Nicole Blum

Balancing the tensions and meeting the conceptual challenges of education for sustainable development and climate change

This paper addresses one of the key challenges for work on education, sustainable development and climate change: the overall conceptualisation of central ideas such as Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE). What do these concepts mean in diverse contexts and amongst diverse actors? The paper draws on evidence from Denmark, Singapore, Canada and the UK to highlight both the similarities and differences found within national discussions around these essentially contested concepts and their relationships to policy and practice. It further argues that such debates about how EE, ESD and CCE are conceptualised remain highly relevant, not just to academic work itself, but also to wider international discussions regarding both the current and potential relationships between conceptual understanding, policy and practice.

Teaching science or cultivating values? Conservation NGOs and environmental education in Costa Rica

A key ongoing debate in environmental education practice and its research relates to the content and goals of environmental education programmes. Specifically, there is a long history of debate between advocates of educational perspectives that emphasise the teaching of science concepts and those that seek to more actively link environmental and social issues. In practice, educators and organisations respond to these tensions in a variety of ways, often strongly reflecting the particular social and economic contexts in which they are located. Much of the research in the area, however, has tended to take a narrow focus on either purely theoretical concerns or on individual programmes in schools or protected areas. In contrast, this research used an ethnographic approach to explore debates about the content and aims of educational programmes between diverse educational actors in one community in Costa Rica. The research revealed that environmental education: (i) is an important local site for the active contestation of understandings of the natural world and humans’ relationships to it; and (ii) can be part of wider struggles over the control of processes of local development and environmental management. The study further suggests that while theoretical discussion about the relative merits of diverse approaches to environmental teaching and learning is important, if that analysis is not situated within a particular social, economic and political context, it is likely to reveal relatively little about how or why particular perspectives on environmental education may dominate or remain marginal in a specific place.

Small NGO schools in India: implications for access and innovation

In addition to the proliferation of private, fee‐paying schools in India, non‐governmental organisations (NGOs) play an important role in providing educational services, especially in un‐served and under‐served communities. This paper uses qualitative research to critically examine the nature and potential of NGO provision of primary schooling in India. In particular, it explores the contributions of one NGO programme which has sought to increase access for socially and economically marginalised children by establishing and providing support for small, rural, multigrade schools. The paper argues that NGO programmes like these have had positive impacts in terms of both access and quality because, firstly, the programmes are small‐scale and locally rooted, and secondly, their organisation allows for greater flexibility and room for innovation in areas such as curriculum design, teacher education, and school networking than is commonly possible within government schools.

Environmental education policy research – challenges and ways research might cope with them

This essay examines the relationship between research and policy and, more specifically, how researchers might relate to policy work. Given the current international policy focus on climate change, green growth and sustainability in general, it argues for strengthening and widening policy research in the areas of Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainable Development and Climate Change Education. It especially makes a case for two kinds of research on EE policy: (1) a multi-sited approach to empirical documentation and theory development which explores the relationships between international policy agreements and local practice, and (2) an interactive policy-engaged approach to research.

Global perspectives for global professionals in the UK: engaging students within engineering and health

The discourses around globalisation and internationalisation within higher education to date have tended to focus on institutional change. While recognising the importance of these debates, this paper suggests that issues around curriculum change and teaching and learning through global professions such as health and engineering have so far been largely neglected. Using evidence from the UK and Ireland, the paper looks particularly at how students perceive the importance and value of global perspectives to their professions. It concludes by noting that there is evidence of interest in integrating global perspectives within health and engineering degree courses from students, but that this raises major challenges concerning discipline-based knowledge, valuing differing perspectives and approaches towards teaching and learning.

Ethnography and Environmental Education: Understanding the Relationships Between Schools and Communities in Costa Rica

Environmental education has been at the centre of international and national policies of sustainable development for the last several decades, and has stimulated debate regarding both its inclusion in curricula and proposed methods for its implementation. Research has given critical attention to diverse theories and practices of environmental education, but has tended to take a narrow methodological focus on specific curricula and policies or on activities within strictly delineated sites such as classrooms or natural areas. In contrast, this research is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in a rural community in Costa Rica, and argues that using a wider ethnographic approach allows for a fuller exploration of the ways in which environmental education programming is negotiated and practised.

Challenging the premises of international policy reviews: an introduction to the review symposium

In 2009, a think tank called the International Alliance of Leading Education Institutes (IALEI) announced the results of a study entitled Climate Change and Sustainable Development: The Response from Education. Intended for a policy audience, the study offered a glimpse into the status of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and an early look at the emergence of Climate Change Education (CCE), in 10 different nations. As with most international reports, the IALEI report provoked many questions, some of which are more broadly relevant to scholarship and practice. This paper introduces a review symposium that addresses three such questions: (1) How coherent is the concept of ESD across national contexts and what conceptual tensions continue to surround ESD and CCE? (2) Can nation-level analyses tell us anything useful about countries where education is not centrally governed? and (3) In light of the evolving relationship between educational research and policy, how should researchers engage with ongoing policy debates?

International educational development and learning through sustainable partnerships: living global citizenship. By Steven Coombs, Mark Potts and Jack Whitehead

This deeply personal and yet rigorously academic piece of work, charts the evolution of the authors’ own ideas and practices of international education partnerships and global citizenship. Perhaps the book’s most significant contribution is the authors’ central commitment to ‘living’ (as in, active and lived by researchers and practitioners) experiences of educational theory and practice. As a result, discussions throughout the book are framed as a reflexive two-way dialogue between key concepts and educational practices. Also central to the discussion is a process of 3 ‘transformations’, from (1) recognising the possibility of influencing others through research and partnerships, to (2) a concern for others and a desire to help (living citizenship), to (3) a sense of Living Global Citizenship which moves beyond charity and a desire to help and towards mutual learning and development as well as recognition of global inequality. In this way, the work is heavily informed by postcolonial theory and an instinct to redress the historical (and contemporary) imbalances between Global North and Global South. This perspective locates the work within many of the current debates around global citizenship education, including those regarding the aims of programmes as well as their intended audiences. Chapter 1 summarises a number of these key debates in the field – including postcolonial vs charity/ top-down approaches to international partnerships, issues of power and representations of the Global South, the pros and cons of cosmopolitanism as an approach to global citizenship, and the dangers of viewing development as a purely economic matter. Perhaps most important is the question of whether current configurations of global citizenship education are really only relevant to learners in the Global North. These sections help to show the underpinnings of the authors’ ideas which follow in the rest of the book, and will also serve to orient readers (researchers, teachers and other education practitioners) who are relatively new to the field. Similarly, Chapter 2 sets out how the authors’ conceptualisation of Living Global Citizenship can link to existing work in citizenship education as well as cultural education around the world, with a particular emphasis on related policies and perspectives in the UK. The authors then identify a key problem – the need for a clearer pedagogy to address these issues in educational practice. They argue that this pedagogy must be based on a concern for values, and provide space for the development of critical reflection and cultural empathy. Chapter 4 explores how educators can understand their own educational perspective and practice through ‘living educational theory’ – that is, the ongoing exploration, critique and improvement of one’s own ideas and practices of education. The authors also set out how this conceptualisation can be used to create a methodological approach to research British Journal of Educational Studies Vol. 63, No. 4, December 2015, pp. 505–509

Higher education and sustainable development: paradox and possibility

In this recent volume, Gough and Scott set out to explore the often contradicting views about the purpose of higher education and how these relate to sustainable development. Namely do universities exist to provide society with the necessary skills base or do they ‘exist not (merely) to service the economy but to contribute to the intellectual and moral improvement of the human condition?’ (xi). And how might views on this impact on future choices regarding the realisation of sustainable development? The central argument of the book is that if we continue to be guided by the idea that sustainable development is what happens at the meeting point of economy, society and environment – as it is commonly conceptualised – then: