Sandra Wooltorton

Sustainability and action research in universities: Towards knowledge for organisational transformation

– Academic approaches to the challenge of enhancing sustainability in research in university contexts illustrate that universities are affected by the very same values and socio-ecological issues they set out to address, making transformation difficult at every level. A theoretical and practical framework designed to facilitate cultural transformation is therefore necessary for conceptualising the problem and delineating possible strategies to enhance sustainability in research. Organisational change is also required, possibly on a university-by-university basis, where cross-institutional learning may be possible with personal behaviours that enhance collaboration across disciplinary and administrative divides. , – This paper contends that action research, in particular, community action research (CAR), offers the best approach to this task because it focusses on learning and change, and these are both essential to cultural transformation. A case study from a university in Western Australia is used to demonstrate this approach. , – The case study analysis shows some evidence for the presence of knowledge for organisational transformation, and that future monitoring cycles will be needed to detect the extent of the change. , – The paper introduces CAR as an approach to advance the change for sustainability in higher education and discusses some of the implications for universities who are looking to incorporate sustainability as a major part of their culture.

Sustainability: Ambiguity and Aspiration in Teacher Education

This chapter offers an activist-based socially critical perspective on the UNESCO-driven agenda to reorient schools and universities towards sustainability. In it, I have bared a range of tensions and constraints that lurk behind sustainability education policies, curriculum documents and local initiatives. I show that in practice, sustainability education is a messy, contested picture with overlays of contradictory visions, oxymoronic objectives and often only barely masked neoliberal agendas. To contextualize this depiction, I sketch issues in the literature around sustainability education, to show that the idea is fraught with a heavily contested, ambivalent centre: one that is challenged from inside and out by a range of vested interests. Nonetheless, a large number of academics struggle to keep alive a notion of sustainability as a radical idea, one that could potentially destabilize the status quo. To illustrate this viewpoint, in a respectful way, I incorporate a place-based story of political quandary and local practice. The outcome of working with people also committed to making the world a better place, and students who think and act from a standpoint of compassion, care and commitment, is worth my personal struggle.

A Process for Transition to Sustainability: Implementation

This paper reports the outcomes of the second action cycle of an ongoing project at Edith Cowan University (ECU) called Transition to Sustainability: ECU South West which is located in a small, single faculty regional university campus. The overall project has comprised three action research cycles, the first of which was the planning cycle which established the importance of building a community of practice with a learning stance for sustainability transition. It also highlighted the issue of a common definition of the term sustainability; of including cross-disciplinary perspectives; and of working with the local community. The second action cycle which was the first implementation phase, is the subject of this report. In this phase, we found that by not foreclosing on the meaning of sustainability, important aspects of sustainability were included. Although research participants initially expressed some concern about using an open understanding of sustainability, the problem of the meaning functioned to foster involvement in dialogue. In fact, these ongoing discussions around sustainability and the notion of a sustainable future formed the heart of this action cycle. However there were constraints associated with the subject of dialogue. These included problems of site communication, the maintenance of effective networks and issues around power and authorisation. We observed that each of these elements could work together in ways that enrich and/or obstruct a transition to sustainability. Finally, we found that lack of time hinders participation in sustainability transition projects because of its effect on authentic dialogue, thereby impacting upon the development of collaborative ways of working within the university. Our project is distinctively Australian in that it reflects an emerging movement in Australia to create social frameworks for embedding sustainability education activities. In our project, the transition process by which learning and change has been facilitated comprises the action research itself.

Embodying Our Future through Collaboration: The Change Is in The Doing.

ABSTRACT Contributors to this special edition have agreed that we want a future of ecojustice and ecological sustainability. Our article unpacks experiences of oppression within the context of middle class academic privilege, undertaking resistances and working, in relationship, learning to live more sustainably in the Year of Living Sustainably. In this writing, we argue the case for activism in the academy and collaboratively build resilience toward more sustainable ways of being. By co-writing and analyzing fictionalized stories, we demonstrate how contemporary universities contribute to the unsustainability of social and ecological systems. This article presents a love story grounded in poststructural ecofeminist epistemology using collaborative autoethnography. Rather than re-presenting a heroic masculinist narrative of transcendence and success, we describe how our loving relationships support our activism.

Quality Criteria for ESD-Schools: Guidelines to Enhance the Quality of Education for Sustainable Development [Book Review]

Review(s) of: Quality Criteria for ESD-Schools: Guidelines to Enhance the Quality of Education for Sustainable Development, by Soren Breiting, Michela Mayer and Finn Mogensen. Vienna: SEED, 2005, 48 pp. ISBN: 3-85031-048-5.