TY - JOUR
T1 - Education for sustainable development (ESD)
T2 - The turn away from 'environment' in environmental education?
AU - Kopnina, Helen
PY - 2012/10/1
Y1 - 2012/10/1
N2 - This article explores the implications of the shift of environmental education (EE) towards education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of environmental ethics. While plural perspectives on ESD are encouraged both by practitioners and researchers of EE, there is also a danger that such pluralism may sustain dominant political ideologies and consolidated corporate power that obscure environmental concerns. Encouraging plural interpretations of ESD may in fact lead ecologically ill-informed teachers and students acculturated by the dominant neo-liberal ideology to underprivilege ecocentric perspective. It is argued that ESD, with its focus on human welfare, equality, rights and fair distribution of resources is a radical departure from the aim of EE set out by the Belgrade Charter as well as a distinct turn towards anthropocentrically biased education. This article has two aims: to demonstrate the importance of environmental ethics for EE in general and ESD in particular and to argue in favour of a return to instrumentalism, based on the twinned assumptions that the environmental problems are severe and that education of ecologically minded students could help their resolution.
AB - This article explores the implications of the shift of environmental education (EE) towards education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of environmental ethics. While plural perspectives on ESD are encouraged both by practitioners and researchers of EE, there is also a danger that such pluralism may sustain dominant political ideologies and consolidated corporate power that obscure environmental concerns. Encouraging plural interpretations of ESD may in fact lead ecologically ill-informed teachers and students acculturated by the dominant neo-liberal ideology to underprivilege ecocentric perspective. It is argued that ESD, with its focus on human welfare, equality, rights and fair distribution of resources is a radical departure from the aim of EE set out by the Belgrade Charter as well as a distinct turn towards anthropocentrically biased education. This article has two aims: to demonstrate the importance of environmental ethics for EE in general and ESD in particular and to argue in favour of a return to instrumentalism, based on the twinned assumptions that the environmental problems are severe and that education of ecologically minded students could help their resolution.
KW - anthropocentrism
KW - ecological justice
KW - education for sustainable development (ESD)
KW - environmental education (EE)
KW - environmental ethics
KW - sustainable development (SD)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84867318805&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13504622.2012.658028
DO - 10.1080/13504622.2012.658028
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84867318805
SN - 1350-4622
VL - 18
SP - 699
EP - 717
JO - Environmental Education Research
JF - Environmental Education Research
IS - 5
ER -