Think Piece. Re-badged Environmental Education: Is ESD more than just a slogan?

In the field of environment-related education, the period from the early 1970s to the present is marked by both continuity and contestation. There has been a remarkable continuity of interest in linking education and environment (especially, but not only, in schools); and there has also been contestation and resultant evolution in the language of the field, with terms like ecology education, environmental education and education for sustainable development becoming highly visible at different times. Environment-related education represents an interesting case in educational innovation – one being played out at an international level. In particular, we are currently in the throes of a situation in which the environment-related work formerly known as ‘environmental education’ (EE) is being aggressively and extensively ‘re-badged’ as ‘education for sustainable development’ (ESD). There are strong attempts internationally to supplant the use of the term EE with the newer term ESD; most of these attempts are associated with the current international United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) runs for the period 2005–2014, and is gathering pace across the world (Selby, 2006). Speaking at the international launch of DESD in New York in March 2005, UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura suggested that The ultimate goal of the Decade is that education for sustainable development is more than just a slogan. It must be a concrete reality for all of us – individuals, organizations, governments – in all our daily decisions and actions, so as to promise a sustainable planet and a safer world to our children, our grandchildren and their descendants… Education will have to change so that it addresses the social, economic, cultural and environmental problems that we face in the 21st century. (UNESCO, 2005:2) Now that the United Nations has taken this concept on board in such a significant way in proclaiming a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, ESD is clearly supplanting environmental education in the language of environment-related education

Education for sustainable development (ESD): the turn away from ‘environment’ in environmental education?

This article explores the implications of the shift of environmental education (EE) towards education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of environmental ethics. While plural perspectives on ESD are encouraged both by practitioners and researchers of EE, there is also a danger that such pluralism may sustain dominant political ideologies and consolidated corporate power that obscure environmental concerns. Encouraging plural interpretations of ESD may in fact lead ecologically ill-informed teachers and students acculturated by the dominant neo-liberal ideology to underprivilege ecocentric perspective. It is argued that ESD, with its focus on human welfare, equality, rights and fair distribution of resources is a radical departure from the aim of EE set out by the Belgrade Charter as well as a distinct turn towards anthropocentrically biased education. This article has two aims: to demonstrate the importance of environmental ethics for EE in general and ESD in particular and to argue in favour of a return to instrumentalism, based on the twinned assumptions that the environmental problems are severe and that education of ecologically minded students could help their resolution

Future Scenarios and Environmental Education

This article explores a number of questions about visions of the future and their implications for environmental education (EE). If the future were known, what kind of actions would be needed to maintain the positive aspects and reverse the negative ones? How could these actions be translated into the aims of EE? Three future scenarios are discussed: the limits to growth (the great tragedy and demise); sustainable development and ecological modernization (hope and innovation); and the Anthropocene park. These scenarios are linked to corresponding EE/ESD approaches and instrumentalism in education is argued as a morally justifiable goal. Finally, education for deep ecology is advocated in order to address the ethical implications of the last scenario.FSW – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Rethinking the Architecture: An Action Researcher's Resolution to Writing and Presenting Their Thesis

The thesis as a bulky ‘tome’ with a traditional structure - literature review, methodology, research design, findings and conclusions - is a concept under increasing challenge. Recently, I completed a doctoral action research project based on environmental education in a primary school. However, I found that trying to force the action research process into a linear writing structure was an unsatisfactory experience. After much anxiety and considerable experimentation, I resolved the problem of ‘fit’ between action research and the traditional thesis format by creating an alternative architecture based on each of the action research cycles. While still producing a bulky ‘doorstopper’, I feel this structure is a better reflection of the way the study evolved. This paper outlines this new architecture and discusses its rationale. It also challenges other action researchers to innovate and experiment with the ways they represent their research work. License for such innovation is rapidly developing especially with the advent of digital thesis production and performative theses. I see no reason why action researchers cannot be leaders in the creation of new forms of practice about how research theses and dissertations are represented in the academy