IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2021i3p88-d509656.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Education for Sustainable Development and Children’s Involvement in Public Spaces. From Universalism to Places, from Rights to Capabilities: Some Evidence from a Research Project on the Regeneration of Public Spaces in Milan

Author

Listed:
  • Stefano Pippa

    (Department of Human Sciences for Education “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20196 Milano, Italy)

  • Stefano Malatesta

    (Department of Human Sciences for Education “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20196 Milano, Italy)

  • Cristina De Michele

    (Department of Human Sciences for Education “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20196 Milano, Italy)

  • Elisabetta Biffi

    (Department of Human Sciences for Education “Riccardo Massa”, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20196 Milano, Italy)

Abstract

The United Nations Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) expanded the epistemological and methodological debate on sustainability and education. Currently, ESD encompasses a broad spectrum of socio-political issues (including global citizenship and social justice), while “place-bonding” is seen as key to fostering citizen advocacy in local communities and enhancing “children’s lived experiences of local issues”. Herein, we emphasize both the political and the pedagogical value of this perspective, arguing that ESD bears the potential to overcome “universal vs. individual” tensions and dichotomies. Our line of reasoning is that the “capabilities approach” (CA), although it did not originally focus on children, can offer a useful theoretical framework in support of ESD, thanks to its multidimensional nature and focus on the concrete agency of individuals. Accordingly, we see the CA as playing a key role in bridging the gap between universal prescriptions, which disregard the specificity of the actors involved, as well as the peculiar nature of their social environment and its context-specific needs or constraints. We supplement this theoretical discussion by presenting “The Flying Carpet”, an ongoing community-based education project that has elicited the active involvement of over one hundred 11–13 year old students in an urban regeneration project in a municipal district of Milan.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefano Pippa & Stefano Malatesta & Cristina De Michele & Elisabetta Biffi, 2021. "Education for Sustainable Development and Children’s Involvement in Public Spaces. From Universalism to Places, from Rights to Capabilities: Some Evidence from a Research Project on the Regeneration o," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:3:p:88-:d:509656
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/3/88/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/3/88/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Efrat Eizenberg & Yosef Jabareen, 2017. "Social Sustainability: A New Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(1), pages 1-16, January.
    2. United Nations UN, 2015. "Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development," Working Papers id:7559, eSocialSciences.
    3. Felix Rauschmayer & Ortrud Lessmann, 2013. "The Capability Approach and Sustainability," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 1-5, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tasneem Alsaati & Samir El-Nakla & Darin El-Nakla, 2020. "Level of Sustainability Awareness among University Students in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-15, April.
    2. Pablo Bris & Félix Bendito, 2017. "Lessons Learned from the Failed Spanish Refugee System: For the Recovery of Sustainable Public Policies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-27, August.
    3. Kosa Golić & Vesna Kosorić & Slavica Stamatovic Vuckovic & Kosara Kujundzic, 2023. "Strategies for Realization of Socially Sustainable Residential Buildings: Experts’ Perspectives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-31, April.
    4. Barbieri, Elisa & Di Tommaso, Marco R. & Pollio, Chiara & Rubini, Lauretta, 2020. "Getting the specialization right. Industrialization in Southern China in a sustainable development perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    5. Judith Janker & Stefan Mann, 2020. "Understanding the social dimension of sustainability in agriculture: a critical review of sustainability assessment tools," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 1671-1691, March.
    6. Gianluca Elia & Alessandro Margherita & Claudio Petti, 2020. "Building responses to sustainable development challenges: A multistakeholder collaboration framework and application to climate change," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(6), pages 2465-2478, September.
    7. Nataša Rebernik & Marek Szajczyk & Alfonso Bahillo & Barbara Goličnik Marušić, 2020. "Measuring Disability Inclusion Performance in Cities Using Disability Inclusion Evaluation Tool (DIETool)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-25, February.
    8. Fredrik Hoppstadius & Ulrika Åkerlund, 2022. "A Sustainable Everyday Life for Counterurbanising Swedish Families," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-19, May.
    9. Magdalena Raivio & Ellinor Skaremyr & Arniika Kuusisto, 2022. "Caring for Worldviews in Early Childhood Education: Theoretical and Analytical Tool for Socially Sustainable Communities of Care," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-16, March.
    10. Nejc Brezovar & Tatjana Stanimirovic, 2022. "Sustainability aspects of participatory budgeting at the municipal level in Slovenia," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 46(4), pages 569-589.
    11. Paulina Schiappacasse & Bernhard Müller & Le Thuy Linh, 2019. "Towards Responsible Aggregate Mining in Vietnam," Resources, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-15, August.
    12. Pina Puntillo, 2023. "Circular economy business models: Towards achieving sustainable development goals in the waste management sector—Empirical evidence and theoretical implications," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(2), pages 941-954, March.
    13. Schlör, Holger & Venghaus, Sandra & Hake, Jürgen-Friedrich, 2018. "The FEW-Nexus city index – Measuring urban resilience," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 382-392.
    14. Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea & Pegdéwendé Nestor Sawadogo, 2019. "Assessing the effects of combating illicit financial flows on domestic tax revenue mobilization in developing countries," CERDI Working papers halshs-02019073, HAL.
    15. Nelson, Ewan & Warren, Peter, 2020. "UK transport decoupling: On track for clean growth in transport?," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 39-51.
    16. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.
    17. R. Ebrahimi & S. Choobchian & H. Farhadian & I. Goli & E. Farmandeh & H. Azadi, 2022. "Investigating the effect of vocational education and training on rural women’s empowerment," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-11, December.
    18. Benjamin Nölting & Bettina König & Anne B. Zimmermann & Antonietta Di Giulio & Martina Schäfer & Flurina Schneider, 2022. "Dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic: an opportunity to reflect on sustainability research," Sustainability Nexus Forum, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 11-27, December.
    19. Rashmi Jaipal, 2017. "Psychology at the Crossroads," Psychology and Developing Societies, , vol. 29(2), pages 125-159, September.
    20. Bárbara Galleli & Elder Semprebon & Joyce Aparecida Ramos dos Santos & Noah Emanuel Brito Teles & Mateus Santos de Freitas-Martins & Raquel Teodoro da Silva Onevetch, 2021. "Institutional Pressures, Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19: How Are Organisations Engaging?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:3:p:88-:d:509656. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.