Realizing the Future: Educational Adaptation in Unsustainable Times

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: The Discourses of Sustainability’s Possibilities

Abstract

Human activities are having an unprecedented effect on the natural and social systems that sustain life on the planet. As a result, sustainability has become a popular social and ecological goal. These terms are definitionally vague and differentially contextualized. This paper presentation explores the theory and practice of sustainability education, including its varied ecological and educational implications. I use a critical ethnographic approach to examine how individuals within an educational institution construct and operationalize a unique conception of sustainability education. Using ecological complexity theory, symbolic practice theories and political ecology as lenses, and grounded situational analysis as an analytic tool, I show how one educational institution conceptualizes, implements and embodies sustainability education.

Author

• Joseph A. Henderson, University of Delaware