The Role of Power and Politics in Education for Sustainability in the Galapagos Islands

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Education for sustainability in action where it is most needed: presenting and discussing the largest teacher professional development program in Galapagos Islands

Proposal

The goal of Education for Sustainability (EfS) is to empower learners to make informed decisions and take responsible actions to maintain environmental integrity, ensure economic viability, and support a just society for present and future generations (UNESCO, 2017). Our research problematizes current construals of sustainability as it may be neglecting the role that politics and power play for sustainability practices and educational efforts.

In the second phase of the five-year ESG project, we are implementing a cohesive education for sustainability model that includes the following dimensions: (1) Content is integrated into and across the curricular subjects, (2) Classroom activities develop cross-cutting competencies for sustainable development, and (3) Content and learning connects within and across contexts. It is our interest in the last of these goals - a critical examination of contextualization - that drives our research for this presentation (Sund & Öhman, 2014). During the June 2018 institute, we measured teachers’ attitudes about sustainability using a validated survey instrument by Biasutti & Frate (2017) and conducted focus groups with teachers on how they perceive sustainability efforts in their islands.

Results. Survey results indicate that teachers hold agreeable attitudes towards sustainability, valuing social outcomes (M=1.52, maximum 2) more so than economic (M=1.0) or environmental (M=.85) outcomes. Teachers also indicated strong agreement for educational efforts for sustainability (M=1.49).

Three major themes emerge from the focus group data. First, processes of coloniality define sustainability in the islands. Second, Galapagos is not just a place for biodiversity research and conservation, but a setting where the socio-political performativity of sustainability is enacted. The material-affective relations of humans and nature prove to be volatile and even counterintuitive (Kim, 2016). Third, the politics of sustainability privilege specific groups. For instance, Mr. Sanchez, an elementary teacher, defines the tensions between sustainability and politics as “a power fight in which sustainability isn’t accessible to everybody”. He blames politicians for this struggle as promoters of elitist policies. On the alienation of locals from economic growth, Mrs. Gonzalez, an elementary teacher, expressed: “the people, los isleños, do not have their part. The government only give permits to a few. They are not the children of the fishermen, but they make all the money”. Moreover, the maestros accused companies of mostly hiring foreigners, who do not have a sense of belonging in the community as they can only reside in the islands for five years. The following excerpt from Mr. Lopez exemplifies this lack of attachment to the place: “People without preparation enter the islands. Not preparation of education, but cultural values. They come after economic profit and do not care about this place”. Teachers expressed to feel powerless as indicated by Mrs. Romo: “I teach my students about conservation, but when the Chinese boats come, ‘fuan!’, they take everything”.

Authors

• Greses A. Perez-Jöhnk, Stanford University

• K.C. Busch, North Carolina State University

• Dustin Miller, Dallas Arboretum