Education and Learning in Sustainable Development: Foregrounding an Emergent Discourse (original) (raw)
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Education for Sustainable Development: configuration and meaning
Policy Futures in Education. Special issue: Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development, 2005
The inception of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-14) has excited controversy over the validity of the concept of education for sustainable development (ESD), as well as reactivating a critical review of the environmental education field as a whole. This article analyzes the peculiarities of ESD, the conditions that gave rise to it, the characteristics of its proposed configuration and the implications for environmental education.
Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development
UNESCO, 2018
Chapter 1, From Agenda 21 to Target 4.7: the development of ESD, by Alexander Leicht, Bernard Combes, Won Jung Byun and Adesuwa Vanessa Agbedahin, provides an account of this emergence and the development of the concept of ESD. The chapter highlights the two flows of change: the development of ESD examining both the integration of sustainable development into education systems and how education has been embedded in the discourse of sustainable development. It addresses certain international processes that supported the emergence of ESD and shows how these two flows of change laid strong grounds for ESD over the years. Among other things, the chapter addresses the increasing centrality of ESD to the global education discourse, as reflected in the Education 2030 Agenda, and the relevance of education and particularly ESD in relation to the achievement of all the SDGs.
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Critical pedagogy, practitioner experience and a regulatory perspective are employed to scrutinize the notion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as it occurs in the literature. They promote understanding of the challenges impeding the completion of unfinished ESD businesses. In response to practitioner-expressed needs, this paper innovatively proposes a Sustainable Development-compliant National Qualifications and Credit Framework (SD-NQCF) as the instrument to finally connect isolated ESD ‘dots’ and scaffold their sustainability. Informed by a systems approach, this framework encourages repositioning educational activities within the UN Agenda 21 to ensure the suffusion of SD principles. ESD becomes the backbone of NQCFs, while critical pedagogy provides the adequate instrument to foster 21st Century sustainability competencies that are embedded into curricula as learning outcomes. The SD-compliant framework resolves tensions between formal, non-formal and informal educ...
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In this thinkpiece, Paul Vare and William Scott, use the distinction they have made between ESD 1, learning for sustainable development, and ESD 2, learning as sustainable development, in order to comment on the issue of Fairtrade and the different approaches that might be taken, ie, seeing this as something to promote as a 'good thing', and something to critically explore as a complex and contentious sustainable development issue. They consider the relationship between these approaches and the importance of critical literacy.
International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2010
The concept of sustainable development and the emergent discourse of education for sustainable development (ESD) present both challenges and opportunities for individuals, communities and governments to engage in conscious processes of reassessment of their roles. As an emergent discourse, ESD also raises critical questions on its relationship with environmental education and other parallel traditions. Much as this discourse continues to attract international attention, it is also and rather sadly, a non-issue in some countries. This paper foregrounds learning for sustainable development as an emergent educational discourse that requires urgent political and social attention. It explores the discourse's capacity to make significant contributions to contemporary educational thinking and practice by locating its emergence and development in global environmental politics. Against the background of history and the analysis of major conversation moments, the paper discusses conceptual differences and similarities in parallel traditions such as environmental education, place-based education or community-focused learning. The paper calls for well-thought-out pedagogical responses to the diverse challenges of our contemporary times.
Sustainable Development, 2019
This paper aims to present a narrative of the outcome of an extensive historical literature review of global policy development and processes concerning the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of sustainable development, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]) inception to date. It starts by presenting the emergence, efficacy, and eminence of the concept and term "sustainable development" (which is integral to ESD) in terms of its historical definition, dimensions, understanding, interpretations , and challenges. It also highlights the take-up of sustainable development in terms of green growth, human development, and human agency. It then presents an overview of ESD, accompanied by a discussion of its key characteristics, approaches, and significances. The paper then highlights a semantic analysis of the development of ESD, with a special focus on some converging processes, events, concepts, discourses, and declarations that have supported the rise of ESD and shaped its status to date. Considerable emphasis is placed on the significance and nexus between environmental education and ESD. The paper analyses the crucial interconnection between education , sustainable development, ESD, the SDGs, and human development. Furthermore, the paper discusses the centrality of ESD to the global education discourse and the nexus, role, and relevance of education and particularly ESD in relation to the achievement of all the SDGs. The paper concludes by critically reflecting on the above, vis-à-vis the author's previous empirical research on higher ESD, making recommendations on the future of ESD research and practice.
Journal of Education for Sustainable Development
Journal of Education for Sustainable Development
Whether we view sustainable development as our greatest challenge or a subversive litany, every phase of education is now being urged to declare its support for education for sustainable development (ESD). In this paper, we explore the ideas behind ESD and, building on work by Foster and by Scott and Gough, we argue that it is necessary now to think of two complementary approaches: ESD 1 and ESD 2. We see ESD 1 as the promotion of informed, skilled behaviours and ways of thinking, useful in the short-term where the need is clearly identified and agreed, and ESD 2 as building capacity to think critically about what experts say and to test ideas, exploring the dilemmas and contradictions inherent in sustainable living. We note the prevalence of ESD 1 approaches, especially from policy makers; this is a concern because people rarely change their behaviour in response to a rational call to do so, and more importantly, too much successful ESD 1 in isolation would reduce our capacity to manage change ourselves and there-Paul Vare is an ESD consultant, and Chair and founder member of the South West Learning for Sustainability Coalition.