journal article
Download Only Collection
Home
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2197108pmid: N/A
The shift towards an ecological university may be the key to achieving greater levels of social justice within higher education. This assumes that we could change the root metaphor of higher education – away from the current industrial model that is infused with neoliberal ideology and towards a more sustainable ecological model. This change involves five key moves that require us to: construct an institutional natural history to understand the network of interactions within the university; to explore the nature of the dominant narratives and move away from a narrative monoculture; to value post-abyssal thinking that includes cultural knowledge as well as academic knowledge; to move away from dependence on heroic leaders towards ecological leadership, and to consider how we can develop sustainable pedagogies that can withstand disturbances to the ecosystem. This paper acknowledges that coordination of these moves presents a considerable challenge to university managers.
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2197113pmid: N/A
The planetary crisis facing humanity makes essential the incorporation of learning about climate change and sustainability in the university curriculum. Yet the ooting of climate change in values, knowledge systems and societal structures means that this incorporation must be more than just addition of knowledge content into a pre-existing curricular template. This article argues that the shifts required in a deep treatment of the climate crisis serve a broader purpose in driving positive change in university teaching and learning. Even within the confines of existing disciplinary divisions and mainstream epistemologies, possibilities exist for deepening critical reflection, pushing boundaries and opening imagination. The article explores this potential through an assessment of three spheres of enquiry: the ontological, epistemological and axiological. The teaching of these areas should be underpinned by the complimentary pedagogical foundations of critical questioning and deliberation, leading to a virtuous cycle of deepening of understanding and connection.
Lin, Jing; Fiore, Amanda; Sorensen, Erin; Gomes, Virginia; Haavik, Joey; Malik, Maha; Mok, Shue-kei Joanna; Scanlon, Jordan; Wanjala, Emmanuel; Grigoryeva, Anna
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2197109pmid:
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2197111pmid: N/A
University-level sustainability education aims to reduce future harm to people and the planet, however, this goal is challenged by the tight relationships between Western academia and settler colonialism (SC). As a process that is predicated upon Indigenous erasure and harmful land relations, SC is antithetical to sustainability goals. This raises questions about how those responsible for providing education in this space respond to these challenges: are they reinscribing or resisting SC? How are these processes occurring? Through interviews at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, we analyse how educators are grappling with reproductions of SC while attempting Justice-Based Environmental Sustainability (JBES) education. We find primary barriers to achieving JBES and challenging SC exist individually (anxiety and discomfort) and systemically (university understandings of land, progress, and power). Using resilience as a frame of analysis points to the importance of interventions designed at the interplay of the individual and the system broadly.
Stein, Sharon; Andreotti, Vanessa; Ahenakew, Cash; Suša, Rene; Valley, Will; Huni Kui, Ninawa; Tremembé, Mateus; Taylor, Lisa; Siwek, Dino; Cardoso, Camilla; Duque, Carolina ‘Azul’; Oliveira da Silva Huni Kui, Shyrlene; Calhoun, Bill; van Sluys, Shawn; Amsler, Sarah;
Espinet, Mariona; Llerena, German; Freire dos Santos, Laísa M.; Ramos de Robles, S. Lizette; Massip, Mariona
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2210078pmid: N/A
Non-hegemonic perspectives on sustainability are grounded in environmental sustainability based on justice. We argue about the potential of co-operatives for learning framed through degrowth epistemological visions promoting pedagogical changes in Higher Education. The context is a public university in Catalonia (Spain) implementing an innovative teaching methodology merging service learning and co-operatives for learning in an Environmental Sciences degree. The research question was: What are the experiences of undergraduate students participating in co-operatives for learning about environmental education? Data collection used focus group interviews and individual reflective narratives. Based on the construct of dialectical tensions, we identify three breaking points for the transition to teaching justice-based environmental sustainability using co-operatives for learning: (a) decommodification of work (tradition/innovation; theory/practice); (b) reconstruction of relationships with ‘the other’ (individual/collective); and (c) with nature (capitalism/degrowth). We conclude that students’ environmental praxis is promoted when addressing new perspectives of development and sustainability in university teaching.
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2198639pmid: N/A
The omission of epistemologies from the Global South inhibits holistic pedagogical approaches for effective sustainability teaching and learning. Employing the theoretical lens of ecology of knowledges, the structures and dynamics that frame and constrain sustainability education in higher education were critiqued. Six constraints of environmental sustainability pedagogies were also deconstructed: epistemic inequity, globalisation, neoliberalism, pedagogical incompatibility, anthropocentrism, and social inequity. Consequently, ideas for justice-based environmental sustainability were proffered, especially for eco-justice and epistemic justice. The need for sustainability education to be relevant, relatable, critical, holistic, inclusive, and transformational was also argued. Keycontributions of this paper are a compilation of constraints on sustainability pedagogies, demonstration of the relationship between the usually isolated constraints around teaching and learning about sustainability in higher education, and the application of the theory of the ecology of knowledges to the deconstruction of these constraints. These contributions have implications for achieving justice-based sustainability in higher education.
Meth, Deanna; Brophy, Claire; Thomson, Sheona
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2198638pmid: N/A
In design, aspirations of ‘development’ and ‘innovation’ are now scrutinised to redress persistent market-led practice. Socially and environmentally responsive pedagogies can shift students’ mindsets to consider the impacts of design practices on the planet’s complex systems and societies. At the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, four transdisciplinary experiential ‘Impact Lab’ design units actively address this within a reimagined degree. Qualitative action research explores students’ interpretations of ‘impact,’ and results reveal their interpretations are diverse, despite theoretically strong grounds, reflecting only an emergent understanding of the wider sustainability and design justice agenda. The argument is made that ‘impact’ as a loaded term in our context may inadvertently restrict the development of such understandings. This endorses the need for ongoing critical interpretation and usage of the term, and urges that caution be exercised in how it manifests through pedagogies and curricula.
Cuenca-Soto, Nuria; Martínez-Muñoz, Luis Fernando; Chiva-Bartoll, Oscar; Santos-Pastor, María Luisa
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2197110pmid: N/A
Education for environmental and social sustainability in Higher Education requires a new approach that encompasses both care for nature and social inclusion. Ecopedagogy offers a critical framework within which to provide specific teaching and learning initiatives. In particular, this article aims to explore the effects of a critical (eco)feminist approach implemented through a critical feminist service-learning program. We use a qualitative study with an ethnographic-interpretative approach. The results show an increase in awareness and sensitivity towards environmental education and social justice in the students’ understanding, attitude, and commitment to sustainability. Institutional limitations were also detected, leading to a reduction in the opportunities for achieving optimal results that would create a global meaning and a real application of the teachings for sustainability and social justice.
Showing 1 to 10 of 11 Articles
In this article, we directly address five of the six questions presented by Misiaszek & Rodrigues, including the definition of ‘sustainability’ and ‘development’ in higher education teaching, the politics of teaching, and the responsibilities of teachers within the institution of higher education. We argue for contemplative inquiry and storytelling as epistemology and pedagogy for eco-justice education. We introduce a course taught by an author of this paper, to illustrate our position on the possibilities of Justice-Based Ecological Pedagogies (JBES) as presented by Misiaszek & Rodrigues, as well as to frame our own position, and to offer practical, concrete examples of possible epistemologies and course pedagogies and activities grounded in an Anti-Anthropocentric pedagogical frame. We present a brief summary of student writing from this course, which we believe shows them meaningfully engaging with nature as a family member or friend, that is, a biocentric lens of love for nature.
doi: 10.1080/13562517.2023.2193667pmid: N/A
Many pedagogies that seek to address the climate and nature emergency (CNE) promise hope and solutions for an idealized future. In this article, we suggest these pedagogies are rooted in the same modern/colonial system that created the CNE and other ‘wicked’ socio-ecological challenges in the first place, and thus they are not well-suited for preparing students to navigate these challenges. We also ask what kind of climate education could invite students to interrupt the reproduction of colonial futures, and deepen their sense of social and ecological responsibility in the present. As one possible response to this question, we offer an outline for climate education otherwise, which seeks to prepare students with the stamina and the intellectual, affective, and relational capacities that could enable more justice-oriented coordinated responses to current and coming challenges.