Taking stock of the UN Decade of education for sustainable development: the policy-making process in Flanders

Abstract

In this paper, we address the implementation of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Flanders, a sub-national entity of Belgium. Our analysis shows how the policy-making process in Flanders is inextricably intertwined with three developments in environmental and educational policy: the increasing impact of ESD policy and discourse on environmental education, the framing of social and political problems as learning problems, and ecological modernisation. These trends give shape to a post-ecologist and post-political policy regime and, thus, affect what is possible and acceptable within Flemish ESD policy. However, this case study also revealed that these developments do not completely determine ESD policy-making in Flanders. Our examination thus allowed us to understand how the actual policy translation in a particular local setting brings about powers that legitimise and maintain as well as counteract the bounds of the policy regime that emerged in the context of the UN Decade.

Keywords:

• education for sustainable development
• ESD
• UN Decade of ESD
• policy-making
• ecological modernisation
• governmentalisation

Acknowledgements

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

Notes

1. The world average bio-capacity, that is, the surface area of agricultural land, forest and fishing territory available, is 1.8 gha per capita.