Critical Environmental Education in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Fostering Civic Courage in Sustainability's Public Sphere

• In Event: 61.086 - Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: 61.086-13 - International Policy and Practical Considerations for Environmental and Sustainability Education

Abstract

This paper describes a state-driven critical environmental education (EE) program implemented in public schools of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Based on qualitative research recently conducted in Brazil over 18 months, the analysis centers on how this local EE initiative is contextualized in conflicting ways by Brazilian national EE policy and by UNESCO’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. As a place-based investigation, this work chronicles a local strategy of resistance to neoliberal templates targeting environmental management and educational reform. This strategy takes an approach to critical environmental education that hinges on making public schools platforms for participatory environmental governance to develop a social justice-oriented conception of environmental citizenship, with the ultimate goal of strengthening the democratic public sphere of sustainability.

Author

• Nicolas Stahelin, School for International Training