{"id":2682,"date":"2012-11-14T09:15:45","date_gmt":"2012-11-14T09:15:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=2682"},"modified":"2012-11-14T09:15:45","modified_gmt":"2012-11-14T09:15:45","slug":"esd-without-the-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/11\/14\/esd-without-the-label\/","title":{"rendered":"ESD, without the label"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his <em>con brio<\/em> deliberative chapter (with Ken Webster) in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wageningenacademic.com\/learn4\">Learning for Sustainability<\/a><\/em>, Paul Vare writes ...<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\"ESD, if we remove the label, is education that addresses the inter-relatedness of social justice, ecological integrity and economic viability.\u00a0 We may focus on one or two of those aspects but we should be aware that one without the others cannot last; ... .<em>\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em> <\/em>Just so; but might we go further? \u00a0The following is a slight paraphrase from a 2012 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.neweconomics.org\">New Economics Foundation<\/a> [ <strong>nef<\/strong>] report titled <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.neweconomics.org\/publications\/the-wisdom-of-prevention\">The Wisdom of Prevention<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Sustainable development means building an economy that serves the interests of people and the planet, by promoting well-being and sustainable social justice for all, and so we have to understand why things go wrong, and tackle the underlying causes of harm \u2013 for example:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>cutting greenhouse gas emissions, safeguarding natural resources, enhancing biodiversity and stopping pollution of air, land and water.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is core environmental education and educational for sustainable development fare.\u00a0 But, to be comprehensive, we need to add the following, as <strong>nef<\/strong> did \u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><em>tackling the underlying causes of poverty, unemployment, ill-health, illiteracy and homelessness, reducing crime and social conflict, insecurity and distrust.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>regulating financial institutions to prevent speculation, investing in good jobs and renewable energy, taxing polluters and discouraging carbon-intensive production<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Not all of the points made in the last bullet are core EE \/ ESD ideas, but <strong>nef<\/strong> would likely say all this is indivisible: that much of what we are interested in comes down to economics and politics, and would assume that we cannot address one without at least <em>thinking<\/em> about the others \u2013 a view that has the merit of considerable coherence.\u00a0 <strong>nef<\/strong> also say that these underlying causes of harm can be mutually reinforcing, and so adopting a preventative approach can bring multiple benefits.<\/p>\n<p>The report talks in terms of <em>downstream<\/em> and <em>upstream<\/em> measures \u2013 real-world problems themselves, and the causes of the problems. \u00a0Or the causes <em>of<\/em> the causes, perhaps?\u00a0 The difference here is between making a difference at the margins, or easing systemic change.\u00a0 They are not mutually exclusive. \u00a0The report argues for prevention, and says that bottom-up prevention is best, with people and organisations becoming more resilient: building up their own immune systems, both literally and metaphorically, so that they become less susceptible to harm \u2013 changing attitudes and capabilities so that they are better able to take positive actions themselves.<\/p>\n<p>So this <em>upstream \/ downstream<\/em> idea can apply to communities as well as government.\u00a0 But the <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">nef<\/span> report says action at this level needs strong support to tackle the political, economic and cultural factors that have helped to cause the problems in the first place.\u00a0 People need information, education, advocacy and strong leadership to understand and act.\u00a0 These, <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">nef<\/span> says, are formidable barriers.\u00a0 Well, up to a point they are, but don\u2019t we see such action all around us already; and might <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">nef <\/span>have looked more widely for its examples?<\/p>\n<p>So, where should [we educators] focus?\u00a0 Is it in relation to problems, or to the causes of problems, and should <em>interventions<\/em> be addressed to individuals and families, or to social groups?\u00a0 The point here is that the choice implies a different way of thinking about outcomes, a different approach to pedagogy, and different modes of evaluation.\u00a0 It certainly seems the case that, if we focus on prevention, then we need a strategy that takes society, economics and environment into account \u2013 as <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">nef<\/span> argues.\u00a0 And the more we work with individuals on remedial matters, the less we (or they) need to think about this wider picture, and the less the focus will be on sustainability <em>per se<\/em>.\u00a0 This is a problem which the developers of action competence approaches (Jensen &amp; Schnack, 1997) were fully aware of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his con brio deliberative chapter (with Ken Webster) in Learning for Sustainability, Paul Vare writes ... \"ESD, if we remove the label, is education that addresses the inter-relatedness of social justice, ecological integrity and economic viability.\u00a0 We may focus...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}