IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v5y2013i8p3562-3580d28086.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alternative Communications about Sustainability Education

Author

Listed:
  • Sue L. T. McGregor

    (Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3M 2J6, Canada)

Abstract

In preparation for the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, UNESCO communicated its conceptualization of education for sustainable development (ESD). This paper does not assume that UNESCO was ineffective in communicating its approach to ESD; rather, the premise is that UNESCO’s actual message was not well received by everyone, with some pushing back with alternative communications of their own. This paper identifies and profiles seven vanguard theoretical and pedagogical approaches to the problem of unsustainability, including, but not limited to: sustainable contraction, unlearning unsustainability, a 3D-heuristic, an integrative, place-based approach, and a Gaia-informed, ecological approach. It concludes with a discussion of seven overarching alternative messages for communicating about sustainability including: refocused education; complexity, chaos and living systems; Gaia and ecology; paradigm shifts for uncertainty; knowledge integration; existentialism; and fear and hope. Intellectual and pedagogical discourse can be kindled and stimulated by drawing on alternative communications about the normative concept of sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Sue L. T. McGregor, 2013. "Alternative Communications about Sustainability Education," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(8), pages 1-19, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:8:p:3562-3580:d:28086
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/8/3562/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/5/8/3562/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fátima Lanhoso & Denis Alves Coelho, 2021. "Emergence fostered by systemic analysis—Seeding innovation for sustainable development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 768-779, July.
    2. Karolina Macháčková & Jiří Zelený & Dana Kolářová & Zbyněk Vinš, 2021. "Nature Ideas Exchange: Education of Sustainable Business Principles Based on Parallels with Forest Ecosystem," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-18, May.
    3. Almudena Eizaguirre & María García-Feijoo & Jon Paul Laka, 2019. "Defining Sustainability Core Competencies in Business and Management Studies Based on Multinational Stakeholders’ Perceptions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-21, April.
    4. Guia Bianchi, 2020. "Sustainability competences: A systematic literature review," JRC Research Reports JRC123624, Joint Research Centre.

    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:jsusta:v:5:y:2013:i:8:p:3562-3580:d:28086. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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.