Towards Urban Sustainability : Learning from the Design of a Programme for Multi-stakeholder Collaboration

Owing to rapid urbanisation, cities are becoming a key locus for making sense of, and influencing, social and technological development. Urban sustainability is high on the research as well as on the development agenda. The complexity of modern cities often defies conventional governance mechanisms to promote sustainability, such as regulation, information and economic incentives. This has prompted a growing interest in innovative approaches based on collaborative learning in diverse groups of stakeholders in pursuit of sustainability. In this article, we wish to contribute to, and advance, the research and practice regarding urban sustainability by exploring the experiences of designing and facilitating a programme for multi-stakeholder collaboration, trust-building and concerted action in six cities in Europe, southern Africa and Southeast Asia. We apply an action research method called ‘learning history’ to understand the learning processes in the design and facilitation team and in two multistakeholder groups in Makana in South Africa and Malmö in Sweden. The findings illustrate how collaborative learning theory and systems thinking framed useful praxis for facilitating rich learning processes in these three teams. The article is presented in four sections: Section 1 provides the introduction and orientation; Section 2 provides a process description of the design of the SUS Programme; Section 3 provides learning histories; and Section 4 provides reflexive engagement on these.Supporting Urban Sustainabilit

Towards Urban Sustainability : Learning from the Design of a Programme for Multi-stakeholder Collaboration

Owing to rapid urbanisation, cities are becoming a key locus for making sense of, and influencing, social and technological development. Urban sustainability is high on the research as well as on the development agenda. The complexity of modern cities often defies conventional governance mechanisms to promote sustainability, such as regulation, information and economic incentives. This has prompted a growing interest in innovative approaches based on collaborative learning in diverse groups of stakeholders in pursuit of sustainability. In this article, we wish to contribute to, and advance, the research and practice regarding urban sustainability by exploring the experiences of designing and facilitating a programme for multi-stakeholder collaboration, trust-building and concerted action in six cities in Europe, southern Africa and Southeast Asia. We apply an action research method called ‘learning history’ to understand the learning processes in the design and facilitation team and in two multistakeholder groups in Makana in South Africa and Malmö in Sweden. The findings illustrate how collaborative learning theory and systems thinking framed useful praxis for facilitating rich learning processes in these three teams. The article is presented in four sections: Section 1 provides the introduction and orientation; Section 2 provides a process description of the design of the SUS Programme; Section 3 provides learning histories; and Section 4 provides reflexive engagement on these.Supporting Urban Sustainabilit

Global Citizenship Education for Global Citizenship? Students’ Views on Learning About, Through, and For Human Rights, Peace, and Sustainable Development in England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden

Purpose: In this study, we explore students’ views and experiences in relation to education about, through, and forhuman rights, peace, and sustainability in the global north and south. We investigate what students after nine years of schooling see as central issues and productive actions linked to key elements of global citizenship education (GCE) to better understand the complexity of GCE in theory and practice. Design: We use a survey designed in line with theories of global citizenship education. Using a mixed methods approach, we analyse responses from 672 upper secondary school students, aged 16–19, in England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden. Findings: We find that students in different contexts may experience global citizenship education very differently, even if they are all part of a global community with guidelines from UNESCO. Dimensions of human rights education, peace education, and education for sustainable development are evident in both the global north and south; yet, students in European contexts, namely in Sweden and England, for instance, appear to be taking away very different learnings. Overall, while students across the national samples have knowledge about human rights, peace, and sustainability, they seem to struggle to identify activities for human rights, peace, and sustainability. We find a vernacularisation of GCE, highlighting a diversity of methods and cultural contexts linked to students’ experiences from education. Research limitations: This study is limited to a few schools in selected countries; thus, our findings may not be generalisable on a national or global level. Practical implications: Students across our diverse sample highlight the importance of education to promote global goals. Findings indicate that more focus on education for global citizenship is necessary if schooling is to work in line with international recommendations. Similarities and differences in students’ knowledge and understanding about peace, human rights, and sustainability call for differentiated and localised approaches in attempts to reach common and shared goals

Situating Moral Education in a Globalized World: Environmental Ethical Values and Student Experiences

Since the 1980s the United Nations has called for a sustainable development, responding to the challenges of ecological crisis, global warming, and continuous social inequity. Within the sustainable development agenda environmental ethical values are addressed, formulated as concerns for human beings in the present and the future, and for the more-than-human world. These values are also central in UNESCO’s initiative of education for sustainable development. This chapter is an empirical study based on observations of a class of tenth grade Norwegian students who are exposed to the challenge of sustainable development in moral education. I examine how the environmental ethical values formulated by UNESCO are recontextualized in the classroom. The analyses are informed by critical cosmopolitanism, with a sensitivity for the situatedness of the students in a web of relations. In the particular lesson in which sustainability is addressed, carbon footprint plays a significant role, drawing attention to the students’ consumption patterns. In this way the issue becomes individualized and depoliticized, reflecting central tenets in neoliberalism. National concerns seem to add to this impact of hegemony. Informed by a retrospect group interview, the article demonstrates the potential of bringing in the students’ web of relations in moral education, addressing both their global and local embeddedness. An educational practice is suggested, in which the environmental ethical values are disclosed and explored, involving the students’ situatedness, and mediating between the ethical and the political

Mobilizing the new mobilities paradigm

A new mobilities paradigm emerged a decades or so ago in the context of significant theoretical shifts, methodological developments and novel research questions and approaches. We begin by considering what is meant by the idea of a “paradigm” from Thomas Kuhn. We then examine many ways in which this new paradigm transformed applied mobilities research over the past decade and how it might continue to reconfigure it. The new paradigm and three interconnected theoretical approaches are set out, before turning to assess the impact of the new paradigm upon emerging fields of social science by using various quantitative and qualitative measures. We examine the transformed ecology of this significant emergent field. Finally, the article explores the paradigm’s important relevance for applied research in urban transportation, climate change and energy transitions