The presentations in the second Symposium session were:<\/p>\n
Research in Higher Education for Sustainable Development \u2013 Current Trends and Approaches<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/strong>Matthias Barth (University of Applied Sciences, Ostwestfalen-Lippe) <\/span><\/span>& Marco Rieckmann (University of Vechta<\/span>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Implementing ESE in education systems. Researching the Dynamics of Policy Making and Politics in a Changing World.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/strong> Jutta Nikel (University of Education Freiburg)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thinking particularly about the first of these, my admiration for those setting out to do such studies knows no bounds<\/p>\n They are inherently difficult.\u00a0 In part, this is because of breadth and complexity.\u00a0 But also because of boundary issues and contestation as to meaning.\u00a0 Most educational research has breadth & complexity to cope with.\u00a0 Think of maths education, for example.\u00a0 But what maths is, what it means, and its purposes are all settled questions, more or less.\u00a0 And that applies to maths education as well \u2013 not completely, of course, but more or less.<\/p>\n None of this is true for ESE \/ ESD \/ EfS \/ EE \/ or whatever we call it.\u00a0 One of the strengths of ESE \/ ESD is the variation that is found from one educational context to another.\u00a0 These have arisen from local interpretations and developments as the concept is shaped to fit, more or less comfortably, with existing policy and practice. \u00a0Inevitably, this all involves accommodations with preferred ideological and epistemological dispositions.<\/p>\n Equally inevitably, all interpretations of ESE \/ ESD rest on understandings of what sustainable development itself is<\/em>.\u00a0 How could this be otherwise, even if the conceptual links are loose, or talked about in hushed tones between consenting adults.<\/p>\n This diversity of ESE \/ ESD, which is clear to see from a look at emerging practice, or any reading of the increasing number of journals that now cater for interested academics, is a strength.\u00a0 It is also a considerable weakness, as it betrays a lack of shared understandings which, in turn, inhibit communication and collaboration.<\/p>\n An aspect of this is that not all ESD is described as<\/em> ESD, with a plethora of alternatives and ESE \u2013 now joins these.\u00a0 Some of these are supported by particular groups, sometimes to distance themselves from ESD which they see, variously, as too neo-liberal \/ pro-growth \/ conservative \/ \u2018Western\u2019 \/ etc., according to taste. \u00a0Even UNESCO sees the problem, though it doesn\u2019t really understand it. \u00a0This is from an email I got in August \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cESD is called by many names in national and local contexts.\u00a0 In some places, Environmental Education and other related \u201ceducations\u201d (e.g. global education and climate change education) are defined and practiced to include socio-cultural and economic aspects alongside environmental aspects.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A number of dilemmas emerge from this confusion of language and goals, none of which make the researcher\u2019s life any easier.<\/p>\n In research carried out for the Higher Education Funding Council for England in 2008 there was no one view of sustainable development that could command consensus across the sector.\u00a0 The researchers began by defining teaching and research activity relating to sustainable development as that containing \u2026<\/p>\n \u201ca significant element related to either or both of the natural environment and natural resources, PLUS a significant element related to either or both of economic or social issues.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Note how this differs from the Unesco quote where environment \/ society \/ economy<\/em> remain essentially uncoupled.<\/p>\n In the 2008 research, it was impossible to maintain the conceptual tightness of this framing whilst collecting the data that academics in the institutions wanted the researchers to collect.\u00a0 This contrasted sharply with similar data collection in Wales through the STAUNCH initiative where a fully uncoupled framing was allowed.\u00a0\u00a0 This did not specify or attempt to demand the significance of the natural environment, and so was more permissive.\u00a0 In the end, anything, and hence, everything, counted which led to an over-estimation of incidences of sustainable development as a focus of academic activity.\u00a0 Good for Wales and its image, of course; less so for accuracy. \u00a0The moral hazard in all this is considerable.<\/p>\n The problem is that, whilst sustainable development may be a socially constructed idea, you can\u2019t construct it any way you like.\u00a0 All this matters because our conceptual framing of sustainable development influences how (and if) we think about ESD \/ ESE.\u00a0 It will be a key factor in determining our framing of ESE \/ ESD, and may go some way to explaining why there are such diverse, and often polarized, views on how to think about ESD \/ ESE.\u00a0 Or whether it's worth thinking about at all.<\/p>\n Most teachers and academics, despite the Decade, don\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The presentations in the second Symposium session were: Research in Higher Education for Sustainable Development \u2013 Current Trends and Approaches Matthias Barth (University of Applied Sciences, Ostwestfalen-Lippe) & Marco Rieckmann (University of Vechta) Implementing ESE in education systems. Researching the...<\/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":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4584","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=4584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}