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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29-12-2019
Acknowledging the roles and responsibilities of business in society and the importance of realizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), contemporary management education is characterized by the integration of a rich palette of initiatives in the field of Responsible Management Education (RME). It is important though to recognize that these initiatives, however laudable, so far represent rather basic, and thus insufficient, ways of truly integrating sustainability into management education. This Provocation to Debate essay therefore identifies three perspectives for bolstering RME through the SDGs: (1) addressing the fact that SDGs incorporate trade-offs, tensions, and paradoxes; (2) realizing the SGDs implies engaging in systemic activism; and (3) embracing the SDGs comes with emotional affect. As such, this essay is an invitation to critically reflect on the roles and contents of management education in spurring sustainable development and to engage in a meaningful discussion about the value and the limitations of the SDGs for advancing the RME agenda.
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31-12-2021A research theme examining diversity and inclusion in video games, using an intersectional perspective and typically addressing issues related to the representation of gender, race, and LGBTQ+ people, but also touching broader topics such as class, age, geographic privilege, physical and neurodiversity, the (unevenly distributed) impacts of the climate crisis, and other aspects of identity.
My research investigates the concept of permacomputing, a blend of the words permaculture and computing, as a potential field of convergence of technology, arts, environmental research and activism, and as a subject of future school curricula in art and design. This concept originated in online subcultures, and is currently restricted to creative coding communities. I study in what way permacomputing principles may be used to redefine how art and design education is taught. More generally, I want to research the potential of permacomputing as a critical, sustainable, and practical alternative to the way digital technology is being taught in art education, where students mostly rely on tools and techniques geared towards maximising productivity and mass consumption. This situation is at odds with goals for sustainable production and consumption. I want to research to what degree the concept of permacomputing can be broadened and applied to critically revised, sustainable ways of making computing part of art and design education and professional practice. This research will be embedded in the design curriculum of Willem de Kooning Academy, focused on redefining the role of artists and designers to contribute to future modes of sustainable organisation and production. It is aligned with Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences sectorplan masters VH, in particular managing and directing sustainable transitions. This research builds upon twenty years of experience in the creative industries. It is an attempt to generalise, consolidate, and structure methods and practices for sustainable art and design production experimented with while I was course director of a master programme at WdKA. Throughout the research I will be exchanging with peers and confirmed interested parties, a.o.: Het Nieuwe Instituut (NL), RUAS Creating 010 kenniscentrum (NL), Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (NO), Mikrolabs (NO), Varia (NL), Media Arts department at RHU (UK), Media Studies at UvA (NL).
