Abstract
This paper explores issues related to the choice of goals and approaches for advancing sustainability in higher education through research. The paper argues that the diverse nature of the questions, issues and problems facing advocates of sustainability in higher education requires a willingness to adopt an eclectic approach to the choice of research methodologies or paradigms. The views of reality and knowledge embedded in alternative research paradigms – empirical analytical, interpretive, critical, and poststructural paradigms – are summarised briefly. The relevance of the four paradigms is illustrated by taking two issues of sustainability in higher education and exploring how they would be addressed by each one. The two issues are: campus catering services and integrating the principles of the Earth Charter into an engineering degree program. The paper concludes by reviewing the debate over whether this eclectic position is consistent with the goals of advancing sustainability in higher education.
Subject
Education,Human Factors and Ergonomics
Reference13 articles.
1. Collett, J. and Karakashian, S. (1996), Greening the College Curriculum, Island Press, Washington, DC.
2. Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (1994), “Introduction: entering the field of qualitative research”, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
3. Eagen, D. and Orr, D. (Eds) (1992), “The campus and environmental responsibility”, New Directions in Higher Education, Vol. XX No. 1.
4. Lather, P. (1992), “Critical frames in educational research: feminist and post‐structural perspectives”, Theory into Practice, Vol. XXXI No. 2, pp. 87‐99.
5. Leal Filho, W. (1999), Sustainability and University Life, Peter Lang Publishing, Berlin.
Cited by
82 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献