2026-27 IBSC Action Research Program
Future Frontiers: Fostering Boys' Learning in the Forward-Thinking Classroom
Since 2005, the IBSC Action Research initiatives have provided opportunities for teachers to explore new trends in boys’ education and examine better ways of equipping boys with the skills required to navigate a changing world.
Thank you to everyone who applied for the 2026-27 cohort of action researchers. IBSC will notify all applicants with the status of their application by December 1, 2025.
"To prepare our education systems for what may come, we have to consider not only the changes that appear most probable but also the ones that we are not expecting." (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2020, p.3)
The need for forward-thinking classrooms has become increasingly urgent in a climate of technological advancements, shifting workforce demands, economic disruption, and global challenges such as climate change, geopolitical realignment, and social inequality (OECD, 2022; World Economic Forum [WEF], 2025).
The forward-thinking classroom is an adaptive learning environment that emphasizes deeper learning, student agency, and lifelong learning through flexible pedagogies focused on real-world problem solving, transliteracy, technology integration, and global competence (Fullan & Langworthy, 2014; OECD, 2022; Reimers, 2020; Schleicher, 2018; Scott, 2015). These pedagogies, alongside the facilitation of students’ foundational and specialized skills, foster transversal skills such as innovation; creativity; critical, analytical, and ethical thinking; collaboration; and digital and media fluency (OECD, 2020; Perkins, 2014; Scott, 2015; United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization [UNESCO], 2014).
Contemporary research underscores the importance of embedding future-focused skills in school curricula, highlighting that such skills foster higher levels of student engagement, motivation, and achievement (OECD, 2020). Furthermore, the OECD (2022) asserts that, beyond facilitating academic achievement, future-focused learning should be relevant to social participation both in and beyond school. To this end forward-thinking classrooms endorse social and emotional learning (SEL) as an avenue to support equity and ensure a holistic approach to student development by recognizing and responding to diverse needs, voices, and identities through culturally responsive and differentiated teaching, and by creating learning environments where all students feel safe, valued, and challenged (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020; OECD, 2018).
While the literature clearly demonstrates the significance of facilitating future-focused skills in the classroom, these skills must also apply to students beyond school, particularly regarding students’ readiness to participate in a shapeshifting global labor market (OECD, 2022; Pelletier et al., 2024; WEF, 2025). The WEF highlights that the skills most valued by employers include analytical thinking, resilience, flexibility, agility, technological literacy, leadership, curiosity, creativity, empathy, active listening, and lifelong learning. Within this skill set, the recognition of “soft skills”—a mix of transferable, interpersonal, and professional nontechnical skills—has particular relevance for educators in boys’ schools, with research in the Unites States highlighting that “women have a comparative advantage in tasks requiring social skills such as empathy, communication, emotion recognition, and verbal expression,” (Cortes et al., 2018, p. 17) and male participation rates in the “care sector” are declining despite very positive growth in the sector overall (Smith et al., 2025).
Forward-thinking classrooms nurture not only boys’ academic success and well-being but also their capacity to act critically, creatively, and ethically as lifelong learners. Successful applicants to the 2026–27 IBSC Action Research Program will consider how to create relevant, effective, and student-focused learning experiences that celebrate a forward-thinking classroom for boys. Possible research actions might focus on co-designed and/or collaborative learning, project-based learning, interdisciplinary inquiry, technology integration, flexible physical and virtual spaces, skills-based learning, assessment for learning, global awareness, entrepreneurship, and cultural competency.
References
Cortes, G.M., Jaimovich, N., and Siu, H.E. (2018), The "end of men" and rise of women in the high-skilled labor market, NBER Working Paper No. 24274
Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Barron, B., and Osher, D. (2020), Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development, Applied Developmental Science, 24(2), 97–140
Fullan, M., and Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning, Pearson
OECD (2018), The future of education and skills: Education 2030, OECD Publishing
OECD (2020), Back to the future of education: Four OECD scenarios for schooling, OECD Publishing
OECD (2022), Building the future of education, OECD Publishing
Pelletier, K., McCormack, M., Muscanell, N., Reeves, J., Robert, D. and Arbino, N. (2024), EDUCAUSE horizon report, teaching and learning edition
Perkins, D. (2014), Futurewise: Educating our children for a changing world, Wiley
Reimers, F. M. (2020), Educating students to improve the world, Springer
Schleicher, A. (2018), World class: How to build a 21st-century school system, OECD Publishing
Scott, C. L. (2015), The futures of learning 2: What kind of learning for the 21st century?, UNESCO Education Research and Foresight Working Papers, 14
Smith, B., Hawrami, R., and Reeves, R. (2025), The HEAL economy, American Institute for Boys and Men
UNESCO (2014), UNESCO education policy brief (vol.2), 2014: Skills for holistic human development
World Economic Forum (2025), The future of jobs report 2025