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Session Submission Summary

Perceptions of sustainability from the Global-South: curriculum and textbooks in Malaysia, Mexico, India, and Pakistan.

Mon, April 15, 1:30 to 3:00pm, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Street (Level 0), Plaza

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The perils of industrialization, modernity, and capitalist development have accelerated climate change. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report have stated that humans are running out of time and by the year 2030 the world would suffer from irreversible environmental changes. As such, the need for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is even greater than ever. However, the implementation of ESD has been filled with vagueness and contestations, often times drawing superficial Global-North rhetoric and limited discussions at the academic and policy levels. Despite a lack of consensus about what ESD constitutes and entails, countries around the world are attempting to embrace ESD as a key element in the pursuit for a sustainable future.

In order to explore this notion, this panel looks at how elements of ESD are incorporated in Mexico (North America), Pakistan (Central Asia), and Malaysia (Southeast Asia) under the past, present, and future time-continuum . The ‘past’ is represented through the examination of public textbooks in Mexico, a paper which highlights underlying nationalist and developmentalist visions of the environment. Meanwhile, the ‘present’ is depicted through the analysis of public textbooks in Pakistan, a research that shows how intolerance affects sustainable peace and development. Finally, the ‘future’ is represented through the analysis of curricula and other initiatives conducted in higher education institutions in Malaysia. We pose that the spatial and temporal combination that this panel proposes help to uncover new understanding of ESD and contributes to diversify the Comparative and International Education field.

OBJECTIVE.
After the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations’ General Assembly, there has been plenty of discussions about the role of education in promoting and advancing these objectives. Nevertheless, little has been done to problematize and critically question these goals from non-western perspectives. The objective of this panel is to broaden those perspectives and promote South-South cooperation and the decolonization of Comparative Education as an academic field.

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