This is the “factual” portion of our presentation--what we already know about the issue. Of course, facts only exist in either the past or the present. There are no future facts. Nevertheless, we use these facts to forecast what the future might be like given what we now know. As you will see, we do not forecast just one future, as many people do, but rather a set of alternative futures. The alternatives are based on the facts plus some alternative assumptions about what might happen in the future. That is the unique approach that futurists take—not one future, but many—but still based on facts and assumptions.

We have chosen to enter the Things to Know as a list—a Top 10 list, if you will--rather than long discursive explanations. That way the fact stands out, and teachers and students can use them individually, or in sets or as a whole.


Quantities

The first section of Things to Know is about the numbers. Different cultures describe their world in different ways. Our society uses lots of numbers. Understanding the numbers on an issue gives us some idea of how big it is, particularly compared to other issues, how fast it is changing, and how big it could be in the future. Understanding the issue is more than a numbers game, as you will see later, but it’s a good place to start.

Numbers by themselves, however, really don’t tell us very much. A billion of this and a trillion of that—what does it really mean? Numbers need comparisons in order to be meaningful. Therefore, we recommend making three types of comparisons--some of which are explicitly stated here, others might be left for students to look up.

• Comparisons across categories – comparing the number in one category with the number in another category or with the whole. Using immigration again, is 45 million Hispanic residents in the United States a lot? Hard to answer as a simple number, but when we say it is 15% of the total U.S. population or about 20% compared to the number of non-Hispanic White residents, we know it is large, but not as large as the White population is.
• Comparisons across space – comparing the U.S. number with the same number from other countries or with the world as a whole. The Hispanic population is not as large as the White population within the U.S., but it is the third largest Hispanic population in the world, behind Brazil and Mexico, but ahead of Spain and Argentina.
• Comparisons across time – comparing the present number with past and future numbers. So the Hispanic population numbered about 22 million in 1990 compared to 45 million today a change from 9% to 15% of the total U.S. population—a pretty rapid rise in only 18 years.

These figures can be used in math, history and social studies classes to give students a sense of the problem from a numerical point of view


Structures

This category describes how the world of that issue is put together. Every issue exists in a structure of laws, regulations and other arrangements of all types. While these can change, they are what guides and constrains people’s behavior in the short-run at least. Understanding these structures and how they might or might not change is important to understanding the future of issue.

The most important structures in immigration are probably the laws governing immigration to the country. The original law, up to 1964, based immigration on family reunification. Once one person from another country was here, they could then bring other family members here as well. That structure gave priority to European immigrants since they were the vast majority of immigrants at the time.

The law changed in 1964, however, to allow people from other countries to immigrate as well. That change allowed for much greater immigration from Latin America and Asia, which make up the bulk of immigrants today. Structures do matter in understanding the future of an an issue.

It is important for students to understand that structures form many of the rules by which a society approaches a given issue. These issues act like an urban landscape with freeways, roadblocks, green lights and traffic that a driver will need to deal with in order to reach a chosen destination and sometimes, despite the best of intentions, we just never reach it or might be forced to seek alternative routes.


Stakeholders

The future is influenced by more than just numbers and laws, of course. People also influence the future. So who are the people influencing the future of this issue? And most importantly, how much influence do they have and what do they want to see happen? Stakeholders have to contend with the numbers just like everyone else, but they are pushing the issue one way or the other, and their combined influence will partially determine what is going to happen.

Studying the websites and positions of these stakeholders, looking for what they think about the issue and what they are doing about it, would be a good student research project. Even a role play might give students insight into the issue from a perspective that they might not be used to.