EE p ESD: Defusing the worry

Abstract

This article identifies and discusses the differences and similarities between environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). Three historic documents-the Belgrade Charter, the Tbilisi Declaration, and Agenda 21provide goal statements, recommendations, and general descriptions for comparison. Other questions such as 'Is EE becoming ESD?' and the debate over what to call ESDare also addressed. The authors address and clarify some misconceptions inherent in the debate over definitions and the naming of ESD. The need to clarify and refine the broad concept of ESD is useful and necessary; however, the energy expended in other efforts-suggesting that specific terms and rhetoric related to sustainability concepts, which were originally translated from many different languages, should be accepted globally-is damaging and fruitless. The authors suggest that collaborative, locally appropriate action in both EE and ESD is more useful than an either-or debate over whose terminology should be adopted.

Exploring the Role of the Economy in Young Adults’ Understanding of Sustainable Development

“…For quite some time, economic growth was seen as both the means and the goal of development [18]. In the 1960s and 1970s, environmental concerns grew strong because environmental problems such as pollution had become an issue [22]. By this time, there was a polarization between people who advocated the notion of economic growth and people who opposed it [21].…”

Environmental Education: Reflecting on Application of Environmental Attitudes Measuring Scale in Higher Education Students

“…Some authors argue that ESD is not likely to replace EE but become one of its goals (e.g., [125,126]) that ESD is a dominant perspective of EE [123] or that EE has in fact become ESD (e.g., [127]). Similarly, distinctions were drawn between ESD, sustainable development education (SDE), and 'education for sustainability' (EfS) (for historical overview see [128] and [129], for recent debates see [6,130,131]).…”

Reclaim “Education” in Environmental and Sustainability Education Research

“…All education is normative in the sense that it has a purpose [2]. The -normativity‖ that is problematized here is the tendency to use ESE as a platform for prescribing how the knowledge that is acquired in school should be applied beyond the learning context.…”