Normalizing catastrophe: an educational response

Processes of normalizing assumptions and values have been the subjects of theoretical framing and critique for several decades now. Critique has often been tied to issues of environmental sustainability and social justice. Now, in an era of global warming, there is a rising concern that the results of normalizing of present values could be catastrophic. Often, when such concerns arise, education is invoked as a remedial tool, a solution to a crisis and a way of imposing change. However, education is a much-used, yet complicated and sometimes paradoxical, term. Appropriate educational responses to ‘catastrophes’ are contentious, messy and inherently interdisciplinary. This paper will explore intersections of educational philosophy, environmental ethics and social theory to provide some considerations for framing educational responses to the ‘normalizing of catastrophe’.