Participation in times of urgent transition. Environmental and sustainability education caught in a paradox.

Author(s):

Katrien Van Poeck(presenting / submitting)Joke Vandenabeele(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper (Copy for Joint Session)

Session Information

30 SES 05 JS, Joint Session NW 08 and NW 30

Paper session Joint session NW 08 and NW 30

Time:

2014-09-03

11:00-12:30

Room:

B215 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Monica Carlsson

Contribution

Environmental and sustainability education (ESE) is facing a delicate balance between, on the one hand, concerns about the sense of urgency surrounding current ecological problems and, on the other hand, the acknowledgement that within these issues a variety of commitments, values, interests, and knowledge claims are at stake and that, therefore, a pluralistic and participatory approach is required. Yet, pluralism and participation do not necessarily enhance sustainability. Researchers have addressed this tension in a lively debate in academic literature (e.g. Öhman, 2006; Jickling & Wals, 2007; Breiting, 2009; Rudsberg & Öhman, 2010; Wals, 2010; Læssøe, 2010; Östman, 2010; Lundegård & Wickman, 2012; Kopnina, 2012; Van Poeck, 2013) and practitioners struggle with it in their everyday practices. The latter is the central focus of this paper. We analyse a non-formal educational practice that is caught up in this paradox: the ‘Transition Towns’ (TT) movement which is characterised by a pursuit of fundamental social change – that is, a transition toward a sustainable society – through a participatory approach. Our aim is to grasp the struggle involved and the conceptions of education that inform it.

In order to deepen our understanding of this educational endeavour we searched for a theoretical framework that fully acknowledges the aforementioned paradox. We found such a perspective in Bruno Latour’s (2005) and Noortje Marres’ (2005) ideas about ‘public issues’. As we will show, the way Latour and Marres understand how ‘issues call a public into being’, that is, how a multiplicity of actors is jointly caught up in a particular issue through various and often antagonistic commitments, dependencies, interests, involvements, etc. creates a space to acknowledge pluralism without falling into undue relativism. Latour (2005) elaborates upon it by referring to the etymology of the old word ‘Thing’ or ‘Ding’ that originally designated a certain type of archaic assembly. Early senses of the word included ‘meeting’ and ‘matter’, ‘concern’ as well as ‘inanimate object’. Ancient Icelandic deputies, for instance, were called ‘thingmen’ and gathered in the ‘Althing’, in an isolate place where disputes were addressed. This old etymology shows, according to Latour, that a public is brought together by ‘divisive matters of concern’ in order to ‘come to some sort of provisional makeshift (dis)agreement’ (Latour, 2005, p. 13). Such a Ding or Thing, that is, an assemblage of actors around an issue that causes their concerns and divisions is our central focus in this paper. We present an analysis of the case of ‘Transition Towns’ aiming to reveal the particular ‘assemblage’ that emerges around sustainability issues within this educational practice and to articulate the educational dynamics involved in it. Building on the insights developed by Latour and Marres we studied this case so as to understand how the delicate balance between the sense of urgency brought about by sustainability issues and concerns for pluralism and participation is dealt with. More specifically, we inquire into how an assemblage around a particular issue finds shape, how this affects the space for contestation and controversy, and what are the underlying conceptions of education.

Method

This paper presents a single case study. As indicated, we focus on an educational practice that embodies the delicate balance between concerns for sustainability and for pluralism/participation. The TT movement came into existence as a response to the perceived need for a fundamental ‘transition’ toward a sustainable society and pursues this transition through a participatory approach. The movement arose in Totnes (United Kingdom) where the first TT has been established in 2006. Since then, the initiative has been copied around the world. The aim is to prepare towns, villages, cities and neighbourhoods for a future affected by climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy (peak-oil). For our analysis, we focus on the TT movement in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). We gathered data by combining a content-analysis of documents with 2 in-depth interviews and 3 direct observations and analysed them using the qualitative analysis software QSR NVivo. So as to grasp the emerging ‘assemblage’ around the issues of climate change and peak oil (cf. supra) from a broad perspective, we use an analytical framework inspired by the Policy Arrangements Approach (Arts et al., 2006) and investigate the actors involved, the resources that are mobilised, the rules of interaction, and the discourses on sustainable development and ESE. Analysing the actors involved enables us to find out which actors are drawn into the assemblage. An analysis of the formal and informal rules of interaction allows examining whether, and if so, how actors are encouraged to voice diverging commitments, dependencies, interests, involvements, etc. as well as how controversy is dealt with and which opinions, points of view, and arguments are regarded legitimate. We analyse the mobilisation of resources (educational tools, methodologies, and activities) in order to understand how concerns, knowledge claims, values, expertise, etc. are drawn into the assemblage and how these resources are also affecting the space for controversy. Finally, analysing which particular discourses on sustainable development and ESE are nourished enables a deeper understanding of how educational practices deal with contestation and controversy as well as which commitments, dependencies, interests, involvements, etc. are taken into account.

Expected Outcomes

Our analysis brings to the fore how the particular assemblage that emerged around the issues at stake within the TT movement limits the space for contestation and controversy. So as to further understand the struggle to present sustainability issues as public issues in educational practices, we articulate the educational dynamics involved in it. Therefore, we draw on three ‘metaphors for learning’, that is, images that are used to define education and that bring forward fundamental assumptions behind educational theories and practices (Sfard, 1998). Our case study shows that the TT movement contains elements of the ‘acquisition metaphor’ (Sfard, 1998), the ‘participation metaphor’ (Sfard, 1998) and the ‘knowledge creation metaphor’ (Paavola et al., 2004, p. 562). We argue how – each in their own way – a focus on acquisition, participation, and knowledge creation seem to be inadequate to come to grips with the paradox between sustainability concerns and the acknowledgement that a pluralistic and participatory approach is required. By presenting a fourth metaphor, characterising ‘education as a response’ (Vandenabeele & Wildemeersch 2012) to sustainability issues, we want to draw attention to the possibility of a fundamentally different educational dynamic. Inspired by Latour’s elaboration on the old word ‘Thing’ or ‘Ding’, education as a response could be understood as creating a space for an assemblage of actors around an issue that causes their concerns and divisions in which they are invited and encouraged to explore – or to study – an issue and to respond to each other’s divergent and mutually exclusive commitments, dependencies, interests, involvements, etc. Education as a response requires time and patience so as to explore an issue, expand the assemblage around it and enact the controversies inherent in it.

References

Arts, B., Leroy, P., & van Tatenhove, J.P.M. (2006). Political Modernisation and Policy Arrangements: A Framework for Understanding Environmental Policy Change. Public Organization Review, 6(2), 93-106. Breiting, S. (2009). Issues for environmental education and ESD research development: looking ahead from WEEC 2007 in Durban. Environmental Education Research, 15(2), 199-207. Jickling, B., & Wals, A.E.J. (2007). Globalization and environmental education: looking beyond sustainable development. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 40(1), 1-21. Kopnina, H. (2012). Education for sustainable development (ESD): the turnaway from ‘environment’ in environmental education? Environmental Education Research, 18(5), 699-717. Latour, B. (2005). From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik or How to Make Things Public. In B. Latour & P. Weibel (Eds.), Making Things Public. Atmospheres of Democracy (pp. 4-31). Karlsruhe: ZKM and Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Læssøe, J. (2010). Education for sustainable development, participation and socio-cultural change. Environmental Education Research, 16(2), 39-57. Lundegård, I., & Wickman, P.O. (2012). It takes two to tango: studying how students constitute political subjects in discourses on sustainable development, Environmental Education Research, 18(2), 153-169. Marres, N. (2005). No issue, no public. Democratic deficits after the displacement of politics (Doctoral dissertation). University of Amsterdam. Öhman, J. (2006). Pluralism and criticism in environmental education and education for sustainable development: a practical understanding. Environmental Education Research, 12(2), 149-163. Östman, L. (2010). Education for sustainable development and normativity: a transactional analysis of moral meaning-making and companion meanings in classroom communication. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 75-93. Paavola, S., Lipponen, L., & Hakkarainen, K. (2004). Models of Innovative Knowledge Communities and Three Metaphors of Learning. Review of Educational Research, 74(4), 557-576. Rudsberg, K., & Öhman, J. (2010). Pluralism in practice – experiences from Swedish evaluation school development and research. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 95-111. Sfard, A. (1998). On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One. Educational Researcher, 27(2), 4-13. Vandenabeele, J., & Wildemeersch, D. (2012). How farmers learn about environmental issues. Reflections on a socio-biographical approach. Adult Education Quarterly, 62(1), 56-72. Van Poeck, K. (2013). Education as a response to sustainability issues. Practices of environmental education in the context of the United Nations Decade of education for sustainable development (Doctoral dissertation). University of Leuven. Wals, A.E.J. (2010). Between knowing what is right and knowing that it is wrong to tell others what is right: on relativism, uncertainty and democracy in environmental and sustainability education. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 143-151.

Author Information

Katrien Van Poeck (presenting / submitting)

University of Leuven, Belgium

Joke Vandenabeele (presenting)