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Relational Approaches to Prefiguring Learning Futures

Wed, March 6, 11:00am to 12:30pm, Zoom Rooms, Zoom Room 104

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Education has been identified as one of the key vehicles for addressing intersecting inequalities triggered by the human-induced ecological crisis. For decades, global efforts to create a more just and sustainable future have consistently prioritized increasing education access and quality — assuming that improving existing forms of education will positively impact environmental sustainability. Despite major achievements in increasing education access and quality, the overall progress towards sustainability remains grim as the world continues to trend down the existing trajectory of ecological catastrophe (IPCC, 2018; see Ripple et al. 2017, 2020; Meadows et al., 1972). Research confirms that access to quality education does not automatically translate into higher awareness of global climate crisis or into behavior change. Moreover, countries that have experienced rapid increases in education have seen their ecological footprint nearly double as domestic consumption expands (UNESCO, 2016, p. 22; Rappleye & Komatsu, 2020; Rice, 2007; Roberts & Parks, 2009; Turner, 2010). Without dramatic shifts, education will continue to “equip people merely to be more effective vandals of the Earth” (Orr, 1994, p. 5).


To avoid climate catastrophe and to address the intersecting environmental and social crises, comprehensive shifts to dominant forms of education are urgently necessary (IPCC, 2021, UNICEF, 2021), including a fundamental rethinking of the role of education in high-carbon, resource intensive societies. Despite global efforts to promote education as key to achieving healthy and equitable planetary futures, education institutions continue to perpetuate the status quo by prioritizing workforce supply for economic growth. They are often driven by linear evolutionary and redemptive models, reinforcing neoliberal perspectives that minimize governments’ obligations toward their citizens, promoting an “entrepreneurial” and “independent self” with the implicit assumption that the responsibility for solving global problems lies exclusively with individuals’ behavioral changes, not as a shared responsibility between citizens, governments, and international institutions.


In this context, it is critical to reexamine and reconfigure the underpinning assumptions of the currently dominant education paradigm, including the culture, neoliberal economy, and political contexts within which it operates (Sterling, 2010; UNESCO, 2021; Weinberg et al., 2021). While such education is already practiced elsewhere, mainstream education in highly industrialized societies could contribute to radical cultural, economic, and political shifts by learning from alternatives and reorienting teaching/learning away from the notions of human exceptionalism, neoliberal individualism, and capitalist growth toward more ecologically attuned and socially just alternatives (Silova, 2020; Turner, 2010; Rose & Rose, 1993, Rose, 2011; LeGrange, 2018, TallBear, 2019; Tuhiwai Smith et, 2019).


But how can we begin questioning mainstream education’s taken-for-granted assumptions about education and knowledge, while prefiguring learning futures that nurture non-exploitative and interdependent relations among people—and among people and the natural world—in order to recuperate, build resilience, and sustain the well-being of all?


This panel reflects on the experience of a Learning Futures Collaborative, which was established to catalyze social change through education research, partnerships, and socially embedded engagements in order to create pathways for education that cultivate ecological consciousness about the interdependence of all beings, while challenging unequal power relations. Members of this collaborative have collaboratively engaged in inquiry to advance knowledge on how to best (p/re)configure educational systems and structures that help learners navigate uncertain contexts, address the underlying causes of intersecting global crises, and participate in social change through education practice and research.


These efforts will be discussed using the conceptual framework of prefigurative politics/practice, highlighting different experimental approaches to actualizing in practice alternatives to the status quo – in the here and now (Ojala, 2022; Törnberg, 2021; Raekstad & Gradin, 2020; Trott, 2016, 2018). The concept of prefigurative politics/practice offers a powerful way of bringing into focus actions that disrupt established assumptions and habits, while creating new social norms without necessarily relying on direct protest action. Prefigurative practice, the embodiment of future societal ideals in the present, plays a crucial role in sustainability education and action. By actively engaging in practices that reflect the sustainable societies we aspire to build, we can 'prefigure' a sustainable future. Such practice brings sustainability concepts to life, acting as a pedagogical tool that facilitates learning coupled with action (Weinberg et al., 2021). These pedagogies allow individuals to witness the tangible impacts of their actions, fostering a sense of responsibility and motivating change at the individual and community level, and promoting broader systems change. In this way, prefigurative practice is not only a pedagogical tool but also catalyzes direct, meaningful action towards sustainability.


In this context, the panel explores the potential of prefigurative politics/practice in higher education settings, including formal and informal curriculum, research, and academic networking, as well as socially engaged art initiatives. Across four presentations, we especially emphasize the role of relationality in prefigurative politics/practices in different contexts. In the first presentation, we share insights from a participatory arts-based initiative called “Turn It Around! Flashcards for Education Futures,” which centers youth voices and exemplifies how arts-based inquiry can disrupt policy conversations on a global and local scale, while creating a space for intergenerational dialogues. In the second presentation, we share findings from a cross-sectional analysis of students’ place-based reflections from their participation in a longitudinal art installation during their time in a graduate course called “Education in the Anthropocene.” This presentation highlights pedagogical practices used in an online course to create relationality across geopolitical localities as a way to initiate a sense of connection and “ethical mutual obligation” in the context of the Anthropocene. In our third presentation, we focus on the process of designing a graduate degree program focused on intergenerational and cross-disciplinary learning aimed at pushing the boundaries of how education can respond to intersecting, cascading crises including the climate crisis. These three initiatives disrupt education as we know without direct protest within the existing institutional structures, while creating synergies across geopolitical, cultural, and disciplinary contexts. The final presentation weaves together insights from an international NSF-funded project, Global Futures Oriented Research Collective on Education for Sustainability (G-FORCES), which explores what is possible when relationality drives diverse networks to come together with a common goal of transforming sustainability education research and practice.

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