Transformative environmental education: a collective rehearsal for reality

Abstract

This paper puts forward an alternative view on sustainable development, arguing that the separation between the economy, the environment and the social in the Brundtland model obscures the societal character of the economy, the economic bases of the social, and the fact that the environment is a societal product. We differentiate between strong and weak sustainability, arguing that the threat of environmental degradation can only be addressed at the level of the relations of production, consumption and political relations. Building on this perspective, we advocate a form of transformative environmental education which engages learners and teachers in a process of self‐reflective transformation. We illustrate this through two examples: action competence and Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed.

Keywords:

• strong sustainability
• weak sustainability
• transformative education
• relations of production
• relations of consumption
• political relations

Notes

1. In capitalist societies it is private ownership that restricts more participatory forms of control, whereas in the former state‐socialist societies it was state ownership that was similarly limiting.

2. Some of our referees asked us to ‘show our colours’ – to say whether our ideas are Marxist and in which way, whether we envisage a socialist society and how it would look. We have not been asked whether we envisage a reformed capitalism or whether our ideas are (post)structuralist, for instance. It seems as if Marxism is not just another theoretical approach, but something one has to declare and profess like a religion. We each come from different theoretical and political traditions, of which some include Marxist approaches and some not. This article is the result of a long discussion process in which we have come to agreements based on issues, where both of us have gone beyond our particular theoretical approaches without feeling the need to either distance ourselves from them, or to carry them around like a banner. We see that as an achievement and would not like to retreat behind it. Maybe it is naïve to think that arguments can be discussed in their own right without being immediately labelled. But we think it is worth trying.