Language, discourse and the formation of social control. Implications for climate education and justice

• In Event: Toward a more equitable world: Solidarity, discourse and climate justice.

Proposal

As researchers in international and comparative education initiatives, it is incumbent to be aware of the stabilities and fluidities in our assumptions and the nature of our discourses. In the context of the global climate crisis, the ways in which our discourse frames the meanings brought to the physical object of climate and its interaction with humans becomes an essential concern.
The ecological crisis facing the world can be framed in relation to the nature of discourse. Language is manipulated to deflect meanings and to shift foci. The role of language manipulation is explored with Orwell’s 1984. Hanna Arendt’s work on movements and the role of language and Donald Schon’s characterization of movements provide a starting point.
Habermas explored the ideal discourse with his notion of its symmetry. Marcuse, however, raised the moral issue of whether some voices do not warrant equal standing. With the environmental crisis, should some vested interests have equal voice and how should they be heard?
Varied meanings are attached to what is a democracy and what it means to be a member of it. The conflict between citizens’ rights and responsibilities related to governance is a good starting point. As educators, our relation to the State and its operation is open to understanding.
The curricular treatment of climate and the environment has, from a Western perspective, has always been linked to the idea of progress (Popkewitz, Pitman & Barry, 1986).
The period from the 1960s has seen a shift in discourse about education from having an ethical core to a technical rationale; this shift had its effects across the curriculum (Pitman, 1989). The reforms in two periods draw attention to the ways in which the discourse about education has undergone a radical shift. The framing in the 1960s of an ideological war led curricular reforms in western nations. Importantly, not only were the sciences and mathematics emphasised, but so too were Social Studies, as it was deemed vital that students should grow up with a strong sense of a belief in liberal democracy. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union attention shifted to economic concerns: from thence, international competitiveness came to be framed in terms of an economic war.
The location of ministerial and departmental responsibility for education is instructive: In Australia, for example from the Ministry of Education, Science and the Arts to the Ministry of Employment and Training. This has implications for how the environment is handled at the policy level. Cast in terms within the economic and work sphere, the strategies deemed viable are constrained. Ethical and justice issues become backgrounded as effects on productivity and employment come to the fore. Standardized tests developed by the OECD are used by international and national funding agencies which underwrite educational reforms .
Teachers are in a contradictory position, acting in in the best interests of their students while also being instruments of the State and constrained by its policies (Pitman, 2012).

Author

• Allan J Pitman, University of Western Ontario