Learning from sustainable development: education in the light of public issues

Abstract

Education for sustainable development plays an increasing role in environmental education policy and practice. In this article, we show how sustainable development is mainly seen as a goal that can be achieved by applying the proper processes of learning and how this learning perspective translates sustainability issues into learning problems of individuals. We present a different perspective on education for sustainable development and emphasize the importance of presenting issues of sustainable development as ‘public issues’, i.e. as matters of public concern. This shifts the focus from the competences that citizens must acquire to the democratic nature of the spaces and practices in which participation and citizenship can develop.

Keywords:

• ESD
• democracy
• participation
• citizenship
• socialization
• subjectification

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the three anonymous reviewers of this paper for their very helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. The notion ‘ESD’ is highly contested in academic literature. Different authors use more than 20 distinct terms to point to learning processes in the field of sustainability issues: ‘education for sustainable development’, ‘education about sustainable development’, ‘education as sustainability’, ‘learning as sustainability’, ‘education for sustainability’, ‘learning for sustainability’, ‘sustainable education’, ‘sustainable learning’, ‘environment and development education’, ‘education for environment and sustainable development’, ‘education for environment and development’, ‘environmental education for sustainable development’, ‘education for sustainable futures’, ‘education for a sustainable future’, ‘environmental education for equitable and sustainable societies’, ‘environmental education for sustainable societies and global responsibility’, ‘environmental education for the development of responsible societies’, ‘education for a better world’, ‘education for sustainable contraction’, ‘education consistent with Agenda 21’, ‘education 21’, ‘ecopedagogy’, etc. Each (slight) distinction refers to differences in opinion and/or interpretation. It is beyond the scope of this article to consider this discussion extensively. Instead, we pragmatically use the term ESD since we address the increasing influence of sustainable development on environmental education as a policy-driven tendency and ESD is the word used in policy discourse. In our conclusion, yet, we put forward the idea of ‘learning from sustainable development’ as an alternative perspective that takes into account several concerns that play a part in this debate.

2. For example, Environmental Education Research, Journal of Environmental Education, Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, Ethics and Action, International Research in Geographical & Environmental Education, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, The journal of the Australian Association for Environmental Education, Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education and Applied Environmental Education and Communication.