Influence of the Globalized and Globalizing Sustainable Development Framework on National Policies Related to Environmental Education

Abstract

This article presents and discusses some results of the authors' analysis of international and national institutional documents related to environmental education from the 1970s to the present day. The aim of the study is to present a critical characterization of how environmental education is conceptualized and introduced through the ongoing worldwide educational reform movement. The results presented in this article highlight the influence of the globalized and globalizing international political program for sustainable development on national educational proposals. The shift from the previous institutional discourse related to environmental education towards a more explicit economicist view of the world is discussed. The purpose of this article is to stimulate discussion about some of the foundations upon which educational policies and other national initiatives related to environmental education rest, and to introduce elements that could enrich their conceptual and ethical dimensions.

Of big hegemonies and little tigers: Ecocentrism and environmental justice

“…What I am also missing in Stefan's article is a clear statement of his own ethical position and a question of our positioning as educators and researchers (Hart 2013;Sauv e, Brunelle, & Berryman, 2005). This also raises questions about how Stefan's argument fits in with education and "sustainability."…”

“…To prevent sudden collapse, worthy of further consideration is the need for "a reversal of the dominant discourse" (Sauv e, Brunelle, & Berryman, 2005, p. 280, in Bengtsson, 2016) embracing a genuinely critical praxis in both EE and ESD. Potentially, ecological justice and deep ecology would dethrone the anthropocentrism of the policy discourse as it trickles down and endangers both human and ecological sustainability.…”

Organizational Approaches to the Facilitation of Education for Sustainability: An Interpretive Case Study

“…ENSI delivered programs that catered for a range and variety of individual and locally determined needs. The significance of which is supported by literature which identifies that implementing EfS programs without taking due care for an understanding of contemporary society and culture, or paying only cursory attention to local context or relevance to participants, may limit rather than foster approaches to, and perspectives of, EfS [71][72][73].…”

Education for Y'all: Global Neoliberalism and the Case for a Politics of Scale in Sustainability Education Policy

“…The same can be said in relation to Education for All initiatives, with Education for Sustainable Development mandates receiving more critique, but usually in relation to the pairing of environment and economy versus embedded understandings of the role of institutionalized education as necessary to economic development (Sauvé et al, 2005). As Munir Fasheh writes in the Shinkshantar (2008) report, 'Like most declarations, MDGs are full of recycled language, repeating perceptions, conceptions, and relations that ignore or rob what people and communities already have … Universal declarations are a main killer of pluralism ' (p. 29).…”

“…Rather than an Education for All that appears to implicitly promote globalized assumptions about the directions of the future, how might Saskatchewan, as well as other local contexts, better determine what 'practices and knowledge embedded in local cultures' could actually mean in relation to ESD? More broadly, as others have pointed out, what are the strategic benefits versus losses of aligning with such a global policy mandate in the first place (Gruenewald, 2004;Sauvé et al, 2005)? And how can we guard against such mandates merely serving to further neoliberal 'development' under a gloss of sustainability (Hursch & Henderson, 2011)?…”