Most of the time, children are no central actors when it comes to discuss societal futures, be it in political or academic arenas. We can observe a widely held belief that children are not capable of reasoning about future because they are said to have only limited capacities to understand temporal, and factual realities. Biographical research based on narrative inquiry with children challenges those beliefs as there are long-standing experiences, since at least the nineties, of asking children about their future visions in biographical interviews (Siebholz, 2020). The paper has three parts. First, it starts with an overview of the attempts, and experiences in biography research with children focusing elicited statements about future. The second part asks about the results: What do we know about the futures that children with different social backgrounds and diverse experiences perceive, and anticipate? What do we know about the future visions of children from different parts of the world? How do children relate to societal transformations, uncertainties, and crises when they tell their life stories, and connect past, present, and future? What can we learn from comparisons between biographical future visions of past, and present children? Third, the paper summarises the reflections on the conducted research, and discusses the question: What are, on the one hand, the possibilities, and potentials, and what are, on the other hand, the limitations of biographical research with children when we are interested in their perspectives on societal futures that are marked by global changes, and challenges?

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Siebholz, S. (2020). Dokumentarische Methode und (erziehungswissenschaftliche) Kindheitsforschung. In: Kreitz, R./Demmer, C./Fuchs, T./Wiezorek, C. (Hrsg.): Das Erziehungswissenschaftliche qualitativer Forschung. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto, S. 173–188.