Education for Sustainability

Actors and Strategies for Change- Towards Global Sustainabilities, CEMUS Spring 2010

pernilla.andersson@uppsala.se

Me, entering the field of sustainability and orienting within

it…• Experiences from refugee camps in Eastern Africa• Accounting (long time ago… )• Minor Field Study in Zimbabwe, Economic History – microloans• Uppersecondary teacher in Civics and History (Environmental Economics,

International Economics)• Sida/Zenit – educational development• Sida/regional advisor in global education – inservice training for teachers in

Sweden• Writer – Gender, normcritical pedagogy and Sustainability• Uppersecondary teacher in International Economics at Lundellska skolanPresently:• Sida Advanced International Training Programmes in Education for

Sustainability, lecturer and mentor• Studying a Masters degree in Educational Science• Project manager in Uppsala Community – Education for Sustainable

Development

Different traditions on EE/ESD

• Fact-based tradition

• Pluralistic tradition

• Normative tradition

Fact-based tradition

• Environmental problems are treated as knowledge problems. Idea is that environmental problems can be dealt with by means of more research and information supplied to the public.

Pluralistic tradition

• A striving of promoting different perspectives, views and values when dealing with problems concerning the future. The aim is to enhance the students competence to act in a conscious way and to participate in debates, discussions and decisions in these issues.

Normative tradition

• The task of education is to support an environmentally friendly transformation of society. Schools are obliged to teach students the necessary environmentally friendly values and attitudes and in this way change the students behaviour in the desired direction.

Discussion

• What kind/kinds of education have you experienced? Factbased, normative or pluralistic? Give examples…

The relationship between the dimensions:

The environmental dimension provides resources as well as a frame/the carrying capacity.

The social dimension is a goal.

The economic dimension is the means to achieve the goal within the frame of what is environ-mentally and socially sustainable.

What is considered ”sustainable” must not be seen as a constant truth but be subject for debate and ethical discussions.

The frame – the carrying capacity of the environment

Economic means

Social goals

Business education for sustainability with a pluralistic

approach1. Model of analysis

2. Movie – The Corporation with special focus on the CEO Ray Anderson, who changed his behavior

3. Reflection – What kind of businessperson would I be proud of to be? Get more background and learn about UN, child labour, child convention – a lot of difficult words…

4. Swedish companies in textile industry –newspaper article highlighting lack of moral in businessdecisions→ how avoid that situation?

1. Describe the behavior of corporations, describe the different roles of women, men and people with different ethnic background (intersectionality)

2. What are the consequences?

3. What makes corporations behave the way they are portrayed in the documentary? (causes)

4. The behaviour of the director of one of the corporations is changed, what do you think changes his behavior? (solutions)

Business Education for sustainability, continued

5. The Child Convention – which articles are most important to know about as a businesswoman/man?

6. Formulate questions to ask a subcontractor…7. Prepare a drama that shows a situation that starts off

well but something happens that makes the communication not work well. A good end to the drama is when you manage to make a businessdeal that supports sustainable development.

8. Make an ethical analysis of the businessdeal (currently working on)

A normcritical pedagogy

• To highlight and discuss existing norms. The objective is to make existing norms visible to be able to question for example gender roles.

• Does not mean that norms are not good, BUT… norms can/does change and together we are constantly creating new norms that we need in order to live a good life together.

• So… normcritical pedagogy is a tool for democracy education.

• Norms are often taken for granted and we become aware of them first when someone breaks them.

Rational economic man – a norm to be taken for granted or a social

construction?

What kind of norms are constructed in education today?

Example: Textbook in International Economics

”Environment has become more important and is more often brought up during meetings between nations and different international organisations. One discusses environmental co-operation over borders. Authorities have started to make demands about environmental concerns on industries and the consumers are making demands on the final products. In that way an environmental industry has grown.”

Ray Anderson - an entrepreneur breaking the norms of running a business.

“Costs are down, not up, dispelling a myth and exposing the false choice between the economy and the environment, products are the best they have ever been, because sustainable design has provided an unexpected wellspring of innovation, people are galvanized around a shared higher purpose, better people are applying, the best people are staying and working with a purpose, the goodwill in the marketplace generated by our focus on sustainability far exceeds that which any amount of advertising or marketing expenditure could have generated – this company believes it has found a better way to a bigger and more legitimate profit – a better business model.”

Sustainable School Award• The teaching methods in a sustainable school are characterised by• • An interdisciplinary and holistic approach• • Problem solving and critical thinking; promoting action competence• • Diverse teaching methods• • Contents stretching from past to present, and from local to global

perspectives• • Participatory decision-making• • Reality based learning• The educational contents could be issues such as• • Human rights • Cultural diversity and intercultural understanding• • Gender equality • Natural resources• • Health • HIV/AIDS• • Governance • Peace and human security• • Climate change • Rural development• • Sustainable urbanisation • Disaster prevention and mitigation• • Poverty reduction • Corporate responsibility and accountability

Sustainable School Award– the process

• Institutional audit• What are we doing

today within the field?• What would we like to

change/develop?• What do we need in

order to do this?• Set a goal to reach

within one year.

A sustainable school – success factors

• Support in steering documents (curriculum, syllabuses)

• Individuals with mandate and time.• Support from head master• The institutional audit as a starting point making

more individuals believe in their own capacity.• Small steps in the right direction…• And later…. Support from local school

politicians.

Young people and the idea of sustainability

• Very receptive when it comes to taking part in discussions and debates… take as a starting point a discussion on what it means to live a good life.

• BUT … less pro-environmental when their own life-styles are challenged (Rickinson, 2001) – which is a challenge…

Set-backs…

• It sounds boring…

• Lack of time

• Lack of support

• Hard to understand the concept of ESD, many still think about garbage.

Today

• Project manager of supporting all communityrun upper secondary schools in Uppsala to apply and recieve the Sustainable School Award.

• Strategies and responses so far

ESD – a tool for deciding what´s important and what´s less important

when making choices planning lessons.

Thankyou!pernilla.andersson@uppsala.se

References

• Öhman, Johan (2008). Values and democracy in Education for Sustainable Development – Contributions from Swedish Research. Liber AB. Malmö

• Rickinson, Mark (2001). Environmental Education Research, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2001. Learners and Learning in Environmental Education: a critical review of the evidence.

• www.thecorporation.com