<P><FONT color=#33711E><STRONG>Day 1 – Session 1D: Assessing and Understanding Sustainable Development</STRONG></FONT></P>
Queen’s Park 6, 2nd Floor
11:30 - 11:50
1.D.1. What do we seek when we seek sustainability of projects?
David W. Chapman, University of Minnesota, United States of America
Ann E. Austin, Michigan State University, United States of America
One of the most perplexing concerns confronting development specialists working in the education sector is the sustainability of externally sponsored project activities and outcomes, once external funding ends. Too often, when international assistance ends, the activities initiated on the ground also die, with little left to show for the effort. A key challenge in assessing sustainability of projects is the diversity of views about what should be sustained. This paper examines four perspectives on sustainability and draws on the authors’ field work in Viet Nam, Uganda, Oman and South Africa to illustrate how ones’ view of sustainability can influence project design. The four models are: Economic; Socio-Political; Ecological; and Innovation-Diffusion.
Download the paper (word, 90kb)
11:50 - 12:10
1.D.2. A Taxonomy of Learning for Sustainable Development
Alan McLean, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia
This paper discusses and develops John Fien’s recommendations on pedagogical reform for sustainable development. The author argues that these recommendations reflect an equivocation about the role of the state and a questionable analysis of the processes that underpin both educational reform and collective action for sustainable development. The paper suggests that the longstanding failure to reform education’s hidden curriculum is unlikely to be reversed by the additional considerations amassed by Fien. Instead, schooling is seen as a social phenomenon and Thomas Popkewitz’ political sociology of educational reform is offered as a realistic treatment of some of Fien’s central concerns. The paper draws on Verna Allee’s learning and performance framework. Within this taxonomy, action for sustainable development typically belongs to the performance modes, which she refers to as: union (sustainability), renewing (integrity) and integrating (optimization). The corresponding learning modes are: union (synergistic), wisdom (generative learning) and philosophy (duetero learning). Learning in these modes implies long time spans and typically involves collective learning by teams, organizations and cultures. The paper’s conclusion is that education for sustainable development requires innovations that address not only the learning capabilities of individuals, but also of teams, organizations and larger social constructs.
Download the paper (word, 120kb) and presentation (pdf, 220kb)
12:10 - 12:30
1.D.3. Qualitative Research Approaches for Understanding the Progress of the DESD
Kimiharu To, State University of New York, United States of America
This paper explores some of the theoretical and methodological implications of using qualitative – especially constructivist – research approaches to assess progress on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). Qualitative research methods are indispensable for understanding the sphere of discursive practices surrounding the DESD in various cultural contexts. The UN Decade for Human Rights Education and the UN Beijing +10 Conferences, as well as current scholarly research are used to make the case for qualitative approaches when dealing with the nature of the DESD, the roles of network NGOs, and the frameworks for programme evaluation.
Download the paper (word, 130kb) and presentation (pdf, 40kb)
12:30 - 12:50
1.D.4. What does ESD do? A Geophilosophical Analysis
Noel Gough, La Trobe University, Australia
In a range of works, French poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze – often in collaboration with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari – created “geophilosophy”, a new critical language for analysing thinking as flows or movements across space. Concepts such as assemblage, deterritorialisation, lines of flight, nomadology, and rhizomatics refer to spatial relationships and to ways of conceiving ourselves and other objects moving in space. This paper explores some ways in which concepts drawn from Deleuze and Guattari’s geophilosophy might be used to analyse “education for sustainable development” (ESD) in contemporary contexts of globalisation, multiculturalism and international communication networks, with particular reference to translating and interpreting ESD across national, linguistic and cultural borders. Specifically, this paper will use their concept of mots d’ordre (order-words) to analyse selected examples of sustainability discourses in different nations. Within this conceptual framework, the analytic focus is not on what ESD means but on how it works and what it does and produces in specific locations. Elucidating these effects and products provides substance for deliberations on desirable futures for environmental education by, for example, informing decisions about how best to deploy ESD discourses tactically in specific locations to produce desirable (and avoid undesirable) educational effects.
Download the paper (word, 200kb) and presentation (pdf, 210kb)