Educating for sustainable societies: examples of social and education reform in three countries: the United States, Australia, and Rwanda

• In Event: Critical encounters with environmentalism

Proposal

Educating for sustainable societies: examples of social and education reform in three countries: the United States, Australia, and Rwanda

Relevance to the Topic

Our current dominant conception of education is failing us by not providing the knowledge and means to reduce or eliminate the environmental and economic crises we face. Barrett (2016) proposes that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) requires transforming education so that rather than focusing on individuals and the “product or outcome,” we focus on “process,” and creating learners who are “agents in constructing a different trajectory for societies” (Barrett, 2016, p.108). Furthermore, the ESD is not just a matter of individual learning but communities coming together to identify and resolve or ameliorate an issue of concern,” and challenging “the privileged position of individual achievement as the form of outcome valued within the culture of global testing” (Barrett, 2016, p.109). In this presentation, we describe three efforts to resist education that undermines learning for sustainable development: in the United States, Australia, and Rwanda.

Theoretical Framework

Our theoretical framework situates present and possible approaches to education within three frameworks: the social imaginary of neoliberalism (Rizvi & Lingard, 2009), global social justice (Fraser, 2008), and human capabilities (Sen, 2008). We use these theories to question the dominant social and educational structures and their purposes. We use the social imaginary of neoliberalism to explain how accountability through standardized testing, privatization, and market competition in education became dominant, global social justice to interrogate global inequality, and human capabilities to describe the skills and knowledge needed to create the schools and society we need.

Data Collection and Analysis

We have been and are continuing to collect data from three sources. The first set of data is on the opt-out movement in New York state, where 20% of the parents refused to submit their children to the Common Core exams, effectively, throwing a wrench in the system. We conducted eighteen interviews with key parent leaders, district administrators, members of the Board of Regents, the current Chancellor, and community activists.

A second data source included qualitative interviews concerning commercial involvement in the creation of data infrastructures in Australian schooling and a quantitative survey of Australian teachers and school principals on the extent, nature, and impact of commercialization in Australian government schools.

The third data source is a project in Rwanda, led by Muraho Technology, which aims to teach adults the skills and knowledge to develop a sustainable society. The leaders critique traditional schooling as ignoring the role of culture and teaching isolated skills. Instead, they use an integrated industry education model to develop an educational project that recognizes societies’ and the environment’s complexity and dynamism.

What do the Methods and Data Tell Us?

Our research documents how the two most influential organizations-- Long Island Opt Out and the New York State Allies for Public Education--led an effort to achieve a 20% opt-out rate statewide and 50% on the two suburban counties on Long Island. We also show how they used their successful grassroots organizing to elect school board members and state legislators critical of high-stakes testing and to implement policies that promoted education for a sustainable society. The data demonstrated that students, parents, and educators developed a sophisticated critique of standardized testing and its negative effects on what and how children learn. They called for treating the “whole child” and curriculum focused on local, national, and global social and environmental issues.

The survey and interviews of Australian teachers and principals reveal their concerns regarding the extent of commercialization in government schools. In particular, they were concerned about the potential for test data to fall into private hands. We also document the extent of commercial involvement in the creation of data infrastructures in education.

In Rwanda, we show, using collaborative community-based education and evaluation, the potential for developing a grassroots education project in which community members gain the knowledge and skills to solve problems important to them.

Significance

In our three examples, we show how children and adults in formal and informal educational settings have critiqued neoliberal social and education policies and begun to create new practices that promote sustainable societies.

The grassroots opt-out movement in New York not only impacted state policy regarding testing but also created a conversation around the use of high stakes standardized tests and a space for whole child policy.

In Australia, the teacher unions have opposed commercialization and the ways system restructuring has opened up schools and systems to commercial provision. In comparison with the United States, Australia policymaking is more centralized at the federal level with a raft of national schooling policies. This weakens the education state and its capacity to achieve the goals the system has set for itself, including sustainable development. Furthermore, the current federal government is deeply skeptical about global warming and the Paris agreement. These structural and political realities mean a weakening of innovative and progressive approaches in systems and schools.

In contrast, Rwanda is promoting progressive education that contrasts with traditional African education for the non-elite that focuses on “chalk and talk”, memorization, and repetition. We document efforts to integrate technology into schools through a community/technology partnership.

Overall, we show the possibility for those usually marginalized--- parents, teachers, students, and community members--- to affect education policy and to transform formal and informal education so as to create and expand capabilities within and across communities.

References
Barrett, A. M. (2016). Measuring learning outcomes and education for sustainable development: The new education developmental goal. In W.C. Smith, (2016). The global testing culture: Shaping education policy, perceptions, and practice (pp. 101-114). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books.
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2009). Globalizing education policy. London, U.K.: Routledge.
Sen, A. (2008). The idea of justice. Journal of human development, 9(3), 331-342.

Authors

• David Hursh, University of Rochester

• Bob Lingard, University of Queensland

• Zhe Chen, University of Rochester

• Sarah Kathleen McGinnis, University of Rochester