What Makes Environmental and Sustainability Education Transformative: A Re-Appraisal of the Conceptual Parameters

Abstract

As with all educational policy and practice, Environmental and Sustainability Education, if it is to be effective and meaningful, has to be designed and implemented in ways that reflect twenty-first-century circumstances, which are characterized by a globalized society in which cultural diversities amongst individuals and populations have become increasingly more complex and prominent. Using a conceptual and philosophical analysis of the research and policy literature, this paper contends that current ESE tends to be trapped within a restrictive monocultural definition of sustainability that does not reflect the different cultural perspectives towards sustainability that exist across global populations as a whole. It further argues that if ESE is to become truly transformative for students, ESE teachers need to develop a transcultural capacity as part of their professional expertise, one that is more aligned with the reality of a more culturally diverse population and student body. Only then can transformative and effective ESE pedagogies be developed that relate more closely to the socio-political context in which students of today will live.