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Moving Beyond Innocence: Educating Children in a Post-Nature World

This chapter examines some of the challenges of unlearning anthropocentrism - i.e. the deep-seated cultural, psychological and enacted prejudices of human specialness - in nature-based early childhood education programs. We begin with a critical exploration of recent trends in environmental philosophy and the conservation sciences that seek to move beyond the so-called archaic notions of “wilderness” and “nature” towards more managerial models of human dominion over planetary “ecosystem services.” We suggest the trouble with these discursive moves is that they shirk from the courageous conversations required from environmental education in a time of ecological emergency. We conclude by drawing on research at nature-based schools in the Netherlands and Canada to illustrate the tenacity of anthropocentric “common-sense” and suggest the beginnings of pedagogy of childhoodnatures guided by notions of rewilding and ecological humility. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_40-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Moving Beyond Innocence: Educating Children in a Post-Nature World

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Of Big Hegemonies and Little Tigers

Stefan Bengtsson's commentary about policy hegemony discusses the alternative discourses of socialism, nationalism, and globalism. However, Stefan does not adequately demonstrate how these discourses can overcome the Dominant Western Worldview (DWW), which is imbued with anthropocentrism. It will be argued here that most policy choices promoting sustainability, and education for it, are made within a predetermined system in which the already limiting notion of environmental protection is highly contingent on human welfare. What would really contest the dominant assumptions of Vietnamese policy and, more specifically, education for sustainable development (ESD) is an alternative discourse that challenges the DWW. That alternative discourse embraces philosophical ecocentrism and practices of ecological justice between all species, and deep ecology theory - all perspectives fundamentally committed to environmental protection. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2015.1048502 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Ecocentric education

Ecocentrism has roots in environmental philosophy, which questions the conceptual dichotomy between humans and the environment, acknowledging nonhuman species' right to flourish independently of human interest (Naess 1973). Generally, ecocentrism refers to a planet- and nature-centered as opposed to the human-centered (anthropocentric) system of values. Inspired by this philosophy, ecocentric education focuses on intrinsic values of the ecosystem, environment, and individual living beings and habitats in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). https://rd.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-319-63951-2 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG)

This article will discuss social, environmental, and ecological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG). The concept of sustainable development and, by extension, the ESD, places heavy emphasis on the economic and social aspects of sustainability. However, the ESD falls short of recognizing ecological justice, or recognition that nonhumans also have a right to exist and flourish. An intervention in the form of an undergraduate course titled Politics, Business, and Environment (PBE) will be discussed. As part of this course, students were asked to reflect on the three pillars of sustainable development: society, economy, and environment, linking these to the fourth concept, ecological justice or biospheric egalitarianism. Biospheric egalitarianism is characterized by the recognition of intrinsic value in the environment and is defined as concern about justice for the environment. Some of the resulting exam answers are analyzed, demonstrating students’ ability to recognize the moral and pragmatic limitations of the anthropocentric approach to justice. This analysis presents ways forward in thinking about the role of “ecological justice” as the ultimate bottom line upon which both society and economy are based. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10100261 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG)

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Transitioning to quality education

Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Sustainable Development Goals, critical scholars have pointed out that the very enterprise of sustainable development is not without its contradictions. Therefore, any education that engages with sustainable development needs to be carefully reviewed, rather than supported, in its ambition to promote the supposedly universally desirable aims. The rhetoric of sustainable development as meeting the needs of present and future generations is largely anthropocentric in failing to take nonhuman species into account when setting up pragmatic and ethical objectives. Similarly to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have helped to raise living standards across the world, but have largely failed to address environmental sustainability challenges, the Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) tend to prioritize “inclusive economic growth” at the expense of ecological integrity, which is very likely to negatively affect not only nonhuman species but also future generations and their quality of life. Thus, as this chapter will argue, universally applicable Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDGs) is problematic in the context of addressing the long-term sustainability for both human and nonhuman inhabitants of the planet. Given escalating climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and depletion of natural resources, this chapter questions whether ESDGs can qualify as a desirable “quality education”. The paradoxes of sustainable development and ways forward that seem a better alternative for ESDG include indigenous/traditional learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, and education for degrowth, steady-state, and Cradle-to-Cradle and circular economy. Advantages of universal education are also highlighted, as any education that supports basic literacy, numeracy, and values attributed to the intrinsic rights of humans and nonhumans can help students to be equipped to deal with social and environmental challenges. https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-03897-893-0-1 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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Education for the future?

Building on the Millennium Development Goals, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG) were established. Despite the willingness of many educational institutions worldwide to embrace the SDGs, given escalating sustainability challenges, this article questions whether ESDG is desirable as “an education for the future”. Many challenges outlined by the SDGs are supposed to be solved by “inclusive” or “sustainable” economic growth, assuming that economic growth can be conveniently decoupled from resource consumption. Yet, the current hegemony of the sustainability-through-growth paradigm has actually increased inequalities and pressure on natural resources, exacerbating biodiversity loss, climate change and resulting social tensions. With unreflective support for growth, far from challenging the status quo, the SDGs and consequently, the ESDGs, condone continuing environmental exploitation, depriving millions of species of their right to flourish, and impoverishing future generations. This article creates greater awareness of the paradoxes of sustainable development and encourages teaching for sustainability through various examples of alternative education that emphasizes planetary ethic and degrowth. The alternatives include Indigenous learning, ecopedagogy, ecocentric education, education for steady-state and circular economy, empowerment and liberation. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in 'Journal of Environmental Education' on 01/20/20, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00958964.2019.1710444 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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If a Tree Falls

This article presents and discusses student assignments reflecting on the documentary film If a Tree Falls, written as part of the Business Ethics and Sustainability course at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This article follows two lines of inquiry. First, it challenges mainstream environmental education, supporting critical pedagogy and ecopedagogy. These pedagogies, which advocate pedagogy for radical change, offer a distinct and valuable contribution to sustainability education, enabling students to critically examine normative assumptions, and learn about ethical relativity, and citizenship engagement from environmentalists. The discussion of “lessons of radical environmentalism” is pertinent to the question of what types of actions are likely to achieve the widely acceptable long-term societal change. While this article focuses on student reflection on a film about radical environmentalism, this article also discusses many forms of activism and raises the question of what can be considered effective activism and active citizenship in the context of the philosophy of (environmental or sustainability) education in connection didactics and curriculum studies. Second, this article argues for the need for reformed democracy and inclusive pluralism that recognizes the needs of nonhuman species, ecocentrism, and deep ecology. The connection between these two purposes is expressed in the design of the student assignment: It is described as a case study, which employs critical pedagogy and ecopedagogy. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9040284 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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If a Tree Falls and Everybody Hears the Sound: Teaching Deep Ecology to Business Students

This article will discuss the role of environmentalism in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) in the context of ecopedagogy. Ecopedagogy calls for the remaking of capitalist practices and seeks to re-engage democracy to include multispecies interests in the face of our current global ecological crisis. In this article, the written reports by international business students on the documentary film If a Tree Falls about a radical environmental movement will be discussed. The aim of this article is to reflect upon the question of whether confrontational questions posed by radical environmentalism can move students to re-examine certain central assumptions within their own society and education. The analysis of students’ individual writing assignments after viewing the film is placed in the context of the discussion about the aims of education in relation to environmental advocacy. This case study seeks to provide an example of how environmental advocacy and the objective of pluralistic education can be combined as mutually supportive means of achieving both democratic learning and learning for environmental sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1177/0973408215569119 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/

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If a Tree Falls and Everybody Hears the Sound: Teaching Deep Ecology to Business Students

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Business education and its paradoxes: Linking business and biodiversity through critical pedagogy curriculum

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, launched during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference in December 2022, encourages governments, companies and investors to publish data on their nature-related risks, dependencies and impacts. These disclosures are intended to drive businesses to recognise, manage and mitigate their reliance on ecosystem goods and services. However, there is a ‘biodiversity blind spot’ that is evident for most organisations and business schools. Business education rarely addresses the root causes of biodiversity loss, such as the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. As the dominant positioning of Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG) presents biodiversity in anthropocentric instrumental terms inadequate for addressing ecosystem decline, we posit that a more progressive and transformative ecocentric education through ecopedagogy and ecoliteracy is needed. Both approaches include the development of critical thinking about degrowth, the circular economy and conventional stakeholder theory to include non-human stakeholders. Using comparative case studies from Northumbria University, the University of Hong Kong and Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, we illustrate how business education can be transformed to address biodiversity loss, providing theoretical guidance and practical recommendations to academic practitioners and future business leaders.

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Products 18

Moving Beyond Innocence: Educating Children in a Post-Nature World

Of Big Hegemonies and Little Tigers

Ecocentric education

Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG)

Transitioning to quality education

Education for the future?

If a Tree Falls

If a Tree Falls and Everybody Hears the Sound: Teaching Deep Ecology to Business Students

Business education and its paradoxes: Linking business and biodiversity through critical pedagogy curriculum

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Products 18

Moving Beyond Innocence: Educating Children in a Post-Nature World

Of Big Hegemonies and Little Tigers

Ecocentric education

Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG)

Transitioning to quality education

Education for the future?

If a Tree Falls

If a Tree Falls and Everybody Hears the Sound: Teaching Deep Ecology to Business Students

Business education and its paradoxes: Linking business and biodiversity through critical pedagogy curriculum