Tag Archives: resilience

Online Masters Course on Education in the context of Sustainable Development at Gothenburg University – starting November 1st

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New Course: Education for sustainable development – an introduction

There is only one Earth. With global challenges such as climate change, mass extinction of species, rising inequity and a growing world population, the prospects for a quality life for all, forever seem rather bleak. Central in this new course is the question: What is the role and responsibility of education in not only responding to sustainability problems but also in preventing them and in creating more sustainable futures? But also what might such education look like? The course will take advantage of some of the materials and lessons learnt from the recently finished Global Environmental Education Course Gothenburg University supported – along with other universities and the US EPA- which was lead by Cornell University in association with the NAAEE’s EECapacity Program.

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In this 15 credit Master’s course you will critically and actively explore central concepts and perspectives in the field of education for sustainable development. The course content will be related to the participants’ own backgrounds, specific interests and prior experiences. Master students with different study backgrounds (e.g. environmental sciences, social sciences, economics, arts and humanities) can enrol in this course as long as you have an interest in both sustainable development and education.

The course is offered by Gothenburg University online at half time during the second half of autumn 2016 (Start: November 1 – Finish: March 22, 2017). The main course language is English. There are four blocks: 1) Understanding Sustainable Development, 2) Understanding Education in relation to SD, 3) Understanding learning environments, processes and outcomes conducive to SD and 4) Education in relation to your own SD-challenge (personal project). Each block is divided up in course weeks, each with short introductory videos, background literature, discussion questions and online discussion. Periodically there will be assignments that will be used in providing feedback and assessing the quality of your contributions. The new Global Education Monitor Report on Education for People and Planet: Creating Sustainable Futures for All will be one of the texts used in the course.

For the pilot course we are admitting a maximum of 50 students. You will need to formally register for the course through Gothenburg University via this link to the GU course web-page.

More information about course content contact me at: Arjen.wals@gu.se

More information about course logistics and registration can be found via the link to the course’s webpage (hyperlink).

Note: eligible students from European Union can participate without paying tuition to Gothenburg University. Students from outside the European Union will have to pay a tuition fee. It is assumed that participants have a bachelor degree or equivalent and have a proficient mastery of the English language (evidence of this may need to be provided).

Sustainability Citizenship in Cities: Theory and Practice – now available!

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sustainability-citizenship-in-cities-theory-and-practice-by-ralph-horne-1317391071

Australian colleagues Ralphe Horne, John Fien, Beau Beza and Anitra Nelson edited a fascinating book on ‘sustainability citizenship’ to which I was priviledged to contribute a chapter together with Frans Lenglet. Urban sustainability citizenship situates citizens as social change agents with an ethical and self-interested stake in living sustainably with the rest of Earth. Such citizens not only engage in sustainable household practices but respect the importance of awareness raising, discussion and debates on sustainability policies for the common good and maintenance of Earth’s ecosystems.

The publisher’s website describes the book as follows:

Sustainability Citizenship in Cities seeks to explain how sustainability citizenship can manifest in urban built environments as both responsibilities and rights. Contributors elaborate on the concept of urban sustainability citizenship as a participatory work-in-progress with the aim of setting its practice firmly on the agenda. This collection will prompt practitioners and researchers to rethink contemporary mobilisations of urban citizens challenged by various environmental crises, such as climate change, in various socio-economic settings.

This book is a valuable resource for students, academics and professionals working in various disciplines and across a range of interdisciplinary fields, such as: urban environment and planning, citizenship as practice, environmental sociology, contemporary politics and governance, environmental philosophy, media and communications, and human geography.

The chapter Frans Lenglet and I wrote is titled: “Sustainability citizens: collaborative and disruptive social learning” and emphasizes the role of learning and cultivating diversity and generative conflict in co-determining what it means to be sustainable within the everyday realities people find themselves. It is argued that in order to brake with stubborn unstustainabel routines – that are heavily promoted and strenghtened in a market, growth and consumption-oriented society, citizens will also need to develop disruptive capacity and engage in transgressive learning (see my earlier post about transgressive learning and the work within the ICSS project on T-learning led by Prof. Heila Lotz-Sisitka from Rhodes Univerity in South Africa). If you want to have a look at our chapter you can find it here: SustainabilityCitizenshipWalsLenglet2016 (for personal use). The full reference is:

Wals, A.E.J. & F. Lenglet (2016). Sustainability citizens: collaborative and disruptive social learning. In: R. Horne, J. Fien, B.B. Beza & A. Nelson (Eds.) Sustainability Citizenship in Cities: Theory and Practice. London: Earthscan, p. 52-66.

If you want to get a hold of the entire book visit: https://www.routledge.com/Sustainability-Citizenship-in-Cities-Theory-and-practice/Horne-Fien-Beza-Nelson/p/book/9781138933637

 

 

Transformative, transgressive social learning: rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction

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This weekend (September 12-13, 2015) an new publication appeared that I was privileged to co-author with Heila Lotz-Sisitka (Rhodes University), David Kronlid (University of Uppsala) and Gothenburg), Dylan McGarry (Durban University of Technology)  for Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (Vol 16:73–80). It is one of the first papers that I know of that begins to question the emphasis on adaptation and the development of   ‘adaptive capacity’ and instead introduces the need for transgression and disruptive capacity if we are to transition towards a new world based on alternative (including ancient ones) values and principles than current dominant ones. Here’s the abstract follow by some highlights in bullet form. The paper itself can be found here for personal use (not for distribution). Transgressive Social Learning The work was supported by a grant by the ISSC.

Abstract

The nature of the sustainability challenges currently at hand is such that dominant pedagogies and forms of learning that characterize higher education need to be reconsidered to enable students and staff to deal with accelerating change, increasing complexity, contested knowledge claims and inevitable uncertainty. In this contribution we identified four streams of emerging transformative, transgressive learning research and praxis in the sustainability sciences that appear generative of a higher education pedagogy that appears more responsive to the key challenges of our time: 1) reflexive social learning and capabilities theory, 2) critical phenomenology, 3) socio-cultural and cultural historical activity theory, and 4) new social movement, postcolonial and decolonisation theory. The paper critiques the current tendency in sustainability science and learning to rely on resilience and adaptive capacity building and argues that in order to break with maladaptive resilience of unsustainable systems it is essential to strengthen transgressive learning and disruptive capacity-building.

Highlights

  • The ‘learning modes’ needed for responding to and engaging the wicked problems of sustainability, require pedagogies that are not constrained by current use of limited concepts (e.g. the resilience concept), or by disciplinary decadence.
  • Concepts such as resilience can be problematic when they keeps hegemonic unsustainable systems, patterns and routines from changing.
  • Disruptive capacity building and transgressive pedagogies are needed to create a world that is more sustainable than the one in prospect.
  • Transformative, transgressive forms of learning require engaged forms of pedagogy that involve multi-voiced engagement with multiple actors as well an emphasis on co-learning, cognitive justice, and the formation and development of individual and collective agency.
  • Higher education institutions should provide space for transgressing taken-for-granted norms, existing ethical and epistemological imperialism in society and higher education itself, and in doing so provide possibilities for engaged, lived experience of transformative praxis for students as a necessary part of their education.

Strengthening ecological mindfulness through hybrid learning in vital coalitions

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New article written by Jifke Sol & Arjen Wals published in a journal called Cultural Studies of Science Education

DOI: 10.1007/s11422-014-9586-z  /  Online Date: 6/11/2014

In this new paper a key policy ‘tool’ used in the Dutch Environmental Education and Learning for Sustainability Policy framework is introduced as a means to develop a sense of place and associated ecological mindfulness. The key elements of this tool, called the vital coalition, are described while an example of its use in practice, is analysed using a form of reflexive monitoring and evaluation. The example focuses on a multi-stakeholder learning process around the transformation of a somewhat sterile pre-school playground into an intergenerational green place suitable for play, discovery and engagement. Our analysis of the policy-framework and the case leads us to pointing out the importance of critical interventions at so-called tipping points (see the figure below) within the transformation process and a discussion of the potential of hybrid learning in vital coalitions in strengthening ecological mindfulness. This paper does not focus on establishing an evidence base for the causality between this type of learning and a change in behavior or mindfulness among participants as a result contributing to a vital coalition but rather focusses on the conditions, processes and interventions that allow for such learning to take place in the first place.

Tipping points in transitional learning

Figure: Tipping points in transitional learning

Keywords: Ecological mindfulness – Vital coalitions – Hybrid learning – Place-based education – Reflexivity

The full paper for personal use – under the condition that is not shared – can be obtained by emailing arjen.wals@wur.nl  or through your library system

Greening in the Red Zone… Disaster, Resilience and Community Greening – now available!

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Cover Greening in the Red Zone

Cover Greening the Red Zone

Ok – it has taken some time to appear but finally this much anticipated volume is available. My former colleague Marlon van der Waal and I have a chapter in it titled: “Sustainability-Oriented Social Learning in Multi-cultural Urban Areas: The Case of the Rotterdam Environmental Centre” which explores the utilization of social cohesion and diversity in creating more sustainable multi-cultural communities. Community greening is seen as a catalyst for sustainability-oriented social learning. Greening here is not the same as literally adding green to a community (trees, parks, gardens) – although that certainly can be a part of it – but rather as a metaphor for improving quality of life and a stepping stone towards sustainability. Social learning is introduced as a process that builds social cohesion and relationships in order to be able to utilize the different perspectives, values and interests people bring to a sustainability challenge. Although there are many perspectives and definitions of social learning it is defined here as: a collaborative, emergent learning process that hinges on the simultaneous cultivation of difference and social cohesion in order to create joint ownership, and to unleash creativity and energy needed to break with existing patterns, routines or systems. The author proofs – for a sneak preview – can be found here: GreeningintheRedZoneWalsWaal

The full reference of our chapter is: Wals, A.E.J. & van der Waal, M.E. (2014) Sustainability-Oriented Social Learning in Multi-cultural Urban Areas: The Case of the Rotterdam Environmental Centre. In: Tidball, K. & Krasny, M. (Eds.) Greening in the Red Zone. Frankfurt a.m.: Springer, p379-396.

Greening in the Red Zone as a whole makes a first foray into the intriguing and potentially important field of “greening” by painting a comprehensive picture of how greening might be useful after major disasters. The book brings together renowned experts and practitioners from around the world. On the publisher’s website we can read:

“Creation and access to green spaces promotes individual human health, especially in therapeutic contexts among those suffering traumatic events. But what of the role of access to green space and the act of creating and caring for such places in promoting social health and well-being? Greening in the Red Zone asserts that creation and access to green spaces confers resilience and recovery in systems disrupted by violent conflict or disaster. This edited volume provides evidence for this assertion through cases and examples. The contributors to this volume use a variety of research and policy frameworks to explore how creation and access to green spaces in extreme situations might contribute to resistance, recovery, and resilience of social-ecological systems.”

Some advance praise:

This book takes important steps in advancing understanding of what makes communi­ties bounce back from disaster or violent conflict. The authors’ findings that creating and caring for green space contributes positively to recovery and resilience add to the toolkit of those working in disaster and conflict zones. W. C. Banks, Director, Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, Syracuse University

Greening in the Red Zone is a highly relevant book. At a time when society is more separated than ever from the natural world, it offers additional reasons why our ongoing experience of nature is essential for the human body, mind and spirit. This book is both instructive and inspiring. S. R. Kellert, Tweedy Ordway Professor Emeritus, Senior Research Scholar, Yale University

This is a fascinating book that greatly elevates our understanding of how the perspective of humans as an integrated part of nature may contribute to the resilience discourse. I warmly recommend this book to anyone interested in how we may prepare ourselves for an increasingly uncertain future. T. Elmqvist, Department of Systems Ecology and Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Greening in the Red Zone is an important contribution to science and security policy and practice. This edited volume provides unique and novel approaches from a participatory, transparent, ecosystem-based perspective that puts those affected by disasters and conflict into positions of empowerment rather than weakness and dependency. This book is an interesting and timely contribution. C. Ferguson, President, Federation of American Scientists

Keywords »Community-based natural resource management – Greening – Post-conflict – Post-disaster – Resilience

If your interested in ordering this book you can go directly to the book’s website: