Sustainability and Cultural Inclusion: Considering Ontological, Epistemological and Educational Diversity

Abstract

Cultural diversity is important in understanding human-nature relationships and suggesting ways to change them in the face of environmental crises. Therefore, it is important to examine how environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) consider cultural inclusion. The debate between different visions related to humanity, society, nature, the environment, the relationship between humans and the rest of nature, development, growth, etc. opens the spectrum to study cultural inclusion. This editorial briefly overviews how EE and ESD address cultural inclusion. This overview places such a debate as the basis of this special issue (SI) of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Environmental and Science Education (IJESE). Most of the papers in this SI are expanded and peer-reviewed versions of conferences presented at the Sustainable Globe Conference 2021. The papers highlight sustainability problems in different scenarios, propose alternative viewpoints to what sustainability or ESD establish, and use diverse methods for producing knowledge.