Category Archives: book

Milestone in an evolving field: International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education

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IHEERBookCover

2013 marks the year in which the world’s largest and most diverse educational research organization – the AERA – jointly with Routledge, published the International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education (Stevenson, Brody, Dillon & Wals, 2013). The field of Environmental Education has roughly existed for just under 50 years and has over time developed its own research, research networks and research journals. The AERA commssioned the editors in 2009 to compile this Handbook as a part of AERA’s Handbook Series on Education Research.

The International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education describes the important concepts, findings and theories developed by the research community and examines the historical progression, current debates and controversies, missing elements from EE research agenda, and the future.
The environment and contested notions of sustainability are increasingly topics of public interest, political debate, and legislation across the world. Environmental education journals now publish research from a wide variety of methodological traditions that show linkages between the environment, health, development, and education. The growth in scholarship makes this an opportune time to review and synthesize the knowledge base of the environmental education (EE) field. The purpose of this 51-chapter handbook is to illuminate the most important concepts, findings and theories that have been developed by EE research and critically examine the historical progression of the field, its current debates and controversies, what is still missing from the EE research agenda, and where that agenda might be headed.

You can find the orginal proofs of chapter 1 here: Stevenson, B., Brody, M., Dillon, J and Wals, A.E.J. (2012). International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education_Ch01_1pp In: Stevenson, B., Brody, M., Dillon, J. and Wals, A.E.J. (Eds.) (2012) International Handbook of Environmental Education Research. London: Routledge, 1-12

The Handbook can be order through Routledge or any on-line bookseller. Here’s a link to the Routledge Handbook page which also contains the Table of Contents. Should you be working for a university you may want to recommend the Handbook for you library.

Just out: (Re)views of Social Learning Literature – A Monograph for Social Learning Researchers in Natural Resource Management & Environmental Education

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Recently a monograph containing (Re)views of Social Learning Literature in the context of Natural Resource Management & Environmental Education was published by the Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC) in conjuntion with WESSA, Rhodes University, Wageningen University and the Environmental Learning Centre. On the cover page it states: “This monograph provides four different reviews on social learning literature. Rather than seeking to be comprehensive, the reviews provide views on the social learning literature, from different perspectives. The papers scope aspects of the social learning literature, providing access to a wide body of literature(s) on social learning. This monograph should be useful for researchers interested in social learning in the fields of environmental education and natural resources management.”

The monograph was edited by Professor Heila Lotz-Sisitka of Rhodes University and the result of collaboration between Wageningen University and Rhodes with support of SANPAD (the South Africa – Netherlands Partnership for Development funded by the Dutch government) and the UNESCO Chair on Social Learning and Sustainable Development. The full report can be downloaded here: Reviews on Social Learning Literature

The excerpt below comes from the foreword I was asked to write.

How can learning not be social? Isn’t all learning social? These are often the kinds of questions I get when I share my fascination with social learning. Arguably all meaningful learning is inter-relational (with others, including other species, with place and, indeed with oneself) and requires some level of reflexivity by mirroring the significance of one’s encounters with the inner sediments (frames, values, perspectives and worldviews) of prior experiences. The result tends to be a process of further solidification (freezing) or a loosening (unfreezing) or a modification (re-framing) or even the parallel occurrence of all three. So yes, the ‘social’  as inter-relational is crucial in most, perhaps all learning, that we engage in, but even though this is emphasised in social learning, this is not what sets it apart from related learning concepts such as collaborative learning, participatory learning, group learning, and so on.

It appears that in the context of working on inevitably ill-defined and ill-structured issues and situations (e.g. natural resource management issues or sustainability issues) there is an increased awareness that there is no one single perspective that can resolve or even improve such issues. Much social learning literature therefore refers to the importance of bringing together multiple perspectives, values and interests, including marginal and marginalised ones in order to be able to creatively and energetically break with stubborn routines that led to unsustainability in the first place. Despite the range of views on social learning that currently exist, the utilisation of pluralism and/or diversity in multi-stakeholder settings is often referred to as a key component of social learning. Now it would be naïve to think that just by putting people with different backgrounds, perspectives, values and so on together, this creative and energising process would automatically start. This is where another form of ‘social’ comes in: social cohesion, sometimes referred to as social capital. In order to be able to create a constructive dynamic that allows diversity to play its generative role in finding routine-breaking solutions to sustainability challenges, there needs to be sufficient social cohesion between the participating actors, even between those who don’t seem to care much about each other.  In much of the social learning literature stress is placed on things like: investing in relationships, deformalising communication, co-creation of future scenarios and joint fact-finding. The idea is that when people who don’t think alike, or even disagree, engage in a common task in a pleasant and safe environment, they will find their common humanity (which is considered a first step in developing the empathy for the other) needed to open up and engage with the other’s perspective. Creating such an environment is an art in itself and requires careful facilitation – another key topic area in social learning literature.

In the open-access publication acoustics-digital acoustics-digital(which appeared at the launch of the Wageningen University UNESCO Chair on Social Learning and Sustainable Development (Wals et al., 2009) we used the metaphor of an improvising jazz ensemble to capture the essence of social learning.

“Chaos frequently emerges in an (improvising) jazz ensemble, but structure rules. Everyone makes up part of the whole and that whole is, if it sounds good, more than the sum of the parts. Every musician has his/her own experiences and competencies, but also intuition and empathy. The ensemble doesn’t know how
things will sound ahead of time, but its members instinctively know when things sound good. They have faith in one another and in a good outcome. Leadership is sometimes essential and therefore provided by one of the musicians or a director, or it sometimes shifts and rotates. The music is sometimes written down, though this is often not the case, and everyone simply improvises. If it sounds good, then the audience will respond appreciatively, that is to say, those who enjoy jazz music (and not everyone does…). People from the audience sometimes join in, changing the composition of the ensemble. The acoustics of the hall in which the music is played is important as well: not all halls sound alike and some have more character. A concert may also be recorded to serve as inspiration elsewhere, though this does not happen often…” (Wals et al., 2009, p.3).

Indeed social learning processes remind one of an improvising jazz ensemble. They too are intangible in a certain sense, and are therefore not easily controlled. Success often depends on the people concerned and on the manner in which they became involved. There are ideas regarding which direction the participants want to go and there are even recurring patterns, but the ultimate result comes about little by little. Sometimes, but certainly not all the time, the conditions are quite optimal and the process brings out the unique qualities and perspectives of everyone and results in surprisingly novel solutions and actions. Indeed, in social learning too the whole is more than the sum of its parts.This monograph, consistent with some key ideas underpinning social learning, brings together and confronts different views on social learning, in order to arrive at a better understanding of the potential and the limitations of social learning in the context of natural resource management, environmental management and sustainability.  The monograph represents one of the fruits of a collaborative effort between Wageningen University in the Netherlands and Rhodes University in South Africa. It represents a wonderful entry point into social learning for (young) academics not only in The Netherlands and South Africa, but all around the world, as some of the literature reviewed and the issues raised clearly transcend these two countries.

The full report can be downloaded here: Reviews on Social Learning Literature

Reference

Wals, A.E.J., van der Hoeven, N. & Blanken, H. (2009). The Acoustics of Social Learning: Designing learning processes that contribute to a more sustainable world. Wageningen/Utrecht: Wageningen Academic Publishers/SenterNovem.

From the virtual to the real, discovering the world in 4D by leaving our screens behind: the potential of outdoor learning in a digital age

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Recently a study on the impact of educational nature immersion programme’s on child development was completed by Wageningen University which received some national press via an interview for the Dutch news paper ‘Het Parool’ which was also picked-up by another major paper ‘het Algemeen Dagblad’ in its first issue of 2013 (I have included a copy of the latter interview at the end of this post).

Although the articles fail to recognize that the study was conducted by a team of researchers consisting of Marlon van der Waal and Dieuwke Hovinga (OVC-Advies & Lector Hogeschool Leiden) – who both did the bulk of the research – and Kris van Koppen (Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University) and myself, the message shared with a wide audience is important. Below I have pasted the English Executive Summary of the report. For the full report please click the link just above the photo of the report’s cover which is shown below as well.

Please note that the report itself and the articles are in Dutch

Toen ik er meer over ging weten werd het leuk Compleet(3)inclUKabstract

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The impact of educational nature immersion programme’s on child development

Connecting Children to Nature through an Educational Nature Immersion Programme

Full citation in Dutch:

Van der Waal, M.E., Hovinga, Wals, A.E.J en van Koppen, C.S.A. (2012) “Toen ik er meer over ging weten werd het leuk”: Onderzoek naar de meerwaarde van het educatieve natuurbelevingsprogramma ‘NatuurWijs’ in vergelijking met regulier natuuronderwijs. Rapport, Wageningen: Educatie & Competentiestudies, Wageningen Universiteit, 116 p.

Full citation in English:

Van der Waal, M.E., Hovinga, Wals, A.E.J en van Koppen, C.S.A. (2012) “Once I started to get to know it better, it became fun”: A study of the added-value of an educational nature-immersion programme ‘NatureWise’ in comparison with standard nature education in Dutch Primary schools. Research Report, Wageningen: Education and Competence Studies, Wageningen University, 116 p.

Executive Summary

Most of the world’s children grow up in urban areas with little access to the natural world. Presently there is a renewed interest in The Netherlands but elsewhere as well, in the provision of educational experiences that can help children connect with the natural world.  This interest is fuelled by an increased concern about the decline in (young) people’s health (e.g. the rise of obesity in many parts of the world), their understanding of how nature works (e.g. in relation to climate change and biodiversity loss), their ability to concentrate and engage in deep thinking, as a result of the rapid rise of digitally mediated interaction, Around the globe school-based programmes have been developed that immerse children in nature-oriented experiences near (e.g. on school grounds) and not so near places (e.g. in a natural area driving distance away from the school). The programmes vary in intensity (from once a year to periodically throughout the year), educational approach (from more cognitive and understanding oriented to more whole person-oriented) didactical orientation (from show and tell modes of instruction to more free flowing, experiential and discovery-based approaches), and the role of outside experts (from low involvement of outside expertise to high involvement of outside expertise.

Little research has been done on the impact of such programs on children’s development, learning and their understanding of and connections with nature. Longitudinal studies where children are followed over a longer period of time are even scarcer. This study reports on a three year longitudinal study of children (age 8-10) who participated in NatureWise, a nature immersion programme that takes children into the forest under the guidance of a forest ranger three times a year. NatureWise (NW) is a carefully designed programme that requires school-based preparation for each of the so-called forest days as well as school-based reflection on the significance and lessons learnt of each on those days. The programme seeks to develop ‘head’ (development of cognitive understanding of ecological principles and life in and management of the forest), ‘hart’ (development of affective, emotional bonding with nature and associated values) and, ‘hands’ (development of psycho-motor skills needed to care for nature).

An experimental design was created that included 6 primary schools, 3 from urban areas and 3 from more rural areas. In each school for each participating grade a NatureWise-class was followed as was a control class which did not participate in NW but followed the normal nature education programme that can be considered typical for most Dutch primary schools. Most Dutch primary schools at present allocate limited time to both nature-oriented and experience-oriented education mainly because of pressure to increase the scores on standardized tests in reading, writing, general sciences and arithmetic. In the worst case schools only provide 30 minutes weekly of a school television programme called ‘News from Natural World.” Within each class a group of eight pupils was followed more intensively to obtain a deeper understanding of the children’s development. Children’s concept-maps and activity booklets (in year 1 and year 3 of the study) were analysed as well as interviews with the eight focus children from each class. In addition all participating teachers (n=24) were interviewed about their understanding of nature education in general and NW in particular (for those who participated in NW) as well as about the changes they observed in the children and about the influence of the children’s home-situation on their exposure to and connection with nature. In addition classes were observed periodically during lessons about nature. In total 185 children between the ages of 8 and 10 participated in the study. Methodologically the study can be classified as a phenomenological study in that as much as possible the researchers tried to capture children’s understanding of and connection with nature, and the teacher’s understanding thereof, through their own eyes by trying to minimize the influence of the researcher’s own preconceived notions about what to expect while trying to maximize the opportunities for children and teachers to express themselves freely, undistorted by expectations about what is ‘right’.

The relationship between children and nature, according to this study, is in its essence mostly playful and animal-oriented. The children are not always conscious or aware of this relationship but the relationship becomes stronger and more explicit when given the opportunity to explore nature in their own life-world. The children’s relationship can be classified as pluralistic and culture-bound. In highly urbanized settings the relationship appears weaker as the opportunities to explore and connect with nature, both in the home setting and the neighbourhood, are rather limited. The role of the parents and the school in fostering children’s connections with nature is quite significant. A nurturing home and school environment, enabling children to have multiple and idiosyncratic experiences in nature or nature-like areas, can help create conditions that allow children to develop a stronger and more meaningful bond with nature. Such experiences include:  discovering new things and pathways in nature, seeing how others respond to experiences in nature, learning to cope with anxiety, overcoming challenges, learning how to ‘observe’ and developing a heightened awareness of one’s surroundings, storing of memories both mentally and physically (e.g. by taking home artefacts from nature, and, finally, by sharing experiences in nature in conversation and through other forms of expression (e.g. arts) at home and at school with parents, care-givers, siblings, peers and teachers.

For the pupils it is important that they learn to know and to identify nature – or what is seen as nature or green in a country where nature arguably hardly exists in in a ‘pure’ and overwhelming sense – in their own neighbourhood. This knowing and identifying makes it possible for them to shape their own meaningful relationship with nature.  This connects with the general interest most children display in nature: they want to know how nature works, how they can be good for nature and environment, how they can survive in nature, what they can find in nature, and how animals live. Given the somewhat impoverished state of nature (conservation) education in most Dutch schools, addressing these questions and building up ecological literacy must not be rushed but rather needs to be done gradually. One difference between the children growing up in the heavily urbanized environments and the children growing up in more rural environments is that the urban children also display a keen interest in cultural aspects and are more pre-occupied with the human-nature relationship.

When considering the regular nature education ‘taught’ to the control groups in the participating schools it can be concluded that there is quite a bit of variation in between the schools and even within the schools.  This leads to great differences in the ways children are exposed to nature in the school setting.

In some classes the occasional watching of ‘News from the Natural World’ on school TV is all that is offered. In other classes teachers do their utmost to develop knowledge and literacy in connection to the natural world and seek to extend this to also develop positive attitudes towards nature and the skills to care for nature. But there are many other differences: some schools have a specific nature education method or text book others do not, some schools make an effort in getting students outside of the classroom, others do not, some schools bring plants and animals to the classroom, others do not, some schools do classroom experiments, others do not, some schools bring in outside experts to talk about nature, others do not, some schools have special projects weeks, others do not…

Clearly, the children participating in the NatureWise programme do so within different contexts, some being more conducive to nature education than others. The research shows that most children, not all, benefit from participating in NW frequently over a 2-3 year which is expressed in an increase in knowledge of nature, deepened sensory and affective engagement with nature, and more sensitive behaviour towards nature. The added value of NW lies is multiple: children are in a position to establish direct contact with nature, children gain more confidence and interest in nature which helps them understand information about nature that comes to them through the media, children are better positioned to develop empathy towards another species, children come to see the importance of caring for nature, children are given hands-on opportunities to care for nature, and, finally, children get to enjoy being in nature aesthetically, psycho-motorically and intellectually. All this combined makes children more inclined to actively seek nature. The research therefore confirms the key premises of experience-oriented nature education programmes, although it should be noted that not all participating students display such a development and that in the control group some students display a similar development under favourable conditions in the school and/or home environment.

Participation in NW also results in a number of positive spin-off effects among the teachers, especially among those who already have some affinity with nature and nature education and/or are at least open to it from a professional development perspective and/or are part of a school characterized by a positive pedagogical climate emphasizing continuous improvement. Where these conditions or a subset thereof, exist, it turns out that teachers come to view their pupils differently: they discover qualities that they failed to see before or only moderately recognized in a regular classroom setting. In addition they come to appreciate the value of emotions, the affective domain and using all the senses for children’s personal development but also for teaching and learning in general.   As a result these teachers are better positioned to see the educational potential of the green outdoors, even in highly urbanized areas, and seem more capable in connecting learning outside school with learning inside school. Another spin-off effect concerns the children’s parents.  The anecdotes and narratives provided by both the teachers and the pupils suggest that NW, at least in some instances, also positively influences the parents when the outdoor experiences are shared at home.

Although these findings can be considered positive some cautionary remarks need to be made. The impact of NW is highest when a number of factors help enhance the NW-experience. These factors are:

  1. The geographical location of the school – NW at present has more impact on children growing-up in city environments.
  2. The pedagogical climate at school – NW has more impact when there is space for experiential and discovery-based learning but also when a school dares to abandon the standard curriculum at times.
  3. The teacher’s attitude towards nature and nature education – NW has more impact when a teacher has affinity with Biology, nature and the outdoors.
  4. The educational qualities of the outdoor guide – NW has more impact when the outdoor guide understands the world of a child and possesses didactical and pedagogical qualities.
  5. The involvement of parents and/or care givers – NW has more impact when the home environment engages with the children’s experiences.

When all or even a sub-set of these factors work in the right direction, these positive impacts are more likely to occur, even in children who do not participate in NW. At the same time, when most of these factors work in the other direction these impacts are less likely to occur, even in children who do participate in NW.

Overall, the potential added value of participating in an educational nature immersion programme such as NW, is highest in urban settings where the challenge to (re)connect children with nature appears greatest. In order benefit from a programme such as NW the most it is recommended that before implementing the programme an inventory is made of the five factors listed above.  A first analysis or quick-scan of these factors can help reveal areas that require attention before implementing NW or can give cause to adapt the NW-programme in such a way that it is likely to resonate better with the school, the children, the teachers and the wider community. As such this research provides an argument for more tailor-made programmes but also for policies that support these factors.

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INTERVIEW Algemeen Dagblad 02/01/13

InterviewAlgemeenDagblad

Re-orienting, re-connecting and re-imagining – learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change goes open-access!

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There may be trouble ahead,
……Before they ask us to pay the bill,
And while we still have the chance,
Let’s face the music and dance.

Irvine Berlin, 1936

“There are three people in a vehicle. In this story, they all seem to have a foot on the accelerator. Not too far in the distance, and clearly coming into view, there is a noticeboard. It reads: ‘Brake hard or change direction! – Abyss ahead!’.  As the vehicle continues speeding forward, the occupants react differently to the noticeboard.  One has seen it coming for some time; in fact, she anticipated it. Her optician told her she had good foresight. ‘For goodness sake’, she says, ‘we must slow down and change direction while we can’. A second one, who has also been aware of the notice for some time, says ‘It’s certainly an interesting notice. Let’s deconstruct its meaning exactly, then we can develop our critical awareness and understanding, and decide what to do.’ The third person, who was much later in recognising the sign than the other two says, I don’t think there’s any danger ahead, and if there is – which I doubt – we’ll deal with it  then’.   Meantime, the vehicle is still getting closer to the notice, and stays on track….”

A metaphor of course, but perhaps illustrative of our collective predicament.  We all – or nearly all – have a bit of our foot on the accelerator, whilst at the same time, increasing numbers are aware that braking, changing direction, and learning ‘our way out’ is critically important. At the same time, a significant proportion of the population and vested interests drive forward regardless, albeit with a growing suspicion that, in the words of the old Irvine Berlin song, ‘there may be trouble ahead’.”(Sterling, 2012 p. 511)

The above excerpt is the opening of Stephen Sterling’s wonderful Afterword to “Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change”. The Afterword is one of the contributions that has been made open-access via Wageningen Academic Publisher’s website. Along with Juliet Schor’s Foreword and the Introductory Chapter to the book, some authors have paid the publisher a fee to unlock their chapter to allow everybody with access to the Internet download it for free for their own use. You can find the full pdf of the Introductory Chapter here: Introduction to L4S in Times of Change Wals&Corcoran

On the publisher’s website the book is introduced as follows: We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning.  This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. (click on the book’s cover if you wish to go to the publishers web-page about the book)

The book can be ordered at a discount when going to ‘books’ in the menu bar on top of this page.

Just out: The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology

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About two years ago Susan Clayton invited me to contribute to a major handbook on environmental and conservation psychology (33 chapters, 780 pages!). She felt it was important to also have a chapter on the role of education and learning in connecting people with ‘nature’, ‘place’ and ‘environment’ but also in engaging them with ‘sustainability’ issues. It gave me the opportunity to write a, hopefully somewhat accessible and compehensive, introduction to the field of environmental education and the related emerging field of education and learning for sustainability. At the end of this post there is a link to the proofs of this chapter.

Environmental psychology studies the ways in which people perceive and respond to the physical environment, whereas conservation psychology  tends to refer to psychological research on the need and ways to protect the natural environment. What is conservation psychology, and what is its relationship to environmental psychology? This new Handbook answers those questions. From the Oxford University Press website:

“The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on environmental perceptions, attitudes, and values; research on specific environments, such as therapeutic settings, schools, and prisons; environmental impacts on human well-being; and ways to promote a more sustainable relationship between people and the natural environment. By presenting an extensive review of current research, the handbook serves as a thorough guide to the state of knowledge about a wide range of topics at the intersection of psychology and the physical environment. Beyond this, it provides a better understanding of the relationship between environmental and conservation psychology, and some sense of the directions in which these interdependent areas of study are heading. Research on the human-environment relationship is increasingly relevant to understanding and addressing the environmental challenges society is facing. This handbook should serve as a resource for professionals both within and outside of psychology who are trying to comprehend the human implications of environments, and to design programs, policies, and environments that are cognizant of human psychology.”

Here’s some background inforrmation about the chapter I contributed (for a full Table of Contents please go to the publisher’s website).

Wals, A.E.J. (2012) Learning our way out of un-sustainability: the role of environmental education. In: Clayton, S. (Ed.) Handbook on Environmental and Conservation Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 628-644. (by clicking on the title you can get to the proofs of the chapter).

Abstract

In this chapter the role of education in creating a planet that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect will be discussed from two vantage points: an instrumental one and an emancipatory one. The instrumental perspective emphasizes the potential of education in changing human environmental behavior in predetermined and more or less agreed upon directions. The emancipatory perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes the potential of education in strengthening people’s capacities and confidence to enable them to help determine how to live together in ways that do not further undermine the carrying capacity of the earth. Whereas the former, more behaviourist vantage point tends to have more support among environmentalists with a strong concern about the rapid loss of biodiversity, climate change, depletion of natural resources, and so on, the latter, more human development–oriented vantage point, tends to have more support among educators with a strong concern for self-determination, agency, and democracy. The chapter ends with the introduction of “post-normal” environmental education.

Key Words

environmental education, sustainable development, nature conservation education, emancipatory learning, instrumental learning, agency, participation, post-normal science

Fifty Shades of Green – why the Green Economy cannot be business as usual and ESD cannot be education as usual…

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The novel ‘Fifty shades of grey’ by British author E.L. James Critical has sold over 30 million copies since it appeared in 2011. The book went ‘viral,’ as they say, at least in part because of its sexual content. Reviews of Fifty Shades of Grey have been mixed to negative, with most reviews noting poor literary qualities of the work. Princeton professor April Alliston wrote, “Though no literary masterpiece, Fifty Shades is more than parasitic fan fiction based on the recent Twilight vampire series”. [1] Jenny Colgan of The Guardian wrote “It is jolly, eminently readable and as sweet and safe as BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) erotica can be without contravening the trade descriptions act” and also praised the book for being “more enjoyable” than other “literary erotic books”.[2] However, The Telegraph criticised the book as “treacly cliché” but also wrote that the sexual politics in Fifty Shades of Grey will have female readers “discussing it for years to come.” [3]

Admittedly I have not read the book but the title, and the fact it went viral, might inspire: “Fifty shades of green”. This book – which also was part of a conversation at the last Frankfurt Book Fair between a representative of Wageningen Academic Publishers (publisher of Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating change – see below – and a representative of KNNV-publishers, a Dutch nature publisher) – would critically analyse the green-inflation, green populism and green rhetoric that is going on. It also, perhaps more importantly, would help people differentiate between what might be called deep green (suggesting a genuine transition to a more sustainable world built on principles, values, lifestyles and systems that are more sustainable than the ones currently demanded by the current dominant economic thinking) and shallow green (more of the same but with a nice green gloss that will make every-body feel good but doesn’t fundamentally change anything in the end and, in fact, amplifies unsustainability in disguise).

“Fifty shades of grey” apparently succeeds in what seems to be somewhat of a taboo, accessible to a huge audience and leads, in some ways, to a different conversation. Perhaps “Fifty shades of green” could accomplish that as well.

This morning, in a Skype meeting with Swedish Education for Sustainable Development teachers, I suggested such a book and people immediately seemed to start thinking about what such a book could be about. Please submit any ideas you may have about this in the comment box at the end of this post!

Below a wonderful cartoon by Singer that illustrates what might be called shallow green.

Green energy, green incinerators, green cars, green growth, green airplanes, green nuclear, green economy, plant bottles… , green growth, green mind-sets?

For those of you who are a bit concerned or skeptical about the green economy (a wolf in sheeps clothes?) and wonder whether education, learning and capacity building should be re-oriented towards such an economy – as if education only serves the economy… - I am inserting a link to a talk that was pre-recorded recently which was shown at The Swiss Sustainable Development Forum. Here’s the link which works with all main browsers I’m told. If it works well you can see both the talk and the slides used.

For those of you who would like to read about this I can refer to “Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change” – of which some chapters are now open-source including the introductory chapter co-authored with Peter Blaze Corcoran. You can click on the picture below – offering another peak into the green economy –  to get to the book.

Green Economy for All? (Source: google images)

Action Research & Community Problem Solving and The Acoustics of Social Learning

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Recently I re-visited The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where I once was a PhD-student with the late Bill Stapp, considered the founding father of Environmental Education, as my mentor. During those years (1987-1992) we worked in inner-city Detroit schools to help make education more relevant and meaningful to students growing up under harsh conditions. Many of the neighborhoods surrounding the two schools that we worked with have changed in some ways (the crack houses have been demolished mostly, some abandoned lots have been converted into what is referred to as “Detroit Agriculture” and the kids we worked with have grown-up when gotten the chance or, more likely, have moved or passed away (the life expectancy of many of the youngsters in these ‘hoods’ was not all that high in the 1980-ties). Of course some things haven’t changed, for instance, there is still poverty and most education is probably still not all that relevant and meaningful (something that holds true for kids growing up in more affluent communities as well).

Driving past 8 mile road reminded me of the time we spent with teachers and students in re-designing the curriculum to allow for the kids to link their education to the issues that mattered most to them and for the teachers to link those issues to the curriculum they were expected to teach. In the end we came up with “action research and community problem solving” (ARCPS) – a cyclical learning process consisting of problem identification and analysis, generating ideas for action and change, selecting and design concrete action plans, actual implementation and evaluation of those plans – with action and reflection throughout the process.

As we talk about sustainability, transition towns, community greening, social learning, transformation and so on a lot these days, I realize that some of the work done back then is very relevant today – there’s one difference though: much of what was considered radical and out of the main stream back then is getting much more traction today which is why I am offering a key paper from that time here: Action Research & Community Problem Solving (full reference: Wals, A.E.J. (1994). Action Research and Community Problem Solving: environmental education in an inner-city. Educational Action Research, 2 (2), 163-183) and along with what in some ways is a modern version of ARCPS: The Acoustics of Social Learning. The latter publication is more recent (an available as open access) and center’s more on community-based and multi-stakeholder social learning in the context of sustainability but has similar premises and a similar cyclical reflexive learning process. This publication can be found here: Wals, A.E.J., van der Hoeven, N. & Blanken, H. (2009). The Acoustics of Social Learning: Designing learning processes that contribute to a more sustainable world. Wageningen/Utrecht: Wageningen Academic Publishers/SenterNovem.

Green Economy – business as usual? ESD – education as usual? Rio +20 or Rio -20?

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It has been about a month now since 40-50 thousand people (from policy-makers to activists, CSOs, NGOs to CEOs) came to Rio to discuss the future of the Planet. What was accomplished? Having been among the privileged ones to be able to go to the meeting I can safely say that Rio minus 20 (The Stockholm Conference on Environment and Development) was more ground-breaking than Rio plus 20. Some will disagree with me as they see the interest of the private sector in environment and sustainability as a major step forward. The issues of 1972 have moved from the margin to the mainstream. The role of education – with Stockholm as a launching pad for Environmental Education and Rio as a launching pad for Education for Sustainable Development – has been ‘re-affirmed’ in the final declaration, much to the delight of UNESCO which hopes that Rio +20 will lead to an extension of ESD beyond the closing of the UN’s Decade for ESD (2014). At the end of this post you can read a briefing from UNESCO’s ESD-section head Alexander Leicht about the results achieved in Rio from his perspective.

I was invited to Rio to present the review of the UN DESD which UNESCO commissioned me to write up in the report “2012 DESD Full-length Report”.  Basically there are three reports: the one I submitted to UNESCO, the full report as edited and authorized by UNESCO and an abridged, glossy version for policy-makers that contains a selection of texts from the full report made by UNESCO’s ESD section. Some of the rough edges and critical notes of the original report were taken out somewhat to my dismay.

One of the key messages from the reports is that ESD or sustainability education can act as a potential catalyst for educational renewal and the introduction of new forms of learning and pedagogies (e.g. social learning, transformative learning, critical pedagogy). There is also a section addressing the changing role of science in society in times of uncertainty, complexity, eroding trust of hegemonic systems, and of rapid change. This theme connects well with the “Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change” book featured in my previous post. There is some movement within higher education but also within less institutionalized environments to transition towards new forms of knowledge co-creation and self-determined practices that are considered more sustainable and transformative. At a side-event the so-called Treaty on Higher Education Towards Sustainable development was launched that calls for the transformation of higher education itself in order to become part of the transformation towards a more sustainable world. Clearly, when taking some of these counter movements and alternative approaches to education and learning seriously ESD cannot mean ‘education as usual’.

Finally, although the green economy has been billed as ‘an opportunity’ both in the report and in Rio there is also the cautionary tale about privileging the ‘green economy’ as a driver for societal transformation as opposed to the ‘green society’ and, with that, ESD becoming an extension of economic globalization.

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Education/Education for Sustainable Development and Rio+20 (compiled by Alexander Leicht UNESCO’s ESD section)

Summary and preliminary conclusions regarding Education/Education for Sustainable Development at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from a UNESCO perspective

  1. While the overall outcome of the Rio+20 conference contains few new joint commitments by governments regarding sustainable development, the outcome for education and in particular Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is positive. The education passages in the outcome document, The Future We Want, are in line with UNESCO’s priorities and contain a clear call to continue ESD beyond the end of the UN Decade of ESD in 2014, education was frequently mentioned at the conference as an important area of sustainable development, and UNESCO’s ESD side-event was successful and very well attended.

Conference outcomes

  1. Member States reaffirm in the outcome document their commitment to achieving universal access to primary education and reaffirm that “full access to quality education at all levels is an essential condition for achieving sustainable development” and the internationally agreed development goals. Greater international cooperation to improve access to education, the need to strengthen and build education infrastructure, and increasing investment in education, in particular regarding quality education for all in developing countries, are also emphasized.
  2. The outcome document emphasizes the link between quality education and ESD, which is an important emphasis of UNESCO’s ESD work. The “need for better quality and access to education beyond the primary level” means that “the capacity of our education systems to prepare people to pursue sustainable development” must be improved. This includes the development of “sustainability curricula” and of “training programmes that prepare students for careers in fields related to sustainability”. The importance of non-formal education in pursuit of sustainable development is also recognized.
  3. Member States commit to strengthening ESD beyond the end of the UN Decade of ESD in 2014: “We resolve to promote education for sustainable development and to integrate sustainable development more actively into education beyond the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.”
  4. A ‘whole institution approach’ to ESD – “teaching sustainable development as an integrated component across all disciplines” together with “sustainability management” on the campus and engagement with the community – is particularly encouraged for education institutions. Research and innovation for sustainable development, including in education, are also highlighted, as well as programmes in the areas of “entrepreneurship and business skills training, professional, technical and vocational training and lifelong learning” with a view to “bridging skills gaps for advancing national sustainable development objectives.” Information, education and training on sustainability to strengthen the capacities of workers are referred to in the context of green economy policies.
  5. From UNESCO’s perspective it is important that the document treats education not merely instrumentally as a means of implementation for sustainable development, but that education (paras. 229-235) is grouped with other thematic areas and cross-sectoral issues of sustainable development.
  6. The document recognizes the usefulness of a limited set of concrete sustainable development goals, which should be integrated into the UN development agenda after 2015 and drive the achievement and mainstreaming of sustainable development. Their development should be guided by the outcome document, that is, goals will presumably be formulated on the basis of the thematic areas mentioned in the document. Regarding process, an open working group of 30 representatives will be established at the 67th session of the General Assembly and submit its proposal for goals to the 68th session. The Secretary-General will give first input into this group and support its work through an interagency technical support team. The document very generally states that the process must be coherent with the deliberations on the post-2015 development agenda. This will obviously have to be closely monitored in the context of the development of EFA follow-up and in order to ensure UNESCO’s priorities, including ESD, are taken into account in any post-2015 development/sustainable development agenda. More generally, UNESCO’s involvement with Rio provided further support to the view that the Organization’s ESD work needs to connect closely and strategically to global agendas in sustainable development, development and education.

Other issues regarding UNESCO/ED’s engagement with Rio

  1. UNESCO’s side-event on ESD, which was co-organized with and supported by the Government of Sweden and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, was highly successful and very well attended. It received very good external and internal feedback. Speakers were Shigeharu Kato, Director-General for International Affairs, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and Secretary-General of the Japanese National Commission for UNESCO; Annika Markovic, Environment Ambassador, Ministry for the Environment, Sweden; Greg Selinger, Premier of Manitoba, Canada; Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University; Kartikeya Sarabhai, Director, Centre for Environment Education, Ahmedabad, India; Rafael Zulli and Thiago Schlieper, secondary school students from Brazil. The panel was opened by Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, and chaired by Gretchen Kalonji, Assistant Director-General for the Natural Sciences. Arjen Wals, UNESCO Chair of Social Learning and Sustainable Development at Wageningen University, The Netherlands, presented the latest UNESCO report on the UN Decade of ESD, Shaping the Education of Tomorrow. Speakers pointed to ESD as one of the key priorities when advancing towards sustainable development and highlighted ESD’s potential to transform and innovate education. UNESCO’s leadership in education and ESD was widely recognized.
  2. Together with UN DESA, the Global Compact Secretariat, UNEP and UNU, UNESCO presented a higher education initiative launched before the conference by the Executive Coordinator of Rio+20, Elizabeth Thompson. Higher education institutions have been invited to sign up to a declaration on higher education and sustainable development and make concrete commitments. The initiative achieved good visibility during the conference, many of the voluntary commitments uploaded to the Rio+20 website in advance of the conference came from this initiative. UNESCO agreed with the Global Compact Secretariat to continue collaborating in this important and promising field.
  3. UNESCO’s message on ESD and education was also successfully shared at side-events on multi-stakeholder partnerships, led by UNICEF, on capacity-building regarding climate change, led by UNITAR, on environmental education and ESD, led by the Government of Georgia, and on partnerships for education, led by the International Business Leaders Forum. The UNESCO/IOC side-event on oceans also variously referred to the importance of education.
  4. In the lead-up to the conference, the Swedish Minister for the Environment, the Japanese Minister for Education and the Director-General co-wrote an op-ed article on ESD. It was published during the conference by a Swedish newspaper, Sydsvenska Dagbladet, distributed to the Japanese press club, and published on the UNESCO website.
  5. The importance of education was also confirmed by the online Sustainable Development Dialogues, which were organized by the Government of Brazil in the lead-up to the conference. Stakeholders had the opportunity to discuss topics such as poverty eradication, water and oceans. UNESCO provided several discussion papers as input to the discussions. Out of the 100 recommendations that came out of the dialogues, people from all over the world chose the top ten recommendations by vote. Three of them are on education.
  6. In the context of the engagement of UNESCO with Rio+20 it should also be recalled that the report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability, which was published as Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing before the conference, contains significant passages and recommendations on education, including the development of skills and knowledge needed for sustainable growth and jobs.

Alexander Leicht, Chief, Section of Education for Sustainable Development, UNESCO (a.leicht@unesco.org)

“Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change” presented to Gro Brundtland at Rio +20

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Just in time for Rio +20 we were able to finish a wonderful book project that involved many authors from four continents. The book, learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change, was presented at Rio +20 to former Norwegian Prime Minister and Chair of the infamous Brundtland Commission which made a first attempt to define “Sustainable Development” in the 1987 report “Our Common Future”.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland receives the first copy at Rio +20. Brundtland Chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) that wrote “Our Common Future”, a report that introduced the term “sustainable development” well before the first Earth Summit was held in 1992.

On the publisher’s website the book is introduced as follows: We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning.  This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. (click on the book’s cover if you wish to go to the publishers web-page about the book)

Here are some nice words from some good people about the book:

We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes—this book contributes to both. (Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil).

Moacir Gadotti of the Paulo Freire Institute receives a copy of the book at Rio +20 during the Earth Charter event

I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect. (From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy).

Instead of educational thinking and practice that tacitly assumes that the future is some kind of linear extension of the past, we need anticipative education, recognising the new conditions and discontinuities which face present generations, let alone future ones… This implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice – engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation. (From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom).

In the coming months this blog will be used to share some main ideas expressed by the authors that are a part of this volume. 

The table of contents can be found here (click on the hypertext)learn4

The book can be ordered at a discount when going to ‘books’ in the menu bar on top of this page.

Learning in a Changing World and Changing in a Learning World: Reflexively Fumbling towards Sustainability

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Some people have asked me for a copy of a ‘think piece’ I wrote a few years ago as input for a World Congress on Environmental Education held in South Africa a few years ago. The paper – Learning in a Changing World and Changing in a Learning World: Reflexively Fumbling towards Sustainability – was published in the Southern Africa Journal of Environmental Education which is an important resources in the field of EE and one of the oldest journals in this field. Unfortunately the journal’s electronic distribution is somewhat limited still. Therefore I am making it available here as a pdf.

One key message – which is important just a few weeks for the Rio +20 meeting – is that Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development have a high familiy resemblance when taking the 1975 Belgrade charter on EE and the 1977 UNESCO-UNEP conference on EE held in Tiblisi as foundational to the field of EE.

The other key message is that the nature of sustainability challenges seems to be such that a routine problem-solving approach falls short. Transitions towards a more sustainable world require more than attempts to reduce the world around us into manageable and solvable problems but instead require a more systemic and reflexive way of thinking and acting with the realisation that our world is one of continuous change and ever-present uncertainty. This alternative kind of thinking suggests that we cannot think about sustainability in terms of problems that are out there to be solved or in terms of ‘inconvenient truths’ that need to be addressed, but we need to think in terms of challenges to be taken on in the full realisation that as soon as we appear to have met the challenge, things will have changed and the horizon will have shifted once again.

The paper therefore calls for reflexivity (Reflexively fumbling towards sustainability) and offers social learning as a form of learning that is particularly suitable for promoting reflexivity in diverse groups of learners.

The pdf is linked to the full citation of the paper below:

ReflexivelyFumblingSAJEE2007

The full citation for the paper is:

Wals, A.E.J. (2007). Learning in a Changing World and Changing in a Learning World: Reflexively Fumbling towards Sustainability. Southern African Journal of Environmental Education. 24 (1), 35-45.

Innovation saturation and growth fatigue – sustainable contraction as an alternative to sustainable development

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Re-blogged – apologies as an earlier re-blog did not include the actual contents of the blog.

People across the globe are being told that they need to continuously grow and develop. There are no jobs for life, no guarantees. In order to survive you need to ‘upgrade’ your skills and be a ‘life-long learner’. To stand-still, to pause for a moment, is to fall behind. Before you know it you have become a ‘laggard’, somebody who missed the ‘wave’ or missed the boat altogether. Our mission in life has become to grow ourselves – whether you work or are unemployed – in order to help grow the company or organisation we work for, should you have work. And even if you find time for yourself in all this, you need to work on your inner-self to grow as a person – there’s a whole industry around spirituality, finding personal happiness and inner-peace and so on. Even meditation is becoming a commodity and a growth industry. Even in working on yourself you can outcompete others. When someone tells me “I meditate every day,” it sounds a bit like “I am better than you are” which ironically contradicts the entire philosophy underlying meditation.

In our spare time our other pre-programmed mission is, not to meditate, unless you pay for it or at least take a professional meditation course, to be diligent consumers. We need to spend our money. And when we don’t have any, we need to spend someone else’s money. We need to play our part in both sides of the 24/7 economy, if we don’t consume, everything will come to a grinding halt, so we are told. In being told this we are addressed as consumers, not as citizens. From birth onwards we are taught to be unhappy with who we are, so that we constantly look for ways to do better, to keep up won’t cut it. Juliet Schor’s “Born to buy” and “The over-spent American” shows some of the ramifications of this kind of programming and wiring of the brain. In “True Wealth” she suggests some alternatives.

Our sustainability crisis above all is a crisis of values, coupled with a lack of imagination and creativity. It is no surprise that there are counter movements rising such as the ‘transition town movement’ and the ‘occupy movement’. It is no surprise that there are junior activists and scholars but also senior leaders around the world who have seen it all who are now, retired and, granted, in comfortable positions, declaring that we are on a wrong path and need to explore the non-material side of being, consider abandoning the idea of continuous growth and start thinking about something like “dynamic equilibrium” and even “selective de-growth” and “sustainable contraction” instead of sustainable development.

Anyway this is becoming a bit of a rant – my apologies – but how do we begin to develop new systems and lifestyles (or re-discover old ones thatin hindsight turn out to be more sustainable)? What alternative values and ways of working and living together might be helpful? Where might we find some examples? I offer you a paper that was published a few weeks ago that only touches on some ideas. But it you have other ideas – please leave a comment!

The journal ‘The Learning Organization’ has just published a special issue on  ”The importance of educational learning for organizational sustainability” edited by Peter Smith. The special issue has a paper I co-authored with a very talented graduate student of Wageningen University – Lisa Schwarzin. It blends the wonderful research experience of Lisa in India, where she spent some time investigating a “sustainable community”  in Auroville, with some research we did in a Dutch “sustainable community” in the town of Culemborg, near Utrecht.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction (note: the link below to the paper leads to a site where you’ll need to purchase the paper. You may be able to get it free via your library. If not, send an email to: arjenwals@gmail.com and I’ll mail you a copy for personal use).  Full citation - Arjen E.J. Wals, Lisa Schwarzin, (2012) “Fostering organizational sustainability through dialogical interaction”, Learning Organization, The, Vol. 19 Iss: 1, pp.11 – 27):

In this contribution organizational sustainability has a normative underpinning that considers an organization or a community sustainable when it contributes to a more sustainable world as can be understood with our current knowledge and understanding of what sustainability might entail. In other words, a sustainable organization does not refer to an organization that succeeds itself in keeping on going by maintaining, for instance, profitability, but rather to one that, given what we know today, successfully balances people, prosperity and planet by searching for a dynamic equilibrium between these 3Ps. Ultimately such a balancing act may require a shift altogether from the maximisation of profit to something completely different such as the maximisation of meaning. This is a different vantage point from so-called green economist perspectives that tend to argue that there is little wrong with the principles of (neo)capitalism,  but that businesses and industries need to adopt production methods that are more efficient (World Bank, 2000). This call for increased efficiency and environmental mindfulness tends to be coupled with the belief that technological advancement can put off the exceeding of the Earth’s carrying capacity. Furthermore, green economists also tend to see the ‘tremendous potential for growth’ that the greening of production and consumption offers (green as a growth industry) (Makower and Pike, 2008).

While the green economy appears to be booming these days, there is a modest but growing undercurrent that suggests that ultimately a transition towards sustainability will not be the result so much of ‘doing things better’ by optimizing our current hegemonic systems but rather demands that we ‘do better things’. The latter requires more fundamental changes in the manner in which we  live, work and spend our leisure time, et cetera,  and on the kinds of values that we pursue. In other words, sustainable developments concern system  innovations that require an integrated redesign of products, lifestyles, processes and structures. This paradigmatic “whole system redesign” perspective (Sterling, 2004) is increasingly supported by economists (McKibben, 2007) as well and by emerging strands within economic sciences such as industrial ecology and ecological economics. In this article we are particularly occupied with the question of how to engage people, organizations and communities in these more fundamental transitions, while recognizing that there is still much to gain from doing things better.

Farewell to Place? The impact of invasive information and communication technologies on our relationship with the Planet

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In recent years ‘place-based education’ has been receiving increased attention from educators and policy-makers as a means to help people, young and old, re-connect with the physical, material and socio-ecological world they, oftentimes unknowingly and unconsciously, inhabit. There is a whole body of scholarly work emerging that suggests that (re)discovering and (re)connecting with place can be restorative (therapeutic, healing, etc.), generative (leading to new ways of seeing, sensing, experiencing) and empowering by enabling people to shape and care for a place. Apparently there are a number of psychological, sociological and pedagogical benefits associated with place-based education (see the work of David Sobel and Greg Smith for examples).

What I am interested in, however, is not so much to echo these benefits but to mirror them against a hegemonic trend that affects the entire globe: the exponential growth of highly invasive and, indeed, addictive hyper media and associated information and communication technologies.

Whereas place-based education, somewhere in the margins of education, seeks to reconnect people with the physical space around them, this counter hegemonic trend seems to do the exact opposite, only in much more forceful way. Educators in general and environmental educators in particular need to ask themselves what the implications are of the age of wireless, hyper-media and ICT for teaching and learning, but also for the way people ‘relate’ to each other but also to nature and the planet as a whole. Strangely, even though educators themselves are also inundated by these new ICTs both in their personal and professional lives, this question has hardly been raised so far. I’d like to propose a Special Issue for a journal like Environmental Education Research to bring together some of the early and emerging work that is being done in this area. Some contributions may consider the impact of ICTs and hypermedia on people’s sense of place and the implications for teaching and learning. Others perhaps will sketch possible educational responses that may critically take advantage of elements of the ICT revolution which can help re-store the current disconnect between people and place. Again others may wish to explore yet a different angle to this timely topic in education and learning.

Anyone with ideas for papers that might fit in such a special issue… feel free to respond. Perhaps we can pull something together.

Transitioning towards a better world: fostering organizational sustainability through dialogic interaction

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The journal ‘The Learning Organization’ has just published a special issue on  ”The importance of educational learning for organizational sustainability” edited by Peter Smith. The special issue has a paper I co-authored with a very talented graduate student of Wageningen University – Lisa Schwarzin. It blends the wonderful research experience of Lisa in India, where she spent some time investigating a “sustainable community”  in Auroville, with some research we did in a Dutch “sustainable community” in the town of Culemborg, near Utrecht.

Here is an excerpt from the introduction (citation - Arjen E.J. Wals, Lisa Schwarzin, (2012) “Fostering organizational sustainability through dialogical interaction”, Learning Organization, The, Vol. 19 Iss: 1, pp.11 – 27):

In this contribution organizational sustainability has a normative underpinning that considers an organization or a community sustainable when it contributes to a more sustainable world as can be understood with our current knowledge and understanding of what sustainability might entail. In other words, a sustainable organization does not refer to an organization that succeeds itself in keeping on going by maintaining, for instance, profitability, but rather to one that, given what we know today, successfully balances people, prosperity and planet by searching for a dynamic equilibrium between these 3Ps. Ultimately such a balancing act may require a shift altogether from the maximisation of profit to something completely different such as the maximisation of meaning. This is a different vantage point from so-called green economist perspectives that tend to argue that there is little wrong with the principles of (neo)capitalism,  but that businesses and industries need to adopt production methods that are more efficient (World Bank, 2000). This call for increased efficiency and environmental mindfulness tends to be coupled with the belief that technological advancement can put off the exceeding of the Earth’s carrying capacity. Furthermore, green economists also tend to see the ‘tremendous potential for growth’ that the greening of production and consumption offers (green as a growth industry) (Makower and Pike, 2008).

While the green economy appears to be booming these days, there is a modest but growing undercurrent that suggests that ultimately a transition towards sustainability will not be the result so much of ‘doing things better’ by optimizing our current hegemonic systems but rather demands that we ‘do better things’. The latter requires more fundamental changes in the manner in which we  live, work and spend our leisure time, et cetera,  and on the kinds of values that we pursue. In other words, sustainable developments concern system  innovations that require an integrated redesign of products, lifestyles, processes and structures. This paradigmatic “whole system redesign” perspective (Sterling, 2004) is increasingly supported by economists (McKibben, 2007) as well and by emerging strands within economic sciences such as industrial ecology and ecological economics. In this article we are particularly occupied with the question of how to engage people, organizations and communities in these more fundamental transitions, while recognizing that there is still much to gain from doing things better.

 Below is the abstract as can be found in the journal:

Purpose – This paper aims to introduce and investigate dialogic interaction as a key element of achieving a transition towards sustainability in people, organizations and society as a whole. Furthermore “sustainability competence” as a potential outcome of such interaction is to be introduced, referring to the capacities and qualities that people, and the organizations and communities of which they are part, need in order to address (un)sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach – The argument of the paper is grounded conceptually in emergent thinking among scholars preoccupied with learning-based change and sustainability in organizations and communities. Empirically, the paper uses two case studies carried out by the authors to ground the argument in real efforts by communities to create a (more) sustainable way of living.

Findings – The main results include: a post-normal understanding of sustainability highlighting uncertainty, complexity, normativity, controversy and indeterminacy; a framework facilitating dialogic interaction; and a number of key competences that appear conducive to both dialogic interaction and a transition to sustainability.

Research limitations/implications – Although the two case studies are quite extensive and rigorous, the conceptual nature of the paper and the word limitation did not allow for a more detailed discussion of the methodology used in the case studies and the contexts in which the two case studies are located.

Originality/value – The paper adopts a post-normal perspective of organizational transitions towards sustainability and focuses on dialogue and dialogic interaction as a key learning-based mechanism for facilitating such a transition. Furthermore the framework for dialogic interaction allows for a more holistic approach toward such a transition and the development of competences needed to accelerate its realization.

When citizens are re-framed as consumers and when developing countries are re-framed as emerging markets

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Recently I was asked by some key-players in the Dutch Development Scene to give a keynote presentation “on Education and Sustainability that should trigger creative thinking and shed a light on sustainability”. The seminar “Toolkit for Sustainable Impact” took place on 6 December 2011 in the Dutch city of Utrecht and was organised by PIE and Nuffic for NPT&NICHE projectleaders (you can find more info. as well as a pdf of the slides I used here)

I was asked to do so with my role of Global Report Coordinator for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development as a backdrop. But also as someone having had numerous experiences in Africa and Asia working on projects seeking to make higher education more relevant and more responsive to the needs of communities and the demands of the labour market in a rapdily changing world.

Initially I challenged the sneaky conversion of Sustainable Development into Sustainability and questioned the ‘inflation of meaning’ of both concepts as people and groups from different ideological backgrounds seem to embrace the terms (Shell speaks of sustainable economic growth, for instance, whereas Greenpeace associates sustainability with quite something else). I reminded the audience of George Orwell’s cautionary tale in told in his book “1984″ when refering to Big Brother’s language games used to manipulate and control people. He used “newspeak” and “double-think” to remove ambiguity and to unify opposites (compare for instance: clean nuclear energy, sustainable mining, etc.) and the “thought police” to prescribe how people should think and should life their lives (compare: to play their role as consumers and to continuously grow personally as lifelong learners in order to be mobile and flexible in a dynamic labour market).

Does this make sustainability and sustainable development useless? Possibly, when we don’t follow the use of the terms critically and when we fail to give it meaning in real contexts that matter to people and the communities of which they are part. The strength of these concepts, at least from an education perspective, lies in the fact that they require meaning-making and contextualization. What sustainability means in Burundi might be different from what sustainability means in Wageningen, The Netherlands where I am writing this. What we might call sustainable today, might turn out to be not so sustainable tomorrow. What is truly sustainable we simply cannot know as we don’t live long enough to determine that what we consider to be sustainable indeed turned out to be sustainable for ever..

So “sustainability” is a dynamic concept both in space and time that is marinated in uncertainty.. What we do know – with a whole lot more certainty – is that the way we live on this Planet can not be sustained for long (although the Planet will go on, certainly without us human beings being around anymore). And, indeed, we also know, or at least I think most of us will agree, that we have a moral obligation to ourselves, to other species and future generations to continuously be searching for ways to tred more lightly on the Earth and to develop lifestyles and values that are more sustainable than the ones we tend to currently support and promote.

NUFFIC, one of the Dutch development organizations organizing the event today, mostly uses “sustainability” as a term to indicate whether a project they support has impact – or, put differently, keeps on going when the external donor money is gone. This is a legitimate question but one that risks ignoring a more fundamental one which is: does the project contribute to sustainability that goes beyond the continuity of economic globalization to include the ecological, the environmental, the ethical, social-cultural – one that actually begins to question some of the underlying hegemonic principles of economic globalization and its inseperable cousin: consumerism. Perhaps another question that needs to be asked is: “what is it we are sustaining with our actions or with what – willingly or unwillingly – we are choosing not to do?”

In my talk I refered to the wonderfull dissertation of Paul Kibwika from Uganda: “Learning to make Change: Innovation Competence for Re-creating the African University for the 21st century”

Paul and I wrote a paper on this for CTA that I like to share here in this occasion.

Extreme university make-over – descending the Ivory Tower and the re-making  of higher education in the era of (un)sustainability – 2015 & Beyond

Dr. Paul Kibwika, Makere University, Uganda & Prof. Arjen E.J. Wals, Wageningen University & Research Centre, The Netherlands

We live in an essentially ‘systemic world’ characterised by multiple causation, interactions and complex feedback loops, yet the dominant educational structures are based on fragmentation rather than connection, relationship and synergy (Sterling, 2000). Universities, confronted with 21st century challenges must therefore not only rediscover, build on and share indigenous ways of knowing and acting, but generate and or adapt new concepts and practices that will contribute to creating a world that is more sustainable. Academics who still believe that universities are Ivory Towers must be willing to make a paradigm shift so that universities become an integral part of the communities that support them. Hence, a challenge to those involved in shaping higher education in agriculture and life sciences is to revisit institutional practices, examine the disciplines and provide more synergy and become more accountable for economic and human development.

Learning and Competence

Education is a means for people to become self-actualized members of society, seeking meaning, contributing to developing their own potential and creating solutions together. A sustainable world without participation and democracy is improbable, and perhaps even impossible (Wals & Jickling, 2002). It cannot be created without the full and democratic involvement of all members of society. Universities therefore must engage their students not so much in learning for knowing, but rather in learning for doing and, indeed, learning for being (Table 1). Learning for being suggests learning that is not of a transmissive nature (i.e. teaching as reproduction) but rather of a transformative nature (i.e. learning as change).  The latter requires permeability between disciplines, university and the wider community, and between cultures, along with the competence to integrate, connect, confront and reconcile multiple ways of looking at the world.

  Scientia Techne Praxis
Focus Learning for knowing Learning for doing Learning for being
Knowledge produced Propositional Practical Experiential
Stucture Subject disciplines Crafts/Skills Issues/Competences
Teacher’s role Expert Master Facilitator
Teaching strategies Lectures on theory Practical instructionDemonstrations Real-world Projects
Research style Basic (Experimental) Applied (Developmental) Action (Participative)
Research goals Abstract-universal knowledge Workplace Solutions Contextual knowledge / Action for change
Basic philosophy Positivism Utilitarianism Constructivism
Focus of reflection What do I now know? What can I now do? Who am I becoming?

Table 1. Some distinctions between different traditions of knowledge and knowing (Adapted from: Bawden and Macadam, 1991, p. 4)

The struggle to find integrated solutions through participatory, multi-disciplinary, innovation systems seems important, but many ACP universities have not yet been very effective in developing the corresponding competences of their staff or students. In addition to their academic functions, faculty and students must develop a different form of learning, if  the university is to take on more societal and developmental functions, or more specifically, is to influence change in a complex environment. Most critical is the issue of the university’s  competence to provide training, research and outreach services that appropriately address real-life problems.

The university must skilfully identify competence gaps of professionals, farmers, policymakers and other agricultural stakeholders, through collaborative learning for change.  It is such engagement with stakeholders that results in innovations that are likely to liberate farmers and nations from the poverty trap and contribute to socio-economic development that does not compromise the future.  It calls for the development of innovation cross-cutting competences in which lecturers become facilitators of learning for development for influencing change in society. Linking and strengthening of competences therefore occur at various levels: university, development service providers and the grass-roots community. Figure 1 provides the key elements, functions and relationships that, when holistically considered, make up innovation competence.

Figure 1: Constructing innovation competence through higher agriculture education (source: Kibwika, 2006) (please go to original paper – see link at the end!)

Unlike academics, who communicate primarily with peers, practitioners find themselves at the interface of researchers, donors, governments, multi-lateral agencies, activists, NGOs, and poor communities, and thus need to be able to operate in multiple communicative modalities (Woolcock, 2006). This means that universities can no longer train students who can only communicate with peers.  Communication skills integrate professionals in society and allow them effectively to influence change as members of that social system through participating in rather than studying that system. Lecturers and students must become engaged in co-learning to co-create knowledge through greater interaction between the university and the community.

Emerging strands of research

The scientists of the future must be able to break out of routines that reinforce the status quo and explore creative and unorthodox ways of solving complex problems. Through such engagement creativity will be unleashed, as scientists begin to rise to and relish the challenge of solving neglected and complex problems drawn to their attention through community engagement.  This will imply much risk taking as criteria for academic advancement may change from being based solely on peer refereed journals. ‘Research as mining’ may no longer be the prevailing mode of research but will be complemented with ‘research as learning’ and, even more radical perhaps, ‘research as activism’ (Table 2)

  Research as mining Research as learning Research as activism
Modus of understanding Nature of inquire Empirical analyticalReductionistObjectiveUniversal Hermeneutic-interpretiveHolistic-descriptive(inter)SubjectiveTrans-contextual Socially-criticalContextual-transformativeDynamic-intersubjective
Roles of researcher Good testerPassive-detachedNeutral-Expert Good listenerActive-detached or passive engagedExplicitly biasedLearner Good allyActive-committedExplicitly partisanCo-learner
Role of ‘participant’ Passive source of data Active informant Participant – learner
Noble purpose Improved efficiency, models, predictability, ‘truth’ Improved understandingPre-hypothesizingMirroring Transformation, systemic change
‘Real’ purpose Status, career development, publications Status, career development, publications Genuine transformation, systemic change?
Language used Exclusive, scientific – but simple and clear towards ‘ target groups’ Exclusive, scientific Contextual – co-created

Table 2 Conventional and emerging strands of research (adapted from Dillon & Wals, 2006).

Entrepreneurship

When people find solutions that work for them they take charge of their own development and become entrepreneurial thinkers and doers: i.e. people who can cope with and take advantage of uncertainty and complexity. Universities will more and more be required to develop entrepreneurs rather than bureaucrats.  But entrepreneurship is not acquired by proclaiming it, or by teaching theory but by practical engagement.  To develop entrepreneurs, university lecturers must also become entrepreneurs, in the sense that they must also find workable solutions to problems in diverse contexts.  Action research and process consultancy provide mechanisms for enabling lecturers to become educational or research entrepreneurs. In this type of engagement, the focus shifts from getting tasks done to solving a problem or generating new products, which involves a lot of creativity and adaptation.

Didactical implications

Integrating aspects of economic growth, social stability and sustainability cannot be realised without thinking very critically about the re-structuring didactical arrangements.  These new arrangements pre-suppose a problem orientation and experiential and lifelong learning that are likely to trigger the following shifts in educational orientation (Wals, 2000):

  • from consumptive learning to discovery learning in open-source environments
  • from teacher-centred to learner-centred arrangements
  • from individual learning to collaborative learning
  • from theory dominated learning to praxis-oriented learning
  • from sheer knowledge accumulation to problematic issue orientation
  • from content-oriented learning to self-regulative learning
  • from institutional staff-based learning to learning with and from outsiders
  • from low level cognitive learning to higher level cognitive learning

Conclusion

In the future, ACP universities that adopt this new way of thinking and doing business will be given greater recognition as leaders in society where cutting edge new knowledge is generated that can break the cycle of un-sustainable development and consumption patterns tied to un-sustainable economic principles. They will constantly question and reform deeply entrenched unsustainable routines, structures and practices by taking advantage of their privileged position in society, utilising some of the brightest minds the world has to offer, perhaps most importantly, by engaging in a collaborative endeavour in continuously seeking ways to preserve the planet. Finally, the university and the university community as a place where people live and work, where energy is used, food is consumed, waste is created, housing is provided, etc., will have to have to mimic the kind of sustainable practices it seeks to promote in its research and education in the way it runs its own business. The university of the future lives and learns by example. Failing to do so will create a gap between rhetoric and reality and undermine the university’s credibility.

Note: Paper written for 22-02-08 accesible as a pdf via: http://knowledge.cta.int/en/content/view/full/6327

Also of interest this site at Wageningen International/CDI

References

Sterling, S. (2001). Sustainable Education: Re-visioning and Change. Schumacher Briefing No. 6. Green Books Ltd.

Wals, A.E.J. & Jickling, B. (2002). “Sustainability” in Higher Education from doublethink and newspeak to critical thinking and meaningful learning. Higher Education Policy, vol. 15, 121-131.

Bawden, R. and R. Macadam (1991). Action Researching Systems: Extension

Reconstructed. Paper prepared for the workshop ‘Agricultural Knowledge Systems

and the Role of Extension’ held at theUniversityofHohenheim,Stuttgart,Germany.

21-25 May, 1991.

Dillon, J. and Wals, A.E.J. (2006) On the dangers of blurring methods, methodologies and ideologies in environmental education research, Environmental Education Research, 12(3/4), pp. 549 – 558.

Wals, A.E.J. & Bawden, R. (2000). Integrating sustainability into agricultural education: dealing with complexity, uncertainty and diverging worldviews. Gent:ICA, 48 p.

Woolcock, M. (2006) “Higher Education, PolicySchools, and Development Studies: What Should Masters Degree Students be Taught?”, Journal of International Development, Volume 19, Issue 1 , Pages 55 – 73.

Kibwika, P. (2006) Learning to make change: Developing innovation competence for recreating the African university of the 21st century. Published PhD-Thesis. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers.

Plastic heroes, plant bottles and other sustainability myths – message-in-a-bottle revisited

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Nice to be invited last night (November 24th, 2011) by the environmental science student club of Wageningen University to talk about “plastics”. (For a description of the symposium + a link to the slides used go to:http://www.kennisnetwerkmilieu.nl/#16.html

The talk gave me an opportunity to re-connect with my “message-in-a-bottle” inaugural address of two years ago where I started out referring back to the 1960-ties classic “The Graduate” (“One word Ben, just one word: PLASTICS – there’s a great future in plastics you know. Think about it!”). Indeed the world of today is unimaginable without plastics. In the words of the American ChemicalCouncil: “In today’s world, life without plastics is incomprehensible. Every day, plastics contribute to our health, safety and peace of mind (Source: American Chemistry Council 2010. www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastics/doc.asp?CID=1102&DID=4665)

Last night I added something to this by questioning some of the responses by companies,whose profits depend on the use of plastics, to more and more people expressing a deep concern about the rapid growth of plastics, including microscopic nano plastics, in the environment. A giant bottling company now introduces “plant bottles” with “up to 30% organic plant material” (what does that mean any way: up to 30%? 0.5%?), waste management companies now claim to have hyper-modern “clean” or “green” incinerators that generate energy out of garbage (which really is not garbage anymore but fuel, they are telling us… which, they suggest, is quite handy in times where we will be running out of oil and natural gas…).

On the Dutch news a couple of weeks ago it was stated that the clean Dutch incinerators were not running at full speed because the Dutch did not produce enough garbage anymore. Fortunately the waste management companies (which now refer to themselves as “energy companies” were able to sign a deal with the city of Napoli in Italy that would have garbage from the Napoli region travel by ship to The Netherlands where it would help feed the incinerators and provide Dutch citizens with energy… a ” win-win” situation… Why bother with separating waste or, worse even, reducing waste.

No wonder people are confused about sustainability matters: garbage = fuel, waste = good, plastic bottles are now plant bottles… It’s a bit like George Orwell’s 1984 with Big Brother (= Big Business) playing a language game (War = Peace) and confusing citizens with “double speak”. So part of my talk last night was about dealing with sustainability confusion, green washing and finding learning-based pathways towards critical thinking and a genuine transition towards sustainability that breaks with some of these inherently unsustainable systems and practices. Anyway – you may be interested in the original message-in-a-bottle talk and the groundswell international summary of it below.

Message in a bottle: learning our way out of unsustainability

“Message in a Bottle: learning our way out of unsustainability”“
“Message in a bottle: learning our way out of unsustainability” is the title of the provocative inaugural lecture given by Professor Arjen E. J. Wals upon taking up the posts of Professor of Social Learning and Sustainable Development, and UNESCO Chair at Wageningen University on May 27, 2010. Professor Wals describes the fundamental shift in education required to save the planet.

The lecture’s focus on sustainability seems particularly relevant in mid-December, as Americans and much of the rest of the world engage in their most rampant consumption, and perhaps begin to reflect on what the next year will bring and what they can do to better themselves, their families and their communities. Professor Wals’ lecture carries a warning and shows us a way forward. It is also worth the read for Groundswell supporters because some of the learning concepts he discusses are implicit in our people-centered approach.

I encourage you to read the whole lecture, but recognize that many people may not have the time to do so during the holiday season, so below I have included a number of excerpts in an effort to give you a sense of the greater lecture.

Is there a way out? Can the tide be turned? When the market fails and there are no invisible hands reaching out, where or who do we turn to? When over 600 billion dollar is spent annually on advertising, and over 100 million trees are cut annually for junk mail pushing products in the USA alone? When more than two million PET bottles are ‘consumed’ every five minutes everyday in the United States alone? When the drive to consume appears infinitely greater than the drive to sustain? When individualism and materialism rapidly become the global norm? When it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine a world without continuous economic growth?”

“As pointed out already, environmental educators and environmental psychologists have long known that raising awareness about the seriousness of the state of the Planet is no assurance for a change in behavior or a change in values. In fact it has been shown that just raising knowledge and awareness without providing energizing visions and concrete practices that show that there are more sustainable alternatives, will lead to feelings of apathy and powerlessness. The nature of the sustainability crisis – characterized among other things by high levels of complexity and uncertainty – suggests that people will need to develop capacities and qualities that will allow them to contribute to alternative behaviors, lifestyles and systems both individually and collectively….

In addition to much needed suitable forms of governance, legislation and regulation, we need to turn to alternative forms of education and learning that can help develop such the capacities and qualities individual, groups and communities need to meet the challenge of sustainability. There is a whole range of forms of learning emerging that all have promise in doing so:  transdisciplinary learning, transformative learning, anticipatory learning, collaborative learning and, indeed, social learning are just a few of those. These forms of learning show a high family resemblance in that they:

  • consider learning as more than merely knowledge-based,
  • maintain that the quality of interaction with others and of the environment in which learning takes place as crucial,
  • focus on existentially relevant or ‘real’ issues essential for engaging learners,
  • view learning as inevitably transdisciplinary and even ‘transperspectival’ in that it cannot be captured by a single discipline or by any single perspective,
  • regard indeterminacy a central feature of the learning process in that it is not and cannot be known exactly what will be learnt ahead of time and that learning goals are likely to shift as learning progresses,
  • consider such learning as cross-boundary in nature in that it cannot be confined to the dominant structures and spaces that have shaped education for centuries.

The above characteristics make clear that the search for sustainability cannot be limited to classrooms, the corporate boardroom, a local environmental education center, a regional government authority, etc. Instead, learning in the context of sustainability requires ‘hybridity’ and synergy between multiple actors in society and the blurring of formal, non-formal and informal education. Opportunities for this type of learning expand with an increased permeability between units, disciplines, generations, cultures, institutions, sectors and so on.

Currently we are witnessing an avalanche of interactive methods and new forms of knowledge co-creation involving a wide range of societal actors with different interests, perspectives and values but with similar challenges. Although these differences are viewed as problematic by some, they are seen as crucial by others.

Educational psychologists for long have argued and shown that learning requires some form of (internal) conflict or dissonance. Exposure to alternative ways of seeing, framing and interpreting, can be a powerful way of creating such dissonance. However, for some this may lead to too much dissonance and a defensive response which leads to tighter hold on his or her prior way of seeing things, while for others it might lead to a re-considering of ones views and the adoption or co-creation of a new one. Dissonance can, when introduced carefully, lead to, to borrow a key concept from Marten Scheffer, a tipping point in ones thinking. Such tipping points appear necessary in order to generate new thinking that can unfreeze minds and break with existing routines and systems….”

Find the complete pdf of the talk at:

www.groundswellinternational.org/sustainable-development/natural-resources-management/message-in-a-bottle-learning-our-way-out-of-unsustainability/