In an era marked by global challenges, integrating sustainability into education becomes imperative on a worldwide scale (UNESCO, 2020). Informed by theories of transformative learning (Mezirow, 2003; Sterling, 2001), pluriversal politics (Escobar, 2020) and environmental justice (Celermajer, et al., 2021; Druker-Ibáñez & Cáceres-Jensen, 2022; Gough, 2021) we designed a seasonal school that creates space for post-graduate students to explore a multitude of different perspectives on the meaning and mattering of sustainability in education in the spring of 2024. During the school we will employ a participatory approach, encouraging students to reveal how their studies in Education might be informed by environmental sustainability. This includes a series of provocations (e.g. panel discussions, expert interviews) and interventions (artist-led workshops) as well as opportunities for relationship building that seek to surface students’ implicit understanding of sustainability and environmental justice, making them explicit, leading to a deeper and broader understanding of its applicability across the discipline of Education. We draw on the concept of conscientization, which is the process of becoming aware of social, political, and economic inequalities and taking action to address them (Freire, 1970). ... mehrThrough this lens, the course explores the ways in which environmental justice is intertwined with wider inequalities in society. We are interested to understand the impacts that this process has on the attending students, what transformations, if any, are experienced, and what elements of the engagements during and after the school are impactful, and in what ways; or indeed how the different elements work together to lead to change. The focus lies not on quantifying levels of literacy or competency in relation to the concepts explored, but rather on uncovering the intricate and personal dimensions of transformation in each student. The knowledge produced by this study will be widely useful in supporting our efforts to make explicit tacit knowledge and assumptions relation to sustainability.
Method
Our method to assess and evaluate the impact of the seasonal school on a diverse group of 20-25 post-graduate students, including a minimum of 10 from both high and low GDP countries will be to use a questionnaire to gather students’ impressions of the impacts of the school on their practice, and their conceptions about ideas like transformation, environmental justice and sustainability. The survey will be a combination of Likert scale questions and longer answer questions seeking to reveal changes in participants' attitudes and perceptions about their subject of study and its approach to sustainability, and transformations in their approaches to carrying out and interpreting their research. The survey will both inform planning for similar future events and provide data to broaden understandings of the ways in which these sorts of one-off short term training events influence early career academics’ journeys. The research will also shape how we understand transformative learning experiences in the field of sustainability education. Our method is currently undergoing ethical review, and each student will be able to decide whether their responses to the evaluation can be used in the research study or not.
Expected Outcomes
Emphasizing a qualitative understanding of participants' experiences, the study anticipates diverse outcomes. Thematic analysis seeks to unveil the intricacies of personal transformations, encompassing shifts in perspectives, values, and conceptualizations of sustainability in education. By focusing on individual journeys, the study aims to identify critical turning points, potentially revealing key moments or interventions that significantly contribute to transformative experiences in the realm of sustainability education. Anticipated outcomes include a nuanced understanding of how cultural and contextual factors influence sustainability perceptions within the cohort, acknowledging diversity and varying implications across educational contexts. The study also expects evidence of enhanced self-awareness and conscientization among participants, aligning with the course's guiding concept. We would like to test those assumptions, but we would also like to try to understand the mechanisms whereby this happens. What are the elements that result in change? How do the elements interact to lead to change? Instead of relying solely on quantitative measures, we hope to provide qualitative indicators of impact, capturing the depth and breadth of individual transformations, and what has generated these.
References
Celermajer, D., Schlosberg, D., Rickards, L., Makere, S.-H., Thaler, M., Tschakert, P., Verlie, B. & Winter, C. (2021). Multispecies justice: theories, challenges, and a research agenda for environmental politics, Environmental Politics, 30(1-2), 119-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2020.1827608.
Druker-Ibáñez, S. and Cáceres-Jensen, L. (2022) ‘Integration of indigenous and local knowledge into sustainability education: a systematic literature review’, Environmental Education Research, 28(8), 1209–1236. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.2083081
Escobar, A. (2020). Pluriversal politics: the real and the possible. Latin America in translation. Durham: Duke University Press.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.
Gough, A. (2020). ‘Education in the anthropocene’, Education in the Anthropocene, 16 November. Available at: https://iiraorg.com/2020/11/16/education-in-the-anthropocene/
Mezirow, J. (2003). Transformative Learning as Discourse. Journal of Transformative Education, 1(1), 58–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344603252172
Sterling, S.R. (2001). Sustainable education: re-visioning learning and change. Schumacher briefing. Totnes: Green Books for the Schumacher Society.
UNESCO (2020). Education for Sustainable Development. A Roadmap. https://doi.org/10.54675/YFRE1448
1; Lee, Elsa