Whose Development Are We Sustaining? Teaching Through Critical Questioning "Development" and "Sustainable Development"

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Abstract

If all education is focused on “progress”, the contextual aspects of teaching through problem-posing questions of “What is?”, “For who?”, and “Who defines?” the terms of “development” and its “sustainability” is essential in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) models. This paper gives a critical analysis of how “development” is framed within ESD models in leading, or not, to transformation for socio-environmental justice that is all-inclusive of the world’s diverse societies/populations. A central focus is how do processes of globalization frame “development” towards and away from this transformation. Through the results of two qualitative comparative education research studies, it argues for reinventing current ESD models by questioning the politics of education as a tool for “development” of some and not others.

Author

• Greg William Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University