Taking stock of sustainability in higher education: a review of the policy literature

Abstract

This paper provides a review of the current literature that examines the uptake of sustainability policies in higher education. Articles were retrieved from both ERIC and Scopus databases and then manually reviewed to ensure that they focused on each of: higher education; sustainability; and policy. A total of 91 articles were analysed using a multi-stage process that involved sorting data according to typologies (i.e. temporal, terminology, methodology, geography), coding the text of the articles based on topical content, and an indexing method used to label data for further analysis and the development of broader code categories. Results suggest that drivers and barriers associated with the integration of sustainability policy in higher education are well known; yet increased research is needed to understand best practices and processes by which sustainability can be furthered through higher education policy. In addition, findings demonstrate the need for future research to focus on various aspects of the policy process, including policy development and enactment, and on implications of policy for practice. While there have been some reviews of sustainability policy in higher education research to date, this review contributes to this literature by highlighting research primarily focused on sustainability policy within higher education.     

The integration of sustainability education in Namibian colleges of education

Abstract

This article reports results of the study that examined constraints on the integration of Sustainability Education in Namibian colleges of education. The sample consisted of sixty-four (64) teacher educators selected from a total of one hundred and seventy-two (172). The findings of the study show that institutional, dispositional and situational constraints affect the cross-curricular integration of Sustainability Education in these colleges. The recommendations support the re-orientation of administration, curriculum and in-service training for teacher educators and administrators in order to support the cross-curricular integration of Sustainability Education in Namibian colleges of education.     

The roots and routes of environmental and sustainability education policy research

Environmental Education Research has developed a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) (http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer-vsi) focusing on studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy. The VSI draws on key examples of research on this topic published in the Journal from the past two decades, for three reasons. First, to provide readers with a series of snapshots into the genealogy of ESE policy research in this field. Second, to encourage renewed attention to previously published work. And third, to offer commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings.     

Learning about agriculture within the framework of education for sustainability

The last two decades have seen increased threats to agricultural landscapes in Israel. Key factors include population growth, strong pressure from construction entrepreneurs and possible profit to land owners who benefit from a legal conversion of farmland into lands allocated for construction. While each Israeli elementary school student used to participate in agriculture classes, most students no longer experience this and their overall exposure to farming in schools is limited. The main objective of this study was to explore the ways farming is presented and addressed in the national curriculum and in learning materials. Additionally, it examines the actual status of teaching about agriculture and explores how farming is addressed in teachers' pre‐service programmes. The main finding is that very little teaching about agriculture and land management is carried out at most school levels. Only one college prepares agriculture teachers and science education programmes rarely address agriculture as a course topic. The paper also outlines an education for sustainability framework for integrating science, agriculture and environmental education.     

Sustainability policy and sustainability in higher education curricula: the educational developer perspective

Various studies have investigated the views of higher education staff and students about sustainability, yet educational developer perspectives are under-represented in the research. This project gathered educational developer perspectives about sustainability in the curriculum. It sought to capture their views about a national sustainability policy; about the relationship between educational development and sustainability curriculum change; and whether sustainability should form part of their own roles. It was informed by the ‘theory of the second-best’ and involved nine interviews. Educational developers raised concerns about the policy, whilst opinions about their own involvement varied. It is argued that policy should provide clearer statements about curriculum, and educational developers should be involved in its development.     

The International Education Index: A global approach to education policy analysis,performance and sustainable development

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world struggled to address growing educational inequalities and fulfil the commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 4, which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. The pandemic has exacerbated these inequalities and changed how education functions, moving to online and hybrid methods. The challenges in global education highlighted and worsened by the pandemic make it necessary to re-evaluate education systems and the policies in place to support access, quality and equal opportunity. This article focuses on analysing education policies at a national level. It tests a pilot policy analysis tool, the International Education Index (IEI), developed as a starting point to begin this reconsideration and create an accessible and comprehensive way to evaluate national education systems to inform decision-making and policies in the new context. This research uses Ireland and Northern Ireland to test the IEI pilot tool. The IEI consists of 54 questions across nine indicators, including institutional frameworks, education strategies, digital skills and infrastructure, twenty-first century skills, access to basic social services, adherence to international standards, legal frameworks, data gathering and availability and international partnerships. Countries can score 108 points to be categorised as having developed, emerging or nascent national education systems. Ireland scored 94 and Northern Ireland 81, indicating that they have developed national education systems.     

Neoliberalism,new public management and the sustainable development agenda of higher education: history,contradictions and synergies

This paper explores the ideological and the practical relationship between neoliberalism and New Public Management (NPM) and the sustainable development agenda of western higher education. Using the United Kingdom and specifically English universities as an example, it investigates the contradictions and the synergies between neoliberal and NPM ideologies and the pursuit and practice of the sustainability agenda, focusing in particular on education for sustainable development (ESD) and ESD research. This paper reveals a range of challenges and opportunities in respect of advancing sustainability in higher education, within the prevailing neoliberal context. It illustrates using examples how neoliberal and managerialist control mechanisms, which govern institutional, departmental and individual academic, as well as student behaviour, are working conversely to both drive and limit the sustainability education agenda. The case is made for further exploration of how ‘nudging’ and ‘steering’ mechanisms within English HE might provide further leverage for ESD developments in the near future, and the implications of this for sustainability educators.     

Exploring a systems approach to mainstreaming sustainability in universities: a case study of Rhodes University in South Africa

This paper explores the use of systems theory to inform the mainstreaming of sustainability in a university’s functions as it responds to sustainable development challenges in its local context. Offering a case study of Rhodes University, the paper shows how the use of systems models and concepts, underpinned by a critical realist ontology and an understanding of morphogenetic change processes, have the potential to enable universities to mobilise their operations to respond to local sustainability challenges. In this instance, the success of such an approach is shown to depend on commitments from the university community and the availability of enabling inputs, such as financial and human resources. The paper concludes with reflections and recommendations to inform further development of a newly emerging systems approach in sustainability mainstreaming at Rhodes University, and other institutions pursuing similar approaches and goals.     

Environmental and sustainability education in the Caribbean: Crucial issues,critical imperatives

Abstract

The development, quality and impact of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) in the Caribbean have received increased attention from a growing body of education researchers over the past few decades. This is not surprising given that the region has been grappling with various environmental, social, and economic sustainability issues, and education remains widely regarded as a key mode of response by a range of stakeholders, networks and commentators. Drawing on local to wider perspectives and initiatives, formal and non-formal ESE activities have been undertaken, to enhance knowledge and awareness, develop values, hone skills, and promote behaviours consistent with sustainable development. Whilst this increased engagement is significant and heartening, I argue that there is still scope for a renewal of focus in ESE in the Caribbean, honing in on four main areas: climate change education, the environment and violence nexus, teacher education, and universities as models of and for sustainability. These areas are consistent with regional sustainability imperatives and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as well as ripe for deeper research-practice interlinkages. An overview of existing fields of educational inquiry in the Caribbean is offered, along with the four foci for further and future research, with the hope that new, emerging and established academics (as well as practitioners) work productively together to engage these crucial issues and critical imperatives for ESE.     

Global frameworks,local contingencies: policy translations and education development in India

Policies and programmes pursuing the universalisation of elementary education (UEE) in developing nations have been influenced by a set of complex forces in international, state, and local arenas. This paper explores how a large‐scale standardised assessment programme shaped by international and market‐oriented discourses has been differently re‐worked in the south Indian state of Karnataka. We draw on observation and interview data with educators and administrators to shed some light on their roles in reconstituting the meaning and practice of this programme. The intended frameworks of ‘borrowed’ education policies are not always reproduced or sustained in local contexts. Our paper shows how policies, rather than ‘borrowed’ from one context to another, undergo a process of ‘translation’ involving the contextualisation and inevitable transformation of policies.     

试论全面发展学说的实质与个性化教育

早在一百多年前,马克思、恩格斯创立了人的全面发展学说,这一学说一直作为我国社会主义教育的理论基础。今天,深入地学习、探讨人的全面发展学说,把握其实质和核心,对于解读个性化教育,实施个性化教育具有重要的指导意义。     

Exploring the nature and implications of student teacher engagement with development education initiatives

In this article, the authors outline and discuss the findings of a research study, which explored student teacher engagement with development education (DE) interventions implemented within Professional Master of Education (PME) programmes across eight Irish Higher Education Institutions. Interpretivist methods were employed incorporating questionnaires administered to 536 student teachers pre and post the DE intervention and 6 focus group discussions conducted with 26 student teachers. Findings indicate that the capacity of PME students to engage with development issues and integrate DE into their teaching has strengthened considerably because of their participation in the intervention. However, in order to build upon this more must be done with respect to: strengthening student teachers’ knowledge of development issues; embedding DE further across PME programmes; enhancing practical engagement with DE on School Placement and prioritising DE-related research and reflection. Findings align with a conceptual understanding of DE as a complex system.     

Social justice intents in policy: an analysis of capability for and through education

Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged.     

Higher education,languages, and the persistence of inequitable structures for working-class women in Pakistan

This paper is based on the findings of a 3-year, qualitative study funded by the Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes for Poverty. It uses Sen's [1985. Well-being agency and freedom. Journal of Philosophy 82, no. 4: 169–221] capability approach and Bourdieu's [1991. Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press] critical theory to argue that access participation and the empowering outcomes of higher education are contingent on learners' familiarity with the languages used. If there is a discrepancy between the languages used in higher education and the linguistic capital that learners have acquired during schooling without any appropriate measures to fill the gap, participation is bound to be limited. Findings of this qualitative multiple case study involving eight participants entering higher education from government and private schools in Pakistan reveal that working-class women remain the most marginalised and fail to achieve valued goals within higher education in terms of knowledge construction, participation, and a more empowered sense of identity. This eventually culminates in their delayed elimination from higher education.     

Exploring the role and value of creativity in education for sustainability

Creativity, innovation and divergent thinking are routinely expected to help people envision and implement alternative practices to the status quo. However, these do not feature strongly in the literature on education for sustainability in higher education (HE), and especially graduate competencies or capabilities for sustainability. The paper makes the case for the importance of creativity in education for sustainability (EfS), and argues that innovation is at the heart of moving societies towards more sustainable paths. In other words, creativity is an essential part of learning for sustainability. A critical perspective is offered, by highlighting the effects of the theoretical roots of sustainability and environmental education in the ecological sciences, the traditional and still dominant construction of learning and teaching in HE and EfS, and the challenges and rewards that supporting creativity presents for learners and teachers in this field.     

梁漱溟的乡村建设理论对发展西部农村教育的启示

梁漱溟于20世纪30年代所开展的乡村建设运动及提出乡村建设的种种主张,最终都未能获得成功。但是,其重视职业教育和生产教育、“拿社会教育与学校教育合起来作”、“知识分子与乡村居民打并一起”、“以教育解决社会问题”以及“将教育扩大至整个社会,将时间延长到成年乃至终身”等思想,对于实施西部大开发战略,大力发展西部农村地区的教育仍然具有十分积极的启迪意义。     

马斯洛需要层次理论与党在不同时期思想政治教育内容同步性解读

马斯洛需要层次理论把需求分成生存需求、安全需求、感情需求、尊重需求和自我实现需求五类,依次由较低层次到较高层次。经过仔细研读中国共产党各个时期思想政治教育方针,发现马斯洛需要层次理论与党在不同时期思想政治教育内容存在同步和一致性,通过对两者进行阐述和分析,最后得出同步性的确定结论,以期望对国家、集体制定相应的思想政治教育内容起到一定的借鉴作用。     

社会转型中思想政治教育发展刍议

社会结构转型和社会体制的转轨使思想政治教育获得了巨大的发展机遇,也面临着严峻的挑战。充分审视和把握思想政治教育中存在的困境和缺失,在全社会树立正确的价值体系,从指导思想、弘扬主体性、加强针对性等方面为建构社会主义和谐社会创造良好的社会环境,体现为社会协调和人的全面发展服务的价值目标和功效。     

当代西方音乐教育哲学研究的现状及发展

伴随着社会的不断发展以及物质生活水平的不断提高,人们对精神文明的要求越来越高。音乐艺术作为人们生活交际的一种时尚潮流,特别是西方人对古典音乐的痴迷,将音乐教育中的哲学思想发挥的淋淋尽致并得以张扬。不同地域、不同民族,孕育着不同的音乐传统,音乐作为文化的一种延伸,是在学习文化中孕育而来的结晶和精华,而站在人类文明的高度和角度,站在哲学思想和人文的高度与角度,思考西方音乐的声音和哲学教育论,随着现代化精神文明世界的不断提升,使得西方音乐带来新的精神与活力。本文将通过西方音乐的哲学思想、音乐教育以及音乐心理学这三个领域进行阐述,分析当前西方音乐教育学的发展现状,并从哲学高度看西方音乐教育的重大意蕴,深化和研究现代西方音乐教育哲学论对我国音乐教育的重大影响。