Lessons for sustainability from critical environmental education: perspectives from Brazil

Catherine Walker, Peter Kraftl, Joe Hall

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

Education for Sustainability (EfS) is treated in policy documents as a means of disseminating pro-environmental knowledge, values and practices amongst publics (particularly young people) so that citizens can participate in the sustainable transformation of societies. Amidst a wide range of visions for EfS (or Environmental Education (EE)), there is understanding from organisations like UNESCO that EfS is a transdisciplinary area, ‘as broad as life itself’ and thus potentially – even necessarily – applicable to all curricular subjects. Whilst this aspiration has been recognised to conflict with the ‘contemporary grammar of schooling’ in increasingly target-driven educational landscapes, relatively little has been published in policy, practice or academic literature on how educators see the purpose of EfS, how this fits with their wider pedagogic values and how proposed sustainable transformations map onto visions for broader societal transformation.

We turn to the critical environmental education (CEE) movement in Latin America to consider how this movement, inspired by participatory politics and the emancipatory pedagogies of Paulo Freire, might challenge and enliven Anglophone EfS. We focus on Brazil, a country with a strong recent history of driving CEE through national forums and debating spaces for educators and students. Drawing on interviews with educators and educational professionals and observations from a National EE Forum, we consider what makes CEE ‘critical’ and how educators’ vision of CEE – and radical pedagogies more broadly – might broaden our understandings of ‘sustainability’ and what is necessary to achieve it.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 30 Aug 2018
EventRoyal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Annual Conference 2018 - Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Duration: 28 Aug 201831 Aug 2018

Conference

ConferenceRoyal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Annual Conference 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityCardiff
Period28/08/1831/08/18

Research Beacons, Institutes and Platforms

  • Sustainable Consumption Institute

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