system of schools for rich and poor, the corporatization of schooling, an over reliance on scientific and technological solutions – that confront contemporary life and may foreshadow life in urban communities and by extension urban education. While a useful heuristic, the commentary overlooks some of the major historical forces that have shaped contemporary education, urban life, and urban education and by coupling the concept of urban to a fixed geographic location, disregards some of the patterns that point to much more likely complex and nuanced outcomes.