Corcoran & Wals eds (2007) HE and the challenge of #Sustainability

For better SPSF, a key book summary

Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability (CERC Studies in Comparative Education) (p. 3). Springer Netherlands.

Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability: Problematics, Promise, and Practice (CERC Studies in Comparative Education) (English Edition)

Foreword

Definitions os sustainability or SD are contested, but most agree they involve recalibrating economic and social policies and practices to support economy, ecology, and equity...The major problem for HE is that it is almost impossible to create a sus. univ. in an unsustainable society (Loc.305).

Ch 2: The Evolution of Sustainability Declarations in Higher Education, Tarah Wright

The notion of sustainability in HE was first introduced at an international level by UNESCO-UNEP International Environmental Education Programme in 1978. .. Stockholm Declaration called for EE for all...The Tbilisi Declaration was the result of the UNESCO/UNEP Intergovernmental Conference on EE in 1977. It stated that in order for people to develop a better understanding of the human-environment relationship, formal and non-formal environmental education opportunities should be made available to people of all ages and level of academic aptitude... T.D. asked universities to consider the development of environmental curricula, engage faculty and staff in the development of environmental awareness, provide specialist training, engage in international and regional co-operative projects, and inform and educate the public regarding environmental issues... T.D. chapt.36 ... posited that formal and informal education was the solution to environmentally unsustainable behavior amongst humans (p.7-8)

Table 2. Common principles of Sustainability in Higher Education Declarations

(p.13)

Brubacher (1982) suggests two philosophies underlying the functions of the modern university.

1) The first is epistemological in nature and states that the university’s purpose is to answer the great questions of human existence. According to this philosophy, universities seek only knowledge and truth.

2) Alternatively, the political philosophy of education states that universities not only seek knowledge, but also apply knowledge in order to solve the complex problems of society.(pp.13-14). 

Ch 3: Sustainability as Emergence: The Need for Engaged Discourse, Richard Bawden

Our focus therefore needs to shift from a ‘techocentricity’ with ‘egocentric’ overtones, to a holocentric systemic one. We need to seek not just the self-gratification of the good life, but what Prozesky, M. (1999). The Quest for Inclusive Well-being: Ground work for an ethical renaissance. Inaugural lecture. Pietermaritzberg, South Africa: University of Natal.) has referred to as “inclusive well-being”, and in order to do that effectively, he argues, we need nothing less than “an ethical renaissance”...The reference to systems paradigms here is of considerable significance, for it is the ‘systems logic’ of the ‘whole being different (if not greater) than the sum of its parts’, that gives power to the very notion of ‘emergence’. To the systemist, unpredictable and novel properties emerge whenever different sub-systems are allowed to mutually associate, both within systems, and between different ‘levels’ within the nested hierarchies in which they are presumed to exist.(p. 25).

These two matters, (i) of meaning clarification of morality, and (ii) of the practice of moral discourse, indicate at least two vital roles that the academy can assume with respect to re-engaging with civil society in the context of ‘sustainability’ which can be construed as one of Boyer’s pressing problems of the day. In this regard it might prove useful to explore aspects of what Boyer (1996) referred to as the Scholarship of Engagement in reference to his proposition that the (American) academy must become a much more rigorous partner in the search for answers to such problems. 

1) In the first place, in what I might refer to as first order of engagement, there is the need to find ways of reintegrating the ethical with the scientific into paradigms or systems of inquiry that permit the expression of a true synergy of ways of knowing and appreciation...“Either the university of the future will take hold of the connection between knowledge and human values, or it will sink quietly and indiscriminately into the non-committal moral stupor of the rest of the knowledge industry.” Knowing becomes valuing becomes knowing!

2) Secondly, there is a need to develop strategies for collective inquiry that embrace both instrumental and practical rationalities into a praxis of collaboration between ‘experts’ and ‘lay people’ that allows the development of a democratic discourse appropriate to addressing the question of what it is that ought to be done next in the quest for ‘sustainability’.(p. 28).

Not that the alternative of communal discourse is easy. Bryan Wynne is among those who have written tellingly about the difficulties associated with the expert-lay knowledge divide, and how it might best be treated. There is for instance the very matter of reactions to the legitimacy of ‘lay’ knowledge. “(p. 29).

Ch 4: Critical Realism: A Philosophical Framework for Higher Education for Sustainability, John Huckle

This chapter argues that the key requirement of institutions and courses that seek to educate for sustainability is a philosophy of knowledge that integrates the natural and social sciences and the humanities, accommodates local knowledge, supports critical pedagogy, and continues to regard education as a form of enlightenment linked to a vision of more sustainable futures... Dickens (1996) argues that HEfS requires a unified science that can explain how social processes as understood by the social sciences combine with ecological and biophysical processes as understood by the physical and natural sciences. (p. 34). 

Interdisciplinarity

Jones and Merritt (1999) draw on reports from the Higher Education Funding Council to suggest a dearth of interdisciplinarity in contemporary British environmental higher education. Like Introductions to the Environment most courses are multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary, juxtaposing knowledge in often unrelated parts rather than realising a genuine integration of disciplines. Interdisciplinarity challenges academics to reconcile ideas about the nature of reality, how that reality can be known, and what procedures should guide enquiry (ontology, epistemology, and methodology) and we will see that critical realism offers a philosophical framework for accommodating different knowledge claims. It is particularly relevant for HEfS which focuses on an ambiguous and contested concept (Bourke & Meppem, 2000; Sachs, 1997) and where knowledge (in such areas as climate change or the impact of genetically modified organisms) is often uncertain and provisional in nature. (p.35).

Local knowledge & Citizen science

Tacit knowledge is that which cannot be easily described or encoded in the form of words, written documents or other impersonal means, while lay knowledge is popular, commonsense knowledge that may enable people to live sustainably with one another and the rest of local nature. New information technologies such as the internet allow people to link abstract and local knowledge in new ways and so provide for a critical postmodern pedagogy (Castells et al., 1999). Universities can clearly assist in developing citizen science, use postmodern pedagogy, and so help to empower their students and the wider community with new ideas and outlooks. (p. 36).

Dialectical materialism

Hartmann (1998) (Hartmann, F. (1998). Towards a Social Ecological Politics of Sustainability. In: Keil, R., Bell, D., Pentz, P. & Fawcett, L. (Eds.) (1998). Political Ecology: global and local. London: Routledge.)reminds us that ideas about sustainable development are inevitably contradictory since its advocates have different values and interests and wish to sustain different sets of ecological, environmental and social relations. Attention to all three sets of relations leads him to suggest that maintaining the metabolism between bio-physical and social systems in ethically and politically acceptable ways, involves sustaining:

1) Relations among humans (social relations) based on mutual respect and tolerance. Just relations allow equitable access to food, clothing, health care, shelter and meaningful work, provide for freedom of thought and mental development, and promote democratically determined political and economic decisions.

2) Relations among humans and other species (environmental relations) that minimize human domination of and impact on other species and their environments or habitats.

3) Relations among organisms and their environment (ecological relations) which have created the climate, hydrological cycle, radioactive levels, and other environmental conditions (ecological processes) that we have experienced throughout most of human history. Creating and maintaining these relations requires us to care

Postmodern environmentalism

The related challenge for HEfS is to ensure that its critical pedagogy is also a constructivist pedagogy (Janse van Rensburg, E., Lotz, H., Du Toit, D., Mhoney, K. & Oliver C. (2000). Learning for Sustainability: an environmental education professional development case study informing education policy and practice. Johannesburg: Learning for Sustainability Project) that builds upon student’s existing knowledge and interests, accommodates lay and tacit knowledge, and acknowledges how power is wielded through language and discourse. By engaging with cultural politics, marginalized voices, and texts of all kinds, such pedagogy can reinvigorate the modern vision of education as enlightenment (Parker, 1997). Risk society produces a new generation of youth between the borders of a modern world of certainty and order informed by the culture of the West and its technology of print, and a postmodern world of hybridised identities, electronic technologies, local cultural practices, and pluralized public spaces.(p. 44). 

Ch 5: Higher Education, Sustainability, and the Role of Systemic Learning, Stephen Sterling

This chapter argues that sustainability implies a double learning challenge to higher education, concerning both ‘paradigm’ and ‘provision’. The possibility of reorientation of higher education in the context of sustainability depends on widespread and deep learning within the higher education community...Whilst discussion often centres on this latter aspect, which may be called ‘education for change'

The emergent postmodern ecological paradigm suggests a change of epistemology, from reductionism towards holism, from objectivism towards critical subjectivity, and from relativism to relationalism. .. how do we work towards transformative learning in a system that itself is intended to be a prime agency of learning? There is a double problem here:

1) HE institutions are not primarily reflexive learning systems but teaching and research systems. 

2) HE is not primarily engaged in the provision of deep learning to students, but in first-order learning: the transmission of information and the development of instrumental skills aligned (increasingly) to the perceived needs of the economy.

Sustainability, nesting systems & systems failure

...a systems view of sustainability...is seen as a qualitative condition or emergent property arising from the relationships involved in any system whether considered at local level or global level, and demonstrating the survival, the security, and the well-being of 'the whole system'. So if we regard a set of relationships as a 'system' ... then the health of any such system depends on the health of its subsystems, and they on their subsystems and so on. Sustainability is the ability of a system to sustain itself in relation to its environment, given that all systems are made up of subsystems and parts of larger meta-systems. (p.51)

Figure 1. Nesting systems, starting from the centre, it is possible to regard any educational systems as a subsystem of wider society... the purpose or objectives of HE largely fail to take into account sustainability, while undesirable side-effects include widespread ecological illiteracy and its consequences (Orr 1994; Jucker 2002)... whether we can see the economy as part of the environment, rather than the environment as part of the economy. (p.53)

David Orr states that much of what is wrong with the world is not a result of a deficit of education but is the continuing legacy of a kind of education... This is not so much... a crisis in education of the sort that occupies politicians and editorial writers, as a crisis of education, which is far less noticed. This bigger crisis begs the most central of questions which concerns the purpose of education, and by association, the purpose of any institution and learning programme.

a profound paradox: the agency that is charged with the provision of education and learning ... is largely part of the unsustainability problem it needs to address. The fundamental challenge then, is how to achieve significant rather than superficial orientation of HE, and this calls for a theory of learning which can help clarify the nature and possibility of the required change. 

Learning Levels

Using systems terms, learning can be seen as having two aspects - self-correction and meaning-making in response to a change in the system's environment. Such learning can serve either to keep a system stable, or enable it to change to a new state in relation to its environment. (p.54)

These two types of learning are variously described as:

• single-loop & double-loop learning (Argyris & Schon 1996): single-loop doest not normally impinge on or change the values of the learner, the educator, the educational institution, or indeed society. Double-loop learning/second-order change is deeper learning where change tends to be characterised by positive feedback loops between the system and its environment, whereby both attain a new state (Banathy 1992)
• adaptive & generative learning (O'Connor & McDermott 1997) : The first level of learning is limited response to change in the system's environment. It keeps the system and its 'theory-in-use' stable. 
• basic & meta-learning (Bawden 1997a)
• first order & second order change (Ison & Russell 2000): first order learning and change are akin to what Clark (2998, p.236) calls 'change within changelessness', and is often geared towards effectiveness and efficiency - 'doing things better', rather than 'doing better things'.

Beyond first and second order change, systems thinkers ... recognise a third learning level which is described as transformative learning or epistemic learning. ... According to Wenger (1998, p. 226) ‘learning changes who we are by changing our ability to participate, to belong, to negotiate meaning’. Transformative learning does this to an unusual degree. It engages and involves the whole person, and affects change in deep levels of values and belief through a process of re-perception and re-cognition. (pp. 55-56).

Table 1. Three learnig levels summarised: 

1. basic learning: learning, thinking, knowing - doing things better
2. meta-learning: learning about learning... - doing better things
3. epistemic learning: learning about learning about learning... - seeing things differently

Learning Responses in Education & in Wider Society, Response Levels in Ed.

The Politics of Agenda 21 in Europe (1998), these authors suggest that a four-stage shift in the transition to sustainability is necessary, from ‘very weak sustainability’ to ‘very strong sustainability’, characterised by changes in environmental and economic policies, and in degrees and types of public awareness, with the last phase involving:

​– ​much closer integration between environmental and economic policy; ​

– ​a cultural shift in public awareness; and a ​

– ​renewal of emphasis on local democracy and activity (p.57).

Table 2. Staged learning responses to the challenge of sus. (Types of response, Resultant change, Type of learning, & state of ed as follows:) (pp.57-60)

1. No response: No change, Denial/ignorance (no learning), No change- Very weak
2. Accommodation: Green gloss, Adaptive, Cosmetic reform, Ed about sus. - Weak 
3. Reformation: Serious reform, Critically reflective adaptation, Serious greening, Ed for sus. - Strong
4. Transformation: Whole system redesign, Transformative, Wholly integrative, Sus.Ed. - Very strong

At a deeper level still, the response of education may be transformative. The shift here is towards ‘learning as change’ which engages the whole person and the whole learning institution, whereby the meaning of sustainable living is continually explored and negotiated. There is a keen sense of emergence and ability to work with ambiguity and uncertainty. Space and time are valued, to allow creativity, imagination, and cooperative learning to flourish. Inter- and transdisciplinarity are common, there is an emphasis on real-life issues, and the boundaries between institution and community are fluid. 

Whole Systems Change

Fundamentally, this means a shift from the machine metaphor that informs prevailing views of educational management and the learning process towards a view of the institution as a living system and learning organisation (Senge in De Geus, 1997) (p.62). 

Table 5. The general shifts summarized towards sus. institutions(pp. 66-67): 

• Incoherence and fragmentation ->  Systemic coherence and positive synergy
• Large scale, loss of connectivity ->  Human scale, high connectivity
• Closed community ->  Open, ‘permeable’ community
• Teaching organisation ->  Learning organisation
• Microcosm of unsustainable society ->  Microcosm (as far as possible) of sustainable society Again, using a systems

the meaning of the ‘learning society’ becomes much more than one which learns new skills, but one which is better able to understand itself. The initial driving forces in this process may be less to do with education (that is, the effects of ‘education for change’), than increasing awareness in society — and therefore, amongst some actors in education — of deep systemic crisis in the ecological suprasystem and in our relationship with it.

Ch 6: Assessing Sustainability: Criteria, Tools, and Implications, Michael Shriberg

Defining and assessing sustainability across campuses has proven to be difficult, due in large part to the ambiguities involving in operationalizing and standardizing environmental and social principles. Therefore, many administrators as well as advocates question the wisdom of investing in a cross-institutional sustainability assessment (pp. 71-72).

Simply put, campuses require methods of comparison to each other as well as to a vision of a “sustainable college or university” to ensure and affirm that they are moving in the right (or wrong) direction. The concept that Onisto (1999, p. 37) outlines for the economy as a whole applies to institutions of higher education: “Without a measure and value attached for the rates at which an economy consumes nature, there is no possibility for the market to act in any other interest than economic.”

Criteria

Orr, as quoted by the Penn State Green Destiny Council (2000, p. 4), proposes five criteria to rank campus sustainability:

1. What quantity of material goods does the college/university consume on a per capita basis?
2. What are the university/college management policies for materials, waste, recycling, purchasing, landscaping, energy use, and building?
3. Does the curriculum engender ecological literacy?
4. Do university/college finances help build sustainable regional economies?
5. What do the graduates do in the world?

These questions, although difficult to quantify and answer, do not “tinker around the edges”, as is the tendency of many environmental assessments; they deal with core issues of ecologically, socially and fiscally sustaining a society and campus... The difference is of mindset in promoting incremental (i.e. eco-efficient) or systemic (i.e. sustainable) change; eco-efficiency ends with the incremental while sustainability incorporates both approaches (p.73).

Since “sustainability is a process, not a destination” (Bandy II, G. (1998). Sustainability Booklet. Houston, TX: The University of Texas-Houston Health Sciences Center. Campus Consortium), the tools to measure sustainability must delve deep into decision-making by asking about mission, rewards, incentives and other process-oriented outcomes. .. Campuses need quick, yet penetrating ways to measure status, progress, priorities and direction. Therefore, the ability to calculate and compare progress toward sustainability is often a limiting factor in assessment. However, assessment tools need not be exclusively quantitative. In fact, quantitative tools in isolation have little chance of fully expressing progress toward sustainability since there is no well-defined “sustainable campus” upon which to base measures. On the other hand, qualitative data must be collected and analyzed in a manner that allows for cross-campus comparisons. The key is to find measurement methods that are flexible enough to capture organizational complexities and differences, yet specific enough to be calculable and comparable. Perhaps most importantly, sustainability assessment tools must be comprehensible to a broad range of stakeholders...The ecological footprint (Wackernagel & Rees, 1996) is a positive example.

Table 1. Evaluation of Campus Sus. Assessment Tools

In addition to lessons about sustainability measurement, cross-institutional assessment tools provide valuable insight into essential attributes of sustainability in higher education through their structure and content. An analysis of included and excluded factors reveals the following parameters (pp.82-83):

1. Decreased consumption/throughput
2. Centrality of sus. ed.
3. Cross-functional integration
4. Cross-institutional integration
5. Incremental & systemic progress

A second major question/challenge for the future is: Should analysts numerically rank and publicly report on college and university progress toward sustainability? (p.84).

Ch 7: The Problematics of Sustainability in Higher Education: A Synthesis, Peter Blaze Corcoran and Arjen E. J. Wals

Dobson’s research showed that in the mid-nineties three hundred definitions for sustainability and sustainable development were available, up from just a few in the late eighties (Dobson, 1996) (p.87).

Ch 9: Environmental Education for Sustainability: A Force for Change in Higher Education, Daniella Tilbury

.. many of these efforts have focused on actions to minimise the ecological footprints of universities. This is being achieved through reducing levels of energy consumption, opting for more sustainable waste management practices and putting in place environmental managements systems to monitor impacts. A number of these initiatives have also involved students in learning about and/or managing this innovative practice (Campus Earth Summit, 1995; Calvo, Benayas & Guitirrez, 2002). It is now being recognised that a next and more critical step needs to be taken to address sustainability through higher education. This requires educating about and for sustainability through the taught curriculum. Calls to restructure higher education courses towards Environmental Education for Sustainability are being supported by the corporate sector, which seeks graduates with the personal and professional knowledge, skills and experience necessary for contributing to sustainability (pp.97-98).

EE for Sus.

At Johannesburg, UNESCO explicitly recognised the critical role that formal and higher education play in providing opportunities for social learning and change towards sustainable development (UNESCO, 2002 p. 7). Their WSSD document ‘Education for Sustainability.

Sustainable Development is more about new ways of thinking than about science and ecology. While sustainable development involves the natural sciences, policy and economics; it is primarily a matter of culture’ (UNESCO, 2002, p. 8).

Huckle (1997) interprets Habermas’ principal claim to be that interaction has become distorted by the rise of positivism and instrumental reasoning which promotes science as meta-narrative and value-free knowledge... To achieve sustainable development we need critical reflective models which will help learners 'not only think critically but also culturally' (Saul, 2000, p. 8). (pp.99-100).

Participatory Action Research: is a process, rooted in the critical theory paradigm, which engages learners in practical issues of power, politics and participation... Four basic themes underpin action research approaches: i) collaboration through participation; ii) acquisition of knowledge; iii) social change; and iv) empowerment of participants (Hillcoat, 1996)... The goal of the action researcher is to increase the closeness between the actual problems encountered by practitioners in a specific setting and the theory used to explain and resolve the problem. The second goal, which goes beyond the other two approaches, is to assist practitioners in identifying and making explicit fundamental problems by raising their collective consciousness (Holter et al., 1993).

Core Components: The terms ‘critical reflection’, ‘values clarification’ and ‘participative action research’ have become core components of Environmental Education for Sustainability (see Sterling et al., 1992; Fien, J. and Trainer, T. (1993). Education for Sustainability. In: Fien. J. (Ed.). Environmental Education: A Pathway to Sustainability. Geelong: Deakin University Press, pp.11–23.; Gough & Robottom, 1993; Huckle & Sterling, 1996; Huckle, 1997; Robottom, 1987; Fien & Tilbury, 1996; Hesselink et al., 2000; Tilbury, 1993; 2001a; 2001b).

Innovation & Change: the Role of EE for Sus.

...three Environmental Education for Sustainability projects taking place within one university (p.103).

1. a process of learning which enhances generic skills, rather than a content to be taught, Environmental Education for Sustainability is relevant to all fields of learning.

2. Masters in Sustainable Development offered by the Graduate School of the Environment. Through a number of short courses, the program engages students in processes of critical reflection, values clarification and action research...

   In ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ students explore participatory approaches to learning and capacity building.

3. Action Research for Change in Curriculum and Graduate Skills Towards Sustainability — Change in Higher Education

Part TWO

We have taken the position that the multiple meaning of sustainability are not a weakness but a strength. The fact that it is ill-defined allows people to give it their own meaning as is appropriate for their own context. The process of giving meaning within a context is meaningful learning. Clearly there are different imaginable educational responses to sustainability.

In Part Two we introduce the reader to a variety of educational responses from the vantage point that a pluralism of perspectives can be a driving force for reaching solutions to sustainability issues in higher education... we present contributions from a variety of perspectives on the role of sustainability in higher education and the role of higher education in society.

Ch 13: Sustainability and Transformative Educational Vision, Edmund O’Sullivan

From the perspective of ‘transformative learning,’ developed in Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21st Century the fundamental educational task of our times is to make the choice for a sustainable planetary habitat of interdependent life forms over and against the pathos of the global competitive marketplace (O’Sullivan, 1999; O’Sullivan, Morrell & O’Connor, 2002) (p.163).  

Transformative Learning: Fostering Educational Vision in the 21st Century

Transformative criticism has three simultaneous moments.(p. 164)

1. The first moment is already described as the critique of the dominant culture’s “formative appropriateness”.
2. The second is a vision of what an alternative might look like to the dominant form.
3. The third moment is some concrete indications of the practical exigencies of how a culture probably could abandon those aspects of its present forms that are “functionally inappropriate” 

Comprehensive Integrity in a Universe Context

Formal education programs cannot fulfill all of these requirements. At the same time, formal education must be transformed so that it can provide an integrating context for total life functioning. At the higher levels of formal education, what is needed are processes of reflection on meaning and values, carried out in a comprehensive context.

The Transformative Learning Centre & Sus. Ed.: The Earth Charter as Foundational Vision

As a result of this marriage of institutions of higher learning with corporate spouses, we are seeing institutions, such as universities compromised, by the market demands and vision of transnational corporate business. Universities today have corporate logo’s laced throughout their premises (p.169).

I avoid using the term ‘sustainable development’ and share many of the criticism that Donald Worster makes of it in his excellent article entitled, ‘The Shaky Ground of Sustainability’(Worster, 1993). We both are circumspect by the economistic orientation of the term in the famous Bruntland Report. (pp.170-171).

1. The first educational challenge is to advance understanding of our shared global problems and the need to act with a sense of universal responsibility.
2. The second is to provide people with a framework for critically evaluating their situation and identifying action goals for bringing about positive change.
3. The third educational challenge is to foster a culture of collaboration that facilitates new partnerships between civil society, business and governments.

However, serious impediments remain. Educational activities associated with “values” remains a contested field because of concern about “which” values and “whose” values are being promoted. These concerns can be allayed so long as the values being examined represent core values that respect human dignity, are life affirming, and are consistent with those of major cultures around the world. However, at the same time, educators must be aware of the need to avoid proselytising, respect the right of individual learners to independently hold values, and understand that within the search for common ground there remain important values associated with cultural diversity.

Ch 16: Disciplinary Explorations of Sustainable Development in Higher Education, Geertje Appel, Irene Dankelman & Kirsten Kuipers

The university board and the faculties spend much of their time dealing with managerial and administrative aspects, while the departments are concerned with the core business of the university: research and education.

The Need for an Intellectual Challenge

A bottleneck for the integration of sustainable development in curricula is the fact that university professionals are not always convinced of the value of integrating sustainability in their courses, or lack the motivation to do so. ( Bras-Klapwijk, R. M. A. de Haan & K.F. Mulder (2000). Training of Lecturers to Integrate Sustainability in the Engineering Curricula. In: Van der Bor, W, Holen, P., Wals, A.E.J. & Filho, W. (Eds.) Integrating Concept of Sustainability into Education for Agriculture and Rural Development. Frankfurt am Mein: Peter Lang Scientific Publishers. Bras-Klapwijk et al., 2000). 

Looking at change processes in general, it is possible to identify four phases (Bullock & Batten, 1985; Burnes, 1992): (1) exploration, (2) planning, (3) action, (4) integration... composing a disciplinary review involves collecting information, communicating and analyzing the situation, and is therefore a first step in integrating sustainable development into curricula (p.216).

Lectures Integrate SD

An initial assumption of the working group was that a top-down approach would be unsuitable in complex organizations such as universities, and that it would be more feasible to start from within a discipline’s own existing processes (pp.217-218). 

Ch 17: The Promise of Sustainability in Higher Education: A Synthesis, Arjen E. J. Wals and Peter Blaze Corcoran

This brings us to the need for facilitated cultivation of pluralism and conflict in order to create space for social learning in moving towards contextual sustainability in higher education. The process of determining how to become sustainable as an institute of higher education as undertaken by a group can be viewed as a particular manifestation of social learning. Social learning here is seen as a collaborative re-framing process involving multiple interest groups or stakeholders (Vandenabeele & Wildemeersch, 1998)... The promotion of sustainability in higher education requires more than consensus in the present, but rather requires a dialogue to continuously shape and reshape ever-changing situations and conditions. A dialogue here requires that stakeholders involved can and want to negotiate as equals in an open communication process which views diversity and conflict as the driving forces for development and social learning (Kunneman, 1996; Wals & Bawden, 2000). As Wals and Heymann (2004) point out elsewhere, such dialogue rarely spontaneously emerges, but requires careful designing and planning. .. Education for sustainability above all means the creation of space for social learning. (pp.223-224).

Part THREE: Practice

19: Education and Sustainable Development in United Kingdom Universities: a Critical Exploration

20: Lighting Many Fires: South Carolina’s Sustainable Universities Initiative

21: Integrating Education for the Environment and Sustainability Into Higher Education at Middlebury College

22: Sustainability in Higher Education Through Distance Learning: The Master of Arts in Environmental Education at Nottingham Trent University

23: The Pedagogy of Place: The Environmental Technology Center at Sonoma State University

24: Developing Sustainability in Higher Education Using Aishe

25: Curriculum Deliberation Amongst Adult Learners in South African Community Contexts at Rhodes University

26: Incorporating Sustainability in the Education of Natural Resource Managers: Curriculum Innovation at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University of Denmark

EOF