David Hicks

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Biographical Information

"I began my professional career teaching geography in UK secondary schools before moving into initial teacher education in the mid-70s. This was at Charlotte Mason College of Education in the Lake District where I worked as a geographer in the environmental and social studies teams. It was at this time that I met Robin Richardson and was much influenced by his innovative work in global education.

"Following this I did an MSc and PhD with Paul Smoker who ran the Peace and Conflict Programme at the University of Lancaster. For the former I reviewed the nature of global perspectives in UK initial teacher education and for the latter explored the nature of racism in UK geography school textbooks. During the late 70s I was the first education officer for the Minority Rights Group based in London.

"As a result of this research and my interest in teacher education I set up two national initiatives in the 1980s at what was then St Martin's College of Higher Education, Lancaster (now part of the University of Cumbria). These were the Centre for Peace Studies and the World Studies 8-13 Project. During that decade this global education project worked with some fifty Local Education Authorities, half of the then total in England and Wales.

"In 1990 I set up the Global Futures Project based at the University of London Institute of Education in order to help students and teachers think more critically and creatively about the future. This project later moved to Bath Spa University and ran until the mid-90s. Subsequently I became professor in the School of Education at BSU where I taught on the Education Studies degree with a particular responsibility for modules on Education for Change, Education for the Future, Radical Education and Education for Sustainability. Currently I am a freelance educator."

Affiliations

• Editorial Board, Journal of Futures Studies