Petro-pedagogy: fossil fuel interests and the obstruction of climate justice in public education

Abstract

The corporate control of energy production and the reach of fossil capital into civil and political society can be understood as a regime of obstruction that is preventing necessary action on climate change and blocking a just energy transition. In addition to overt forms of economic power and influence, hegemonic power is central to the fossil fuel industry’s regime of obstruction. Based on 29 interviews and an analysis of third-party teaching resources, this article shows how teaching practices and resources work to centre, legitimize, and entrench a set of beliefs relating to climate change, energy, and environmentalism that align with the interests of fossil fuel industry actors in Saskatchewan, Canada. We argue that these pedagogical practices promote student subjectivities consistent with neoliberal environmentalism centred on individual actions designed to insulate fossil fuel industries from criticism and dissuade young people from questioning or understanding the role of corporate power in the climate crisis. Furthermore, this petro-pedagogy intends to restrict the imagination of possible climate solutions to individual acts of conservation that fail to challenge the structural growth of fossil fuel consumption. This paper advances these teaching practices and resources as a ‘pedagogical arm’ of the regime of obstruction.     

Collective memory,political nostalgia,and the rhetorical presidency: Bill Clinton's commemoration of the March on Washington,August 28, 1998

This essay offers a reading of President Bill Clinton's address on August 28, 1998 in which he commemorates the 35th anniversary of the March on Washington. Specifically, Clinton's August 28th address reveals how the presidency has become a hermeneutic site for the formation of collective memory and political nostalgia. This analysis discusses the uses of political nostalgia for the purposes of political image (re)construction as evidenced by Clinton's exploitation of the civil rights movement to explain and excuse his personal failings and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. We also present a divergent version of Clinton's rhetoric, giving specific attention to how his particular use of nostalgia in this address works to articulate and confront many of the powerful dichotomies (masculine/feminine; war/peace; black/white; private/public) that define his presidency, his public persona, and the larger political culture in postmodern America.     

Surveying gender differences in Canadian school literacy

Student survey results from Canada's first, national, large-scale assessment of school literacy are analysed for explanations of gender differences in reading and writing skills found in this and other recent Canadian large-scale assessments. Using findings from the 1994 Council of Ministers of Education, Canada School Achievement Indicators Programme, we explore English-Canadian adolescents' literacy preferences, attitudes and practices. Five models derived from recent literacy education and related educational research are posited as potential explanations for female superiority in literacy test results: 'division of family labour', 'character-personification', 'classroom interaction', 'assessment bias' and 'identification with genre'. The assumptions underlying these models are examined in light of the Council of Ministers of Education's study.     

A Crisis of Confidence in Vocational Education: The Perceptions of Young Workers in Manufacturing Industry

Mary James, University of Cambridge Institute of Education, The Pastoral and the Academic: Conflict and Contradiction in the Curriculum, Sally Power. London: Cassell, 1996. 164pp. hb ISBN 0 304 33223 2, £40.00, pb ISBN 0 304 33225 9, £12.99

Deborah Braithwaite, Support Service (EBD), Chatham, Kent, Managing Behaviour in the Primary School, J. Docking. London: David Fulton, 1996. 160pp. pb ISBN 1 85346 397 3, £13.99

Val Golightly, Sutton Primary School, Sutton, Cambridgeshire, Quality Circle Time in the Primary School, by Jenny Mosley. Wisbech: LDA, 1996. 255pp. pb ISBN 1 85503 299 5, £19.95

Janet Edwards, Centre for Citizenship Studies in Education, School of Education, Leicester University, Today's Child, Tomorrow's Adult, edited by Tim Khan. Coventry: Community Education Development Centre, 1995. 47pp. pb ISBN 0 9477607 24 2, £7.50 plus 10% p&;p

Janet Edwards, Centre for Citizenship Studies in Education, School of Education, Leicester University, Bringing Learning to Life: Involving the Community in the National Curriculum, by David Howe and Joan Wilson. Coventry: Community Education Development Centre, 1995. 72pp. pb ISBN 0 947607 21 8, £9.95 plus 10% p&;p

Richard Byers, University of Cambridge Institute of Education, Adding Value? Schools' Responsibility for Pupils' Personal Development, edited by Sally Inman and Martin Buck. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 1995. 182pp. pb ISBN 1 85856 044 6, £12.95     

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.     

Teachers in the Twenty-first Century: Time to renew the vision

Governments in all parts of the world recognize the value of education to the personal, social and economic health of the community. Once the responsibility to provide basic educational opportunities for all is fulfilled, as it has been in most developed countries, emphasis is placed upon raising standards of teaching, learning and achievement. More recently, calls for investing in lifelong learning across the community have increased. Arguably, attitudes to this should be formed in the years of schooling yet often the measures put in place to drive student progress forward have neglected the needs of teachers themselves - arguably the most important component in engaging the motivation and commitment of students, and in the transmission of knowledge and values. This paper considers the contexts and range of challenges for teachers in the twenty first century and suggests that investment in maintaining their intellectual and emotional selves is key to the educational success of schools in changing times.