Ecopedagogy
Encyclopedia
The ecopedagogy movement is an outgrowth of developments in critical pedagogy
, a body of educational ideas and practices influenced by the philosopher, Paulo Freire
. Following Freire, ecopedagogy's mission is to develop a robust appreciation for the collective potentials of being human and to foster social justice throughout the world, but it does so as part of a future-oriented, ecological political vision that radically opposes the globalization of ideologies such as neoliberalism
and imperialism
, on one hand, and attempts to foment forms of critical ecoliteracy, on the other.
Additionally, ecopedagogy has as one of its goals the realization of culturally relevant forms of knowledge grounded in normative concepts such as sustainability
, planetarity (i.e. identifying as an earthling) and biophilia (i.e. love of all life).
, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. In this movement, intellectuals desired to make a systematic statement about the interrelationship between humanity and the Earth and to formulate a mission for education universally to integrate an ecological ethic. This statement would eventually be ratified as the Earth Charter
in 2000. In 1999, the Instituto Paulo Freire, Brasil under the direction of Moacir Gadotti, along with the Earth Council and UNESCO
, convened the First International Symposium on the Earth Charter in the Perspective of Education, which was quickly followed by the First International Forum on Ecopedagogy. These conferences led not only to the final formation of the Earth Charter Initiative but to key movement documents such as the Ecopedagogy Charter, as reiterated in Gadotti’s essay Pedagogy of the Earth and the Culture of Sustainability (2000). Gadotti and others in the Ecopedagogy movement have remained influential in advancing the Earth Charter Initiative and continue to mount ecopedagogy seminars, degree programs, workshops and other learning opportunities through an ever-growing number of international Paulo Freire Institutes.
and education for sustainable development
as hegemonic forms of educational discourse that have been created by state agencies that seek to appear to be developing pedagogy relevant to alleviating our mounting global ecological crisis. While environmental education strategies undoubtedly accomplish much that is welcome and good from an ecopedagogical perspective, ecopedagogy questions (especially within the context of the United States) the ways in which environmental education is often reduced to forms of experiential pedagogy and outdoor education
that may deal uncritically with the experience of “nature” proffered therein – an ideological zone of wilderness representations that are potentially informed by a mélange of racist, sexist, classist and speciesist values. Further, ecopedagogy has begun to pose problems into the way environmental education has become tethered to state and corporate-sponsored science and social studies standards, or otherwise fails to articulate the political need for widespread knowledge of the ways in which modern society and industrial culture promote unsustainable lifestyles, even as it remains marginalized in the research, teacher-training and educational leadership programs of graduate schools of education. Likewise, while ecopedagogy seeks to utilize the ongoing United Nations Decade of Educational for Sustainable Development (2005–2015) to make strategic interventions on behalf of the oppressed, ecopedagogy also attempts to generate conscientization upon the concept of sustainable development and thereby uncloak it of the sort of the widespread ambiguity that it presently maintains. The work of Richard Kahn
is a leading example of how the Ecopedagogy movement is being reinterpreted in the above manner for a North American and European context. With Levana Saxon, he has co-founded Ecopedagogy Association International which serves as the home for the Green Theory & Praxis Journal and is a primary hub for coordinating work on ecopedagogy around the world. Kahn's work on ecopedagogy to date is housed in two books, Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement (Peter Lang Publishers) and Ecopedagogy: Educating for Sustainability in Schools and Society (Routledge), as well as developed in numerous essays (e.g., Kahn 2009; 2008).
(1988) to describe an educational process in which educators and educands become inscribed in abstract pedagogical systems, resulting in pedagogy as an end and not a means. As used by Illich, ecopedagogy is represented by forms of education that seek the total administration of life through mandatory pedagogical experiences of systemization. As such, he believed that the movements for lifelong education and the creation of global classrooms (Illich & Verne, 1981) by bureaucratic educational institutions exemplified such approaches, though he was also critical of popular environmentalist pedagogy attempting to mobilize people’s sentiments for solutions to problems such as global warming, hunger, and rain forest destruction. Illich’s point was that such an ecopedagogy works on a problems/solutions axis that implies a global managerialism that is abhorrent to truly sustainable living in the world. This is a vastly different idea from the way the term and concept is being defined and utilized in critical education circles today, though it is potentially of great importance for the future development of the ecopedagogy movement on the whole.
While Paulo Freire
was himself at work on a book of ecopedagogy upon his death in 1997, parts of which are included in his posthumous Pedagogy of Indignation (2004), and important books on ecopedagogy such as Francisco Gutierrez and Cruz Prado’s Ecopedagogy and Planetary Citizenship (1999) or Moacir Gadotti's Pedagogy of the Earth (2000) have thus far been published in Portuguese, and Richard Kahn
's Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement have appeared in English, ecopedagogy should not be misconstrued as the theories or practices developed by any particular set of individuals. Rather, akin to the World Social Forum
and other related forms of contemporary popular education strategies, the Ecopedagogy movement is best perceived as a loosely knit, worldwide association of critical educators, theorists, non-governmental and governmental organizations, grassroots activists and concerned citizens engaged in ongoing dialogue and political action that is attempting to develop ecopedagogical praxis in relation to the needs of particular places, groups and time periods.
Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education described by Henry Giroux as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive...
, a body of educational ideas and practices influenced by the philosopher, Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...
. Following Freire, ecopedagogy's mission is to develop a robust appreciation for the collective potentials of being human and to foster social justice throughout the world, but it does so as part of a future-oriented, ecological political vision that radically opposes the globalization of ideologies such as neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
and imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
, on one hand, and attempts to foment forms of critical ecoliteracy, on the other.
Additionally, ecopedagogy has as one of its goals the realization of culturally relevant forms of knowledge grounded in normative concepts such as sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
, planetarity (i.e. identifying as an earthling) and biophilia (i.e. love of all life).
Early history
Ecopedagogy began in a Latin American educational context, growing out of discussions conducted at the second Earth SummitEarth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...
, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. In this movement, intellectuals desired to make a systematic statement about the interrelationship between humanity and the Earth and to formulate a mission for education universally to integrate an ecological ethic. This statement would eventually be ratified as the Earth Charter
Earth Charter
The Earth Charter is an international declaration of fundamental values and principles considered useful by its supporters for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century...
in 2000. In 1999, the Instituto Paulo Freire, Brasil under the direction of Moacir Gadotti, along with the Earth Council and UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
, convened the First International Symposium on the Earth Charter in the Perspective of Education, which was quickly followed by the First International Forum on Ecopedagogy. These conferences led not only to the final formation of the Earth Charter Initiative but to key movement documents such as the Ecopedagogy Charter, as reiterated in Gadotti’s essay Pedagogy of the Earth and the Culture of Sustainability (2000). Gadotti and others in the Ecopedagogy movement have remained influential in advancing the Earth Charter Initiative and continue to mount ecopedagogy seminars, degree programs, workshops and other learning opportunities through an ever-growing number of international Paulo Freire Institutes.
Objectives and aims
As a form of critical theory of education, ecopedagogy works at a meta-level to offer dialectical critiques of environmental educationEnvironmental education
Environmental education refers to organized efforts to teach about how natural environments function and, particularly, how human beings can manage their behavior and ecosystems in order to live sustainably. The term is often used to imply education within the school system, from primary to...
and education for sustainable development
Education for Sustainable Development
Sustainability education , Education for Sustainability , and Education for Sustainable Development are interchangeable terms describing the practice of teaching for sustainability. ESD is the term most used internationally level and by the United Nations...
as hegemonic forms of educational discourse that have been created by state agencies that seek to appear to be developing pedagogy relevant to alleviating our mounting global ecological crisis. While environmental education strategies undoubtedly accomplish much that is welcome and good from an ecopedagogical perspective, ecopedagogy questions (especially within the context of the United States) the ways in which environmental education is often reduced to forms of experiential pedagogy and outdoor education
Outdoor education
Outdoor education usually refers to organized learning that takes place in the outdoors. Outdoor education programs sometimes involve residential or journey-based experiences in which students participate in a variety of adventurous challenges in the form of outdoor activities such as hiking,...
that may deal uncritically with the experience of “nature” proffered therein – an ideological zone of wilderness representations that are potentially informed by a mélange of racist, sexist, classist and speciesist values. Further, ecopedagogy has begun to pose problems into the way environmental education has become tethered to state and corporate-sponsored science and social studies standards, or otherwise fails to articulate the political need for widespread knowledge of the ways in which modern society and industrial culture promote unsustainable lifestyles, even as it remains marginalized in the research, teacher-training and educational leadership programs of graduate schools of education. Likewise, while ecopedagogy seeks to utilize the ongoing United Nations Decade of Educational for Sustainable Development (2005–2015) to make strategic interventions on behalf of the oppressed, ecopedagogy also attempts to generate conscientization upon the concept of sustainable development and thereby uncloak it of the sort of the widespread ambiguity that it presently maintains. The work of Richard Kahn
Richard V. Kahn
Richard Kahn is Core Faculty in Education at Antioch University Los Angeles, where he specializes in ecopedagogy, a form of education for sustainability...
is a leading example of how the Ecopedagogy movement is being reinterpreted in the above manner for a North American and European context. With Levana Saxon, he has co-founded Ecopedagogy Association International which serves as the home for the Green Theory & Praxis Journal and is a primary hub for coordinating work on ecopedagogy around the world. Kahn's work on ecopedagogy to date is housed in two books, Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement (Peter Lang Publishers) and Ecopedagogy: Educating for Sustainability in Schools and Society (Routledge), as well as developed in numerous essays (e.g., Kahn 2009; 2008).
Differences in use of the term
A growing number of texts utilize the terminology of ecopedagogy, without a clear relationship to the ecopedagogy movement described here. These include works by Ahlberg (1998); Jardine (2000); Petrina (2000); Yang & Hung (2004); and Payne (2005). The work of Lummis (2002) shares some sympathies, such as a critical theory approach. The earliest use of the term "ecopedagogy" may have been by de Haan (1984) in a now little known German text. Shortly thereafter, in the first known English use of the term, Gronemeyer (1987) described ecopedagogy as the merging of environmentalist politics and adult education. Ironically, at the same time it was coined by Freire’s friend-cum-critic Ivan IllichIvan Illich
Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...
(1988) to describe an educational process in which educators and educands become inscribed in abstract pedagogical systems, resulting in pedagogy as an end and not a means. As used by Illich, ecopedagogy is represented by forms of education that seek the total administration of life through mandatory pedagogical experiences of systemization. As such, he believed that the movements for lifelong education and the creation of global classrooms (Illich & Verne, 1981) by bureaucratic educational institutions exemplified such approaches, though he was also critical of popular environmentalist pedagogy attempting to mobilize people’s sentiments for solutions to problems such as global warming, hunger, and rain forest destruction. Illich’s point was that such an ecopedagogy works on a problems/solutions axis that implies a global managerialism that is abhorrent to truly sustainable living in the world. This is a vastly different idea from the way the term and concept is being defined and utilized in critical education circles today, though it is potentially of great importance for the future development of the ecopedagogy movement on the whole.
While Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...
was himself at work on a book of ecopedagogy upon his death in 1997, parts of which are included in his posthumous Pedagogy of Indignation (2004), and important books on ecopedagogy such as Francisco Gutierrez and Cruz Prado’s Ecopedagogy and Planetary Citizenship (1999) or Moacir Gadotti's Pedagogy of the Earth (2000) have thus far been published in Portuguese, and Richard Kahn
Richard V. Kahn
Richard Kahn is Core Faculty in Education at Antioch University Los Angeles, where he specializes in ecopedagogy, a form of education for sustainability...
's Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, and Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement have appeared in English, ecopedagogy should not be misconstrued as the theories or practices developed by any particular set of individuals. Rather, akin to the World Social Forum
World Social Forum
The World Social Forum is an annual meeting of civil society organizations, first held in Brazil, which offers a self-conscious effort to develop an alternative future through the championing of counter-hegemonic globalization...
and other related forms of contemporary popular education strategies, the Ecopedagogy movement is best perceived as a loosely knit, worldwide association of critical educators, theorists, non-governmental and governmental organizations, grassroots activists and concerned citizens engaged in ongoing dialogue and political action that is attempting to develop ecopedagogical praxis in relation to the needs of particular places, groups and time periods.