Education for Sustainable Development: Configuration and Meaning

Abstract

The inception of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–14) has excited controversy over the validity of the concept of education for sustainable development (ESD), as well as reactivating a critical review of the environmental education field as a whole. This article analyzes the peculiarities of ESD, the conditions that gave rise to it, the characteristics of its proposed configuration and the implications for environmental education.

Tensions and transitions in policy discourse: recontextualizing a decontextualized EE/ESD debate

“…Additionally, the shift in the debate from environmental issues to sustainable development 'presupposes the validity of pursuing economic, social and environmental aims in tandem' (Stables & Scott, 2001, p. 133). This assumption has been challenged philosophically, in particular in the 2001 special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory, and, to some extent, politically as a strategy for increasing Government attention to environmental concerns, especially in developing or countries of the South (Gonzalez-Gaudiano, 2005). In a political context, priorities are always established and historically, at least since the Second World War, economics has been 'the primary focus of public policy as well as of individual and public choices' (Henderson, 1996, p. 7).…”

From Talloires to Turin: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Declarations for Sustainability in Higher Education

“…Therefore, while some proponents of SHE may envision sustainability as a platform from which to critique and reform the pre-existing institutional structures that drive socio-ecological crises [9], others contend that dominant constructions of sustainability are part of an ideological apparatus that seeks to (re)produce the very structures adherents to the former position we hope to critique. For those who engage in the latter discourse, the tacit commitment to anthropocentrism and ecological modernization inherent to mainstream conceptualizations of sustainability leaves neoliberal ideological assumptions about the nature of nature and the role of humans in the biosphere unquestioned and, as a result ensures the perpetuation of unsustainable socio-ecological arrangements [10,11]. It is not necessarily the purpose of this paper to comment on the validity of either position, but simply to demonstrate that different contestations will likely drive different meanings and usages and that sensitivity to certain forms of contestation may be consistently marginalized in the declarations.…”

Educación ambiental: itinerario en la naturaleza y su relación con conectividad, preocupaciones ambientales y conducta

“…Las políticas de educación ambiental, o de educación para el desarrollo sostenible, suelen carecer de un análisis conceptual profundo y explícito del fin, los medios, la visión de ser humano y la relación que estas ideas guardan con el ambiente, a pesar de que subyacen como supuestos implícitos entre los actores encargados de diseñarlas y ejecutarlas (González-Gaudiano, 2005;Hesselink, van Kempen & Wals, 2000;Navarro, 2011;Olivos & González, 2005). Además, con frecuencia se observan actividades de educación ambiental que mezclan azarosamente objetivos para la formación de valores, el aprendizaje de contenidos, y la promoción de comportamientos ecológicos, sostenibles y/o proambientales, indistintamente y sin un análisis crítico de los mismos (O'Donoghue, 2006;Olivos, 2006;Olivos & Moyano, 2004).…”