Tomorrow afternoon the ESD group of the Faculty of Education of Gothenburg University is hosting a seminar on Education for Sustainable Development in the ‘Capitalocene’ which is based on a Special Issue that just appeared in Educational Philosophy and Theory 54(3), 2022:  Here you find the link Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol 54, No 3 (Current issue) (tandfonline.com). During the seminar editors and contributors – including someone I have always greatly admired and had the pleasure to work with for more that 30 (!) years now: Bob Jickling. as well as other wonderful invited experts will discuss questions like:

– What urgent future research trajectories do we see for Education for sustainable development in the Anthro-Capitalocene?

– What does the Anthropo-Capitalocene mean for educational practice? “As educators, working within these multiple tipping points, where do we stand?” (Do we still believe in education?)

Below you find the program and the Zoom-link:

Monday, 7th February at 3:15 – 5:00 p.m. (CET) on Zoom:  

https://gu-se.zoom.us/my/helenapedersen

Invited guest speakers:

Prof. Em. Bob Jickling, Lakehead University (Canada)

Senior Lecturer Nick Peim, University of Birmingham (UK) 

Prof. Jason Wallin, University of Alberta (Canada)

Seminar schedule: 

3:15-3:25: Welcome and introduction (Helena Pedersen)

3:25-3:35: Bob Jickling paper presentation

3:35-3:45: Jason Wallin paper presentation

3:45-3:55: Nick Peim paper presentation

3:55-4:05: Short break

4:05-4:30: Keri Facer response & discussion with authors, the ESD Research Group/editorial team, and seminar participants

4:30-4:55: What next? Discussion questions (Keri Facer, authors & all):

– What urgent future research trajectories do we see for Education for sustainable development in the Anthro-Capitalocene?

– What does the Anthropo-Capitalocene mean for educational practice? “As educators, working within these multiple tipping points, where do we stand?” (Do we still believe in education?)

4:55-5:00: Wrapping up & closing of seminar (Helena Pedersen)

Last month the first of three microseasons of The Regenerative Education Podcast has been published on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. In each episode, one om my PhDs, Bas van den Berg who is director of education of the Mission Zero centre of expertise at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, engages with a leading practitioner, professor, teacher, and/or activist that is trying to connect their educational practice to making the world a more equitable, sustainable and regenerative place.

The podcast aims to discover the design dispositions and elements of a regenerative education for the ecological university. An ecological approach to education that nurtures the appropriate participation in the healing of places and self in times of socio-ecological crisis. Bas van de Berg did a remarkeable job in pooling together a great group of people who provide wonderful insights in how to create cultures and forms of education, teaching and learning that can help create a world that is more sustainable than the one currenty in prospect.

Bas interviewed me in the third podcast of season one, titled planting the seeds of change. This link will take you to the 40 minute interview that took place in July via Zoom: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3QgZ7K2xGlBf6FGON3AU1t

You can also visit any of the sites below for the entire Podcast Series

• Spotify: The Regenerative Education Podcast | Podcast op Spotify
• Apple Podcasts: ‎The Regenerative Education Podcast on Apple Podcasts
• Google Podcasts: The Regenerative Education Podcast (google.com)

With the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development having just occurred (here you find the so-called Berlin Declaration that was adopted there https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/esdfor2030-berlin-declaration-en.pdf), many educators are asking a key question: are we educating for the world we want?

Despite many valuable on-the-ground initiatives, the answer is a clear “no” in the wide-ranging forum The Pedagogy of Transition: Educating for the Future We Want, published earlier this month by the Great Transition Initiative (GTI): https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/pedagogy-transition

The Great Transition Initiative is an online forum of ideas and an international network for the critical exploration of concepts, strategies, and visions for a transition to a future of enriched lives, human solidarity, and a resilient biosphere.

Following an opening paper by Stephen Sterling, Emeritus Professor at the University of Plymouth, twenty-eight panellists – including myself, David Orr, Vandana Singh, Guy Dauncey, Rajesh Tandon, Isabel Rimanoczy, Iveta Silova and Richard Falk – critique the dominant education models in practice today and reflect on what a “pedagogy of transition” aligned with the long transition to a just, ecological, and fulfilling civilization would look like—and what it already looks like in the classroom/lecture hall and beyond.

The forum contributes to growing international debate on the purposes and role of education by offering a powerful and challenging critique of conventional assumptions about education and learning. More importantly, it posits inspiring alternative visions and practicable steps to transformative change that point the way forward.

Thursday May 6th Humberto Maturana passed away at age 92. He was a highly influential Biologist and Philosophers with a profound knowledge of cybernetics and system thinking. Perhaps his most notable concept, one that is increasingly referred to in the context of sustainability science is that of autopoiesis which referred to the self-regenerating and self-constructing structures of living systems. Not so long ago I co-authored a paper about his work and that of Paulo Freire, together with Brazilian lead-author Daniele Tubino Souza and Pedro Jacobi .

I am re-posting it here in commemorating both great Latin American thinkers who have now both passed away. The paper represents an attempt to link the thinking of both men and a discussion of how a synthesis might contribute to emancipatory sustainability-oriented transformations in urban area’s.

Abstract

This article investigates the relevance of the work of the Latin-American thinkers Humberto Maturana and Paulo Freire to learning-based transformations towards sustainability. This analysis was inspired by a case study of a Brazilian urban community seeking to develop pathways towards sustainable living and was informed by a review of their key works. The paper aims to obtain a better conceptualization of learning-based transformations and provide insights into collective learning processes focused on advancing sustainable practices. We present notions of the transformative social learning approach that underpins the case study, using the concepts of Maturana and Freire as a lens. Our results indicate the importance of a relational approach in fostering collective learning processes. Finally, we derive three principles that can guide such processes: (1) facilitating transformative interactions between people and places, (2) enabling dialogic interaction within a climate of mutual acceptance, and (3) creating space for ontological pluralism.

See: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2019.1641183 or click:  Relational Pedagogy Freire & Maturana  

Keywords: Sustainability, community-based initiatives, dialogue, transformative social learning, relational pedagogy

One of the two key figures can be seen below – please go to the the publisher’s website to find the paper and the other figures!

Thursday May 6th Humberto Maturana passed away at age 92. He was a highly influential Biologist and Philosophers with a profound knowledge of cybernetics and system thinking. Perhaps is most notable concept, one that is increasingly referred to in the context of sustainability science is that of autopoiesis which referred to the self-regenerating and self-constructing structures of living systems. Not so long ago I co-authored a paper about his work and that of Paulo Freire, together with Brazilian lead-author Daniele Tubino Souza and second co-author Pedro Jacobi that appeared in Environmental Education Research.

I am re-posting it here in commemorating both great Latin American thinkers. The paper represents an attempt to link the thinking of Paulo Freire and Humberto Maturana to each other and to emancipatory sustainability-oriented transformations in urban area’s.

Abstract

This article investigates the relevance of the work of the Latin-American thinkers Humberto Maturana and Paulo Freire to learning-based transformations towards sustainability. This analysis was inspired by a case study of a Brazilian urban community seeking to develop pathways towards sustainable living and was informed by a review of their key works. The paper aims to obtain a better conceptualization of learning-based transformations and provide insights into collective learning processes focused on advancing sustainable practices. We present notions of the transformative social learning approach that underpins the case study, using the concepts of Maturana and Freire as a lens. Our results indicate the importance of a relational approach in fostering collective learning processes. Finally, we derive three principles that can guide such processes: (1) facilitating transformative interactions between people and places, (2) enabling dialogic interaction within a climate of mutual acceptance, and (3) creating space for ontological pluralism.

See: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2019.1641183 or click:  Relational Pedagogy Freire & Maturana  

Keywords: Sustainability, community-based initiatives, dialogue, transformative social learning, relational pedagogy

One of the two key figures can be seen below – please go to the the publisher’s website to find the paper and the other figures!

Recently an impressive collage of chapters was put together by Antonio Augusto Rossoto Ioris under the title of “Environment and Development: Challenges, Policies and Practices” (open access). Led by Daniele Tubino de Souza (former PhD from Brazil, now working with us at Wageningen University), I was part of a team of authors, that wrote a chapter titled: Regenerating the Socio-Ecological Quality of Urban Streams: The Potential of a Social Learning Approach

This chapter seeks to identify potentialities and challenges in using the social learning approach as a framework for the multi-stakeholder interactions involved in initiatives for the regeneration of urban streams in contexts of socio-ecological vulnerability. Te analysis is built on the case study of the Taquara Stream, located in the city of Porto Alegre, in south Brazil. Tis case study comprises a self-organised group of citizens— composed of members of the local community, the public sector and educational institutions—acting to re-establish the socio-ecological quality of the Taquara Stream and watershed, an area largely occupied by informal settlements. Firstly, we contextualise and problematise the issue of urban stream degradation, focusing on the Brazilian context. Secondly, we provide a brief literature review on social learning, and, finally, we describe and discuss the case of the Taquara Stream as an example of a social learning–oriented process to demonstrate the potential contribution and challenges this approach brings within processes for the regeneration of urban streams in vulnerable areas. There are some nice illustrations of the setting in which the research took place. The entire book is open-access. You can find it here:https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-55416-3.pdf

I made a separate pdf of our chapter which you find here:

The full reference is:

Souza de, D.T., Grandisoli, E., Jacobi, P.R. and Wals, A.E.J. (2021)Regenerating the Socio-Ecological Quality of Urban Streams: The Potential of a Social Learning Approach. In: Ioris, A.A.R (Ed.) Environment and Development: Challenges, Policies and Practices. Cham: Palgrave-Macmillan, p.67-98.

Oddly, I was unaware of the Great Transition Initiative (https://greattransition.org/ ) when I was invited to contribute to a dialogue with sustainability education scholars and practitioners from around the world. So, I went to the website at https://greattransition.org/ and looked around a bit and became more and more excited with every door I opened and space I entered. Apparently, the Great Transition Network has served as a visionary forum and advocate of new ways of thinking and acting that have challenged us to rethink the possible and respond to the critical deficiencies of incremental thinking and the need for bold change. The Great Transition Network (GTN) engages over 1,000 scholars and activists from scores of countries concerned about the global future. In recent months, we have featured discussions on topics like the human rights movement, nuclear abolition, and ecosocialism.

In the month of March (2021), Jonathan Cohn, the Managing Editor of the Great Transition Initiative site, hosted a discussion among the associated Great Transition Network on the topic of sustainability education and, the limitations of the current educational models and what we need to do to ensure that we are educating for the world that we want. Framing questions as well as the opening reflections for the discussion came from Stephen Sterling. The GTN is currently preparing an on-line collage of some of the key inputs provided during the month which should be available shortly via https://greattransition.org/. Below I have posted my own contribution. Feel free to comment!

Enough is enough – transgressive learning, resistance pedagogy and disruptive capacity building as levers for sustainability

By Arjen Wals (arjen.wals@wur.nl)

If education is to make a significant contribution to the transition towards a more sustainable world it will need to build the kind of capacity that can break the resilient practices of ‘business-as-usual’ that normalise growth thinking, individualism, inequality, anthropocentrism, exclusion, exploitation and even catastrophes. Regarding the latter: there are so many catastrophes going on everywhere, in one way or another, that – unless, of course, you are in the middle of one and many people are – it leads to and psychic numbing and a widespread acceptance of their inevitability (Jickling, 2013) which is not going to help in dealing with them.

Before making my main point, let me first let me acknowledge and support the avalanche of propositions that currently take root in education across the globe that all seem to call for all or a combination of the following: ‘integrative and holistic approaches,’ ‘fundamental and systemic change,’ ‘empowering, action-oriented and reflexive forms of learning,’ ‘boundary crossing between the worlds of education, research, governance, business and civic society,’ and ‘deep engagement with sustainability-related ‘wicked’ issues’ around, climate, health, justice, equity, biodiversity, etc., many of which are captured by the SDGs. All these propositions have been made and elaborated upon in this dialogue series of the Great Transition Network.

Much attention in education is given to responsiveness, resilience and adaptation. At first sight this seems sensible but upon closer inspection this attention is, at least in part, fuelled by a neo-liberal agenda and a globalizing economy, sometimes masked under the umbrella of 21^st Century Skills and, even of the SDGs. As an example of the latter, SDG 1 states: ‘No poverty’ and not: ‘Eradicate extreme wealth inequality’, while SDG 8 is about ‘Decent work for all and economic growth’ and not about ‘Decent work for all and a regenerative or circular economy’. This attention represents an ‘optimization frame’ that leaves the underlying values, principles and mechanisms that result in ongoing systemic global dysfunction untouched and, worse, strengthens them. Mainstream education currently stresses – using Biesta’s (2013) functions of education – ‘qualification’ (skills and competencies) over ‘subjectification’. The subjectification task of education has to do with engaging students in with existential questions regarding what it means to be human and about being and becoming in an entangled world. Such questions are critical in finding pathways to a more sustainable world. The denial of subjectification can, once again, be connected to the neo-liberal agenda that stresses commodification over what might be called ‘commonification’. Whereas the former is about creating economic value, accountability and efficiency, the latter is about creating community, serving the public good and preserving the integrity and well-being of the human, non-human and more-than-human world.

Given the urgency of the planetary crisis humanity finds itself in, not caused by all humans I must add, a radical response is needed, one that instead of the earlier mentioned optimization frame, requires a ‘transition frame’ that can break the maladaptive destructive structures and routines, and associated values and principles. This dismantling is needed for opening up spaces for alternatives that are healthier, more just and equitable and, indeed, more sustainable. Doing so requires more than cultivating often-mentioned sustainability competencies and qualities such as; dealing with complexity and ambiguity, anticipating and imagining alternative futures, taking mindful action, having empathy and agency, and so on. Rather, it also requires the capacity to disrupt, to make the normal problematic, the ordinary less ordinary, to provoke and question, to take risks for the common good, to complicate matters rather than to simplify them, to become uncomfortable – together – by asking moral questions and posing ethical dilemmas, and to learn from the ‘push back’ and the resistances from the normalized unsustainable systems all the above creates.

Transgressive learning (Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2016), disruptive capacity building and pedagogies of resistance can be characterized by learning processes and contexts/environments for learning that invite a counter-hegemonic response that unearths and uproots mechanisms of exploitation, oppression, extractivism, colonialization and marginalization. Yes, transgression, disruption and resistance will lead to tensions, conflicts, controversy and discomfort (Pedersen et al. 2019), but it is therein where critical consciousness and spaces for fundamental change can arise. When this disruptive work can be combined with participation in social movements and transition niches that provide concrete utopias and viable alternatives, more hopeful, energizing and regenerative cultures (Wahl, 2016) can unfold. There are some good examples of such forms of learning, so far usually outside of universities in loose intentional networks like the Youth Climate Strike movement, Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future, but also in intentional communities seeking to go off-the-grid by creating more localized sustainable energy cooperatives, food systems and green urban renewal. Often these learning processes allow for community-building, socio-emotional engagement in the issues along side critical investigation of facts and myths, as well as the use of arts-based and imaginative processes that lead to creative and hopeful alternative practices and possibilities. Some principles, tools and examples can be found here:

www.transgressivelearning.org

https://www.sustainableplaceshaping.net/arts-based-toolkit/

https://www.wur.nl/en/show/71-Visions-on-our-role-in-social-environmental-transformative-change.htm

https://ecoversities.org/

REFERENCES (cited)

Biesta, G. (2013) The beautiful risk of education. London: Routledge.

Bob Jickling (2013) Normalizing catastrophe: an educational response, Environmental Education Research, 19:2, 161-176, DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2012.721114

Lotz-Sisitka, H., Belay Ali, M., Mphepo, G. ,Chaves, M., Macintyre, T., Pesanayi, T., Wals, A.E.J., Mukute, M., Kronlid, D., Tuan Tran, D., Joon, D., McGarry, D. (2016). Co-designing research on transgressive learning in times of climate change, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 20:50-55 · June 2016, · DOI: 10.1016/j.cosust.2016.04.004

Pedersen, H., Håkansson, J. Wals, A.E.J. (2019) Introducing critical animal pedagogies in higher education. In: Franck, O. (Ed.) Vetenskaplighet i högre utbildning, Stockholm: Studentlitteratur, p. 315-334.

Wahl, D. C. (2016). Designing Regenerative Cultures. Axminster: Triarchy Press.

REFERENCES (further elaborations, not cited)

Peters, S. and Wals, A.E.J. (2013) Learning and Knowing in Pursuit of Sustainability: Concepts and Tools for Trans-Disciplinary Environmental Research. In: Krasny, M. and Dillon, J. (Eds.) Trading Zones in Environmental Education: Creating Trans-disciplinary Dialogue. New York: Peter Lang, p 79-104.

Wals, AEJ, Peters, MA (2017) Flowers of Resistance: Citizen science, ecological democracy and the transgressive education paradigm. In: König, A & Ravetz, J. (Eds). Sustainability Science, London: Routledge. p.61-84.

Wals, A.E.J. (2019) Sustainability-oriented Ecologies of Learning. In: Learning Ecologies: Sightings, possibilities, and emerging practices Ronald Barnett and Norman Jackson (Eds.), London: Taylor & Francis. p. 61-78.

Despite the disadvantage of not being able to work together, due to COVID19, in face-to-face and more embodied manner, with partners in India, South Africa, Rwanda, Somalia and Somaliland, we (the TESF-Team) are still able to generate a number of worthwhile background papers that seek to support the local education transformation projects that will commence within the next few months in each of these countries. The aim of this last background paper is to explain the overall methodological approach and key concepts that inform our work as researchers within the Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures Network Plus (https://tesf.network/). In particular, we will seek to explain what we mean by the idea of ‘knowledge co-creation’ which underpins our approach and what this means in practical terms for the design and implementation of research projects in the area of education for sustainable futures. The paper can be downloaded here: https://tesf.network/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/TESF-Background-Paper-Co-Creating-Education-for-Sustainable-Futures_Final_26012021.pdf

A new paper just appeared in Environmental Education Research based on research by one of our talented Masters students Laura Schröder on the role of student participation in shaping Eco-Schools in Spain and The Netherlands. The focus of the study was on understanding the levers of student participation and of the factors leading to a whole-school approach. Engeström’s Second Generation Activity Systems Model was used as an analytical framework. The study also reflects on the merits and shortcomings of this framework. The analysis of the two cases revealed contradictions in the intended effect of the Eco-School programme on fostering student-led change towards sustainability and a whole-school approach.

The research suggests that student participation in Eco-School programme can be fostered by:

1. using an activity-based ‘whole institution’ approach that interlinks a reflective and action-based procedure,
2. adapting the students’ learning environment according to their needs and capabilities,
3. providing for close teacher guidance in Eco-School activities and establishing good student-teacher-relationships, and, finally,
4. incorporating the Eco-School programme into the school’s overall educational framework.

Keywords: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Eco-Schools programme, student-led change, Cultural-Historical-Activity-Theory (CHAT)

Here is a link to the publisher’s website where you can find the full paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2020.1779186

Another article appeared in Sustainability – one of MDPI’s somewhat controversial journals (see my earlier blog posts about MDPI). The paper is led by former PhD student Thomas Macintyre and is the fifth and final publication associated with his PhD ‘The Transgressive Gardner’ (see under ‘PhD-students’ in the menu above). This empirical paper was quite thoroughly reviewed and took, certainly for MDPI-standards took rather long turnaround time. Good things do take time!

The paper addresses the need for more in depth understanding of signs and characteristics of transgressive learning in a context of runaway climate change. In a world characterized by systemic global dysfunction, there is an urgency to foster rapid systemic change which can steer our paths towards meeting the SDG goals. The contention of this paper is that, although there is a need for rapid change, it is fundamental to understand how such change can come about, so as to co-create and investigate learning environments and forms of learning that can lead to a systemic change towards sustainability. Anchored in the emerging concept of transgressive learning, this article employs the innovative Living Spiral model to track critical learning moments by facilitators and participants in multi-stakeholder Transformation Labs (T-Labs), which took place in 2017/2018 in various grassroots sustainability initiatives in Colombia and The Netherlands.

The results of the analysis highlight the importance of the values of “acknowledging uncertainty”, “community”, and “relationality” in disrupting world-views through promoting reflexivity in participants and facilitators. This paper concludes that more research on the power dynamics of “absences” in transformative research is needed to better capture the challenges of overcoming sustainability challenges.

Here is the pdf to the actual paper: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/4873/pdf