Education + Sustainable Development = A Passionate Affair

Author(s):

Michael Håkansson(presenting / submitting)Leif Östman David Kronlid

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 08 A, Broadening the Issue of ESE: Curriculum and Organization

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

09:00-10:30

Room:

B119 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Johan Öhman

Contribution

In this paper we present a sketch of a theoretical model on the creative and educative aspect of the political in environmental sustainable education (ESE) that can be used to conceptualise and investigate the deliberation when something is at stake and where students must handle conflicts. We are inspired by Philip Payne (2010, 2001) who argued for the importance to not by-pass “everyday ‘embodied meaning’-making”(2010:164) in both pedagogically activities and in research:

Indeed, the rational classroom is all to often disembodied of emotionally charged and aesthetically meaningful matters that, if so, immediately jeopardize the existentially great moral challenge the next generations will need to ‘cope’ with if, indeed, democracy and its derivatives such as pluralism and diversity are to be (re)valued and enacted (2010:164).

As Payne indicates, there is more involved than epistemological-rational arguments when we deliberate with each other. Taking departure from the radical democratic theory of political and upon John Dewey’s theory of experience, we explores and investigates the privileging and meaning making processes that occurs when disagreements is bodily and emotionally felt, , i.e. when something is at stake for the participants and the argumentation turns into deliberation. In Deweys sense: “…the thing actually at stake in any serious deliberation is not a difference of quantity, but what kind of person one is to become, what sort of self is in the making, what kind of world is making” (Dewey 1983: 150)

By using the radical democratic theory, foremost Chantal Mouffe (2000, 2005), Jacques Rancière (2006) and Zizek (1999), we perceive the political as the process of inclusions and exclusion, i.e. the process of privileging of different commitments and existential moral values. In an educational setting, such processes can be said to reflect a post-normal condition (Funtowicz & Ravetz 1993) where complexity, contingency, and uncertainty (Jickling & Wals 2012, Saloranta 2001) is lived through by the students and teachers. Such post-normal educational condition, will involve vulnerability for the participants since it addresses person’s commitments and existential moral values. This vulnerability embody at least two aspects; the first aspect of vulnerability be about that disagreement may convert your social relation to a political relation, e.g. from a relation based on sameness to a relation based on difference. The second aspect of vulnerability relates to the meaning making process; when the person gets involved in such situation the person risks to change the commitments, etc.

One of John Deweys hallmarks was that he insisted that epistemological, ethical and aesthetic dimension are inseparable, which means that they interpenetrates each other in the privileging and meaning making processes (Dewey 1987). Thereby, both the radical democratic concept of the political and John Dewey´s theory of experience pay attention to the emotional aspect of the aesthetics as working together with cognition and the moral when we make a choice between conflicting alternatives, this is to say when we deliberate. In this perspective, one can simply not be without the other. However, in an analytical process it is possible to separate the different value spheres in relation to specific research interests.

In our conceptualization and investigations we are interested in the meaning making that occurs in the deliberation where things are at stake, i.e. we are interested in both the privileging process and the result of this process in terms of students manners of handling conflicts. By highlighting the emotional dimension we are able to capture what is at stake, whose commitments, etc. are at stake and how the students solve the conflicts. This makes it possible to investigate and create knowledge on the process and results when the political becomes embodied.

Method

We uses some results from our analyses of video recordings from classrooms in Sweden in order to illustrate on the one hand the analytical method and on the other hand how such analyses can shed light on the educative aspect of the political in terms of teaching and learning. In our analyses, we especially focus on elaborating on the emotional aspect of meaning making in deliberation and on emotions as part of the dynamic interplay between the cognitive, aesthetical and moral dimensions in meaning making. The illustration show that a post-normal condition in the classroom or in other educational situation can sometimes functions as educative in the sense that the meaning making will result in something new and unforeseen that can make us better equipped to live with others, whom commitments and worldviews differs from our own. Our methodological tools rely on a Practical Epistemological Analysis (Östman & Wickman 2002, Wickman 2005) by which we identify encounters and purposes by analyzing actions. Encounters are descriptions of what is actually happening in an event and how different encounters influence meaning-making and learning. Encounters could be earlier experiences that are re-actualized in new situations, or encounters with the physical environment, other human beings and norms. The purpose of an activity is described on the background of what the participants share and what is not argued about, what allows the participants to carry their experience forward in order to fulfill a purpose. The method is sensitive to the notion that purposes are distributed. The Practical Epistemology Analyses, which has been used frequently in different subject didactic works is especially built upon and have subsequently been used on several occasions (e.g., Almqvist 2005, Jakobson and Wickman 2007, Lidar, Lundqvist, and Östman 2006, Lundegård and Wickman 2007, Wickman 2004, Wickman and Östman 2002). Finally, we discuss the contribution of the aesthetical dimension to the ESE, suggesting a way of furthering our knowledge on the political aspect of ESD in concrete activities in the classroom.

Expected Outcomes

The contribution to the ESE is an attempt of devoping a theoretical model for how to understand and analyse the creative and educative aspect of the political in ESE, building on the radical democratic theory of political and John Deweys theory of experience. The model can be used to conceptualise and investigate the deliberation that occurs when something is at stake and where students must handle conflicts. Our analyses illustrates that ESE concerns not simply cognitive understanding and a “moral” good, but also concerns an on-going political process of conflictual – and passionate – deliberation about commitments and existential moral values. This finding goes hand in hand with the radical democrat claim of paying attention to political emotions in democratic deliberation, and emphasizing that the emotional, passionate phase of action cannot be or should not be eliminated in behalf of bloodless reason (Mouffe 2005, Ruitenberg 2010). Our finding does also go hand in hand with Dewey critique on the view of rationality as devoid of feelings. He writes, [m]ore “passion”, not fewer, is the answer….rationality, once more, is not a force to evoke against impulse and habit. It is attainment of a working harmony among diverse desires. “Reason” is a noun signifies the happy cooperation of a multitude disposition” (Dewey 1983, 136). For Dewey, deliberation includes a willingness to suffer, a willingness to become vulnerability: to be able to experience the world we must be willing to be wounded by it. Therefore, if we cannot escape from conflicts, ESE have to teach us how to live with and to meet conflicts in environmental issues as they emerge in the contingency and uncertainty of everyday life. We hope that our work and the findings can contribute to filling some of the gap in ESE-research that Payne (2010) has recognised.

References

Almqvist, J. (2005). Learning and artefacts: On the use of information technology in educational settings. Digital comprehensive summaries of Uppsala dissertations from the Faculty of Social Sciences, 3. Uppsala, Sweden: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Dewey, J. (1987/1934). Art as experience, in Jo Ann Boydston (ed.) John Dewey: The Later Works, Volume 10. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press Dewey, J. (1983/1922) ‘Human nature and conduct’, in Jo Ann Boydston (ed.) John Dewey: The Middle Works, Volume 14. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Funtowicz, S. O. and Ravetz, J. R.: (1993). ‘Science for the Post-Normal Age’, Futures 25, 739–755. Jakobson, B.,and Wickman, P.-O. (2007). Transformation through language use: Children’s spontaneous metaphors in elementary school science. Science & Education, 16, 267 – 289. Jickling, B. & Wals, A. (2012). Debating Education for Sustainable Development 20 Years after Rio : A Conversation between Bob Jickling and Arjen Wals, Journal of Education for Sustainable Development 2012 6: 49 Lidar, M., Lundqvist, E., and Östman, L. (2006). Teaching and learning in the science classroom: The interplay between teachers’ epistemological moves and students’ practical epistemology. Science Education, 90, 148 – 163. Lundegård, I., and Wickman, P.-O. (2007). Conflicts of interest: An indispensable element of education for sustainable development. Environmental Education Research, 13, 1 – 15. Mouffe, C. (2000). The democratic paradox. London: Verso. Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. London: Routledge. Payne, P. (2010). The globally great moral challenge: ecocentric democracy, values, morals and meaning, Environmental Education Research, Vol. 16, No. 1, , 153–171 Payne, P. (2001). Identity and Environmental Education, Environmental Education Research,Vol. 7, No. 1, 67-88 Ranciere, J (2010). Dissensus: on politics and aesthetics. London: Continuum Ruitenberg, C. (2010). Conflict, Affect and the Political: On Disagreement as Democratic Capacity, Journal of Peace Education and Social Justice, 4(1), 40-55 Saloranta, T.M. 2001. Post-normal science and the global climate change issue. Climatic Change. 50. 395–404 Wickman, Per-Olof (2005), Aesthetic experience in science education: Learning and meaning-making as situated talk and action (Psychology Press). Wickman, PO. and Östman, L. (2002): Learning as discourse change: A sociocultural mechanism, Science Education, Vol 86, No 5, 601-623 Žižek, S. (1999). The ticklish subject – The absent centre of political ontology. London: Verso.

Author Information

Michael Håkansson (presenting / submitting)

Uppsala University

Uppsala

Leif Östman

Uppsala University, Sweden

David Kronlid