Special issue on: Mediated Cross-Cultural Learning in the Pursuit of Sustainability
Edited by
Nadarajah Sriskandarajah—Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden and Arjen Wals—Wageningen University, The Netherlands
As the mantra of sustainability continues to gain momentum around the world, it becomes increasingly clear that the creation of a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect requires, at least in part, a break with the past. What appear to be needed are new forms of learning and innovation that will enable us to escape from existing routines and systems that are both notoriously persistent and inherently unsustainable. Research from seemingly unrelated fields of inquiry, such as social psychology, business management, education and ecology, suggests that the breaking of stubborn routines and the creation of a new culture or system grounded in a different set of values, above all hinges on the presence of pluralism and space for meaningful interaction and confrontation. Apparently pluralism and dissonance, when properly introduced, cultivated, managed and utilized, can lead to the kind of energy, creativity and ‘Gestaltswitch’ necessary to move closer towards sustainability.
This special issue explores carefully designed education and extension programmes that can be characterized by ‘learning on the edges’ or the kind of learning that emerges when heterogeneous groups of learners interact around issues of sustainability (i.e. sustainable resource management, sustainable land use, sustainable chain management, sustainable food production and consumption). We use the phrase ‘mediated cross-cultural learning’ to emphasize the importance of facilitated, guided and (co)designed learning activities that have a cross-cultural component. Cross-cultural should be interpreted broadly to include learners who have different cultural backgrounds (i.e. learning on the interface between cities and rural areas would also be considered as cross-cultural as would an international IT-supported course on sustainable agriculture involving students from different countries). The theme issue ideally features examples of research from both formal and non-formal learning environments.
Submission of Manuscripts
The Journal of Agricultural Education & Extension is an English-language publication. Manuscripts should be written in clear, accessible language, which can be understood by those outside the authors’ area of specialization. Submission of a manuscript implies a commitment to publish in this Journal. Only manuscripts which have not been previously published, and are not currently under consideration for publication by another Journal are acceptable. Exceptions may be made in cases of manuscripts published in the proceedings of a conference or translated from another language. Please edit your text as little as possible: no tabs or indentations, and suchlike. Papers should not exceed 6,000 words (including tables, figures and references). All authors should provide a cover page which lists the following contact details: names of author/s, address of corresponding author, telephone, fax and email address.
Your submission should be emailed to: [email protected] or [email protected] no later than 1 October 2008.