"A New Global Ethic": A History of the U.N. International Environmental Education Program

• In Event: Ideology and the Shaping of International Education

Abstract

This study investigates the history of the United Nations International Environmental Education Program (IEEP), with a focus on changes in IEEP's approach to teaching about the natural world. Initially promoting instruction about natural resource conservation, IEEP adopted fostering an environmental ethic among students as central to its work, before embracing education for “sustainable development” as its principle objective. Ultimately IEEP met with mixed success, leading many scholars to understate its influence in the growth of a worldwide commitment to environmental education. As the primary U.N. program responsible for generating that commitment, however, IEEP’s history offers a particularly useful lens through which to analyze changes in our understanding of the concept of the environment.

Author

• Charles Dorn, Bowdoin College