This book lays out the principles and practices of transformative sustainability education using a relational way of thinking and being.
Elizabeth A. Lange advocates for a new approach to environmental and sustainability education, that of rethinking the Western way of knowing and being and engendering a frank discussion about the societal elements that are generating climate, environmental, economic, and social issues. Highlighting the importance of Indigenous and life-giving cultures, the book covers educational theory, transformation stories of adult learners, social and economic critique, and visions of changemakers. Each chapter also has a strong pedagogical element, with entry points for learners and embodied practices and examples of taking action at micro/meso/macro levels woven throughout. Overall, this book enacts a relational approach to transformative sustainability education that draws from post humanist theory, process thought, relational ontology, decolonization theory, Indigenous philosophy, and a spirituality that builds a sense of sacred towards the living world.
Written in an imaginative, storytelling manner, this book will be a great resource for formal and nonformal environmental and sustainability educators.
Author(s): Elizabeth A. Lange
Series: Research and Teaching in Environmental Studies
Publisher: Routledge/Earthscan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 467
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
List of Boxes
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Seeding Life-Giving Cultures
Unearthing Seeds of Life
Seeds of Hope for the Planet
Epochal Shift: Which Pathway?
The Great Transformation
Stories of Modernity
The Paradox of Science
Relationality
Emerging Story
Seeds of Hope for Humanity
Notes and References
2 How Did We Get Here?
Historical Context—Part One
Scope of Western Civilization
Learning from Epochal Shifts and Collapse
Seeds of Environmentalism and Justice-Seeking
Old Sustainability
Critique of Colonialism as the Spread of Death
Protesting Industrialism
Social Reformism
First Wave Environmentalism: Conservation and Preservation
End of Colonialism and Old Social Movements
Origin of the United Nations
Rise of Social Welfare States
First Global Existential Threat: The Atomic Age
International Development as Industrialism
Second Wave Environmentalism
The Hippy Generation and New Social Movements of the 1960s
Reflections
Notes and References
3 Waves of Environmentalism, Development, and Backlash
Historical Context—Part Two
Rise of Environmental Movements
Environmental Movement Organizations
Environmental Nongovernmental Organizations
Green Politics
The Science of Ecology
Third Wave Environmentalism
Looming Population Crisis
Waves of International Development
Development as Industrialization
Development as Modernization
Development as Basic Needs
Development as Partnership
OPEC Oil Crisis and Economic Disruption
The Lost Decade of the 1980s: Debt and Dependency
Neoliberal Globalization as Backlash
Structural Adjustment Plans as Third Development Decade
Sustainable Development: Merger of Environmentalism and Developmentalism
Sustainable Development as Fourth Development Decade
Derailing Environmentalism and Sustainable Development?
Climate Change Gains Visibility
Rio and the 1992 Earth Summit
Zapatista Revolution: Building Endogenous Sustainability
Battle of Seattle: Fourth Wave Environmentalism
The End of Development?
The Millennial Turn and Fourth Wave Environmentalism
Millennium Development Goals 2000–2015
9/11 and Disaster Capitalism
Corporate Camouflage and Climate Denialism: More Backlash
Climate Accords and Reality
2008 Financial Crash
2015 Paris Agreement, Agenda 2030, and The Future We Want
The Climate Justice Movement
Another Cultural Shift: Rage and the Silence Breakers
Global Pandemic and Nuclear Threat
So, How Did We Get Here?
Notes and References
4 Environmental Education
Situating Environmental Education
Antecedents of Environmental Education
Emergence of Environmental Education
Early Definitional and Boundary Debates
Environmental Communication
Environmental Interpretation
Ecology and EE
An Evolving Ecology of EE Approaches
Strand One: Naturalist/Conservationist/Environmental Science
Strand Two: Environmental Literacy/Environmental Citizenship
Strand Three: Deep Ecology/Ecoliteracy/Ecoconsciousness/Ecojustice/Place-Based Education
Strand Four: Critical EE/Environmental Justice and Critical Multicultural EE/Ecopedagogy/Land-Based and Indigenous EE/Commons-Based EE/Ecofeminist Education
Persistent Conundrums and Growing Critique
Science and Social Science
Mainstreaming and Margins
Knowledge-to-Action Assumption
Environmental Advocacy and Education
Instrumental Approach or Not?
Catastrophe Education
The Failure of EE?
Adult Environmental Education
Notes and References
5 Sustainability Education
Situating Sustainability Education
Emergence of Sustainable Development
The Crisis in and of Education
The Assault on Schooling and Higher Education
Taking Back Education?
Perceived Failures of Environmental Education
Other Antecedents to Sustainability Education: Adjectival Educations
Peace Education
International Development and Human Rights Education
Multicultural, Intercultural, and Anti-Racist Education
Gender and LGBTQ+ Equity Education
Global Education
Proliferation of Sustainability
The Integrative Promise of Sustainability Education
Sustainable Development and Education
The “Education for Sustainable Development” Debate
Concept and Implementation of ESD
Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) 2005–2014: Reorienting Education
The Neoliberal Turn in Sustainability Discourse
DESD Midterm and Final Reports
Post-Decade ESD and the SDGs 2015–2030: Transforming Education
Transformative Approaches
Competences for Sustainable Development
Whole School/Whole Institution Approaches
Critique of ESD
ESD as Faux/Weak/Technocentric Sustainability
Other Approaches to Sustainability Education
Sustainability in Higher Education
Sustainability Literacy
Personal Sustainability/Sustainable Livelihoods
Strong/Systems-Based/Ecocentric Sustainability Education
Deep/Strongest/Transformative Sustainability Education
Just Sustainabilities/Decolonizing Sustainability
Climate Change Education
Sustainababble, Failure, and Postsustainability?
Notes and References
6 Transformative Sustainability Education
The Not New and Improved
Introduction to Transformative Learning
Relationality: Pathways into Transformation
Conceptualizing Relationality
Quantum Worldview
Gaia Theory
Living Systems Worldview
Facets of Relationality for Transformative Sustainability Education
Radical Wholeness
Systems Thinking
Process Thinking and Energy Fields
Communal Individuality
Entangled Ethics
Moving Towards Wisdom: A Spiritual Pathway
Reimagining Transformative Learning
Transformative Sustainability Education: Flowing into Relationality
Conclusion
Notes and References
7 The Modern Story of Education
Crisis of Education
Social Imaginaries
What If?
Faces of the Modern Social Imaginary in Education
Educating for Proselytizing and Civilizing: A Control/Judge/Reward/Punish Logic
Educating for Modernizing: A Schooled Logic
Educating for Globalizing: The Profit Logic
Educating for Production, Education as Production
Recapitulation: Modern Social Imaginary in Education
Reimagining Education and Learning
Educating for Epochal Shift
Dark Times for Empire
Beyond the Dark Age
Notes and References
8 Our Great Work: Reimagining Education and Our Future
Civilization Transition
Our Great Work and Education
Decolonization, Dragonfly Seeing, and the Pluriverse
Theft of Knowledge, Theft of Biodiversity, and Right Relations
Returning to the Big Questions
Seeds for Reimagining Education
An Alive Cosmology
A Relational, Participatory Universe
Kinship Ethics: A New Moral Order
Epistemology as Process, as Wisdom-Seeking
Pluriverse Worldmaking: The Alchemy of Change
From One-Dimensionality to Pluriversality
Revitalizing the Commons
Matristic Cultures and the Partnership Ethic
Reimagining Our Future, Reimagining Learning
A Web of Vernacular Learning Commons
Sprouting Seeds of Hope
Notes and References
Index
