Titel Deelnemers "Korte inhoud" "The creative use of companion values in environmental education and education for sustainable development : exploring the educative moment" "Jim Garrison, Leif Olov Östman, Michael Hakansson" "Our paper addresses the emergence and evolution of values in educational settings. It builds upon and extends earlier work on companion meanings to develop a theory of the creative use of companion values and meanings in education. The recognition of companion values in educational practices highlight epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic transactions that occur in ways we characterize as 'other than modern.' Introducing the idea of educative moments allows us to identify situations where value spheres interpenetrate and interrogate each other in the meaning-making of students and teachers. These moments occur when students suddenly experience companion meanings and values such that teacher and student must deliberate together rather than the teacher dictating some dominating epistemological, ethical, or aesthetic value. This way, it is possible to accommodate critical and creative reflection in education where new values can emerge or evolve. We illustrate the theory by empirical examples from classroom conversations." "Exploring the concept of Sustainable Development within Education for Sustainable Development: implications for ESD research and practice" "Eleni Sinakou, Jelle Boeve-de Pauw, Peter Van Petegem" "This paper explores how three major factors in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) practice view the concept of Sustainable Development (SD). These are (a) international policy documents which shaped ESD, (b) the academic discourse in the field of ESD as well as (c) students and teachers. SD is a complex concept and it can be interpreted in several ways. This paper adopts a holistic approach to SD, according to which, SD is considered an integrated concept of three dimensions, namely the environment, the economy and the society. The significance of the holistic approach to the SD concept is emphasized in the recent international policy documents and by the academic discourse, as well. However, teachers and students do not hold yet a holistic understanding of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to discuss this ESD policy-practice gap and to propose implications in ESD practice and research." """Capacity Building in Curriculum Development for Higher Education in Suriname. Developing curriculum competence for (re)designing innovative, sustainable and relevant higher education for society.""" "Genevieve Gabriella Blanchard" "Prepared to act for a sustainable future? Early adolescents’ action competence as a learning outcome of education for sustainable development" "Wanda Sass" "In light of the current state of the planet and its subsequent effects on nature and people, a sense of urgency for taking action is felt by many. The topic of action-taking has been on the agendas of policy makers, researchers, and (young) citizens alike. All have at one point or another been overwhelmed by the formidable task they set themselves, wondering what competences are required for taking on the challenge, and how these can be developed and taught. Along with the research community, also international policy makers keep underscoring the importance of sustainable development in order to secure acceptable living conditions for current and future generations. Policy recommendations largely build onto the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were described by the United Nations in 2015. They aim at working towards sustainable development, which was defined as a process of mutually interacting environmental, social, and socio-economic perspectives. Both the scholarly and policy communities agree that educational efforts at all levels are paramount if we are to promote sustainable lifestyles that would allow to take on the challenges involved. Education for sustainable development (ESD) has been put forward as an important tool for tackling current and future sustainability issues. With its components of holism, pluralism, and an orientation towards action, this educational approach is believed to foster students’ competence in taking action for sustainable development. The scarce studies on ESD effectiveness for fostering action competence within students, looked into the effects of holism and pluralism. Results described in the literature suggested that holism may support students’ knowledgeability about actions for sustainable development, while a pluralistic approach appeared to enhance their willingness to act and confidence in their capacities to perform SD actions, and in the impact of their behaviour. However, at the onset of the doctoral research presented in this dissertation, the concept of action competence was still fuzzy, regardless of the rich definitions that were available in the literature since researchers at the Danish school of Education had first coined the term in the eighties. Its richness lay in its view of action competence as an educational ideal that would support students’ ongoing development of the competences needed for taking action. Still, the entanglement of this educational approach with its dreamed-of learning outcomes, also caused confusion. Two different interpretations of the concept of action competence were present in the literature. Some studies treated action competence as an educational approach, while others viewed it as a learning outcome of educational approaches such as democratic health and environmental education, or education for sustainable development. Moreover, in order to monitor efforts made to implement ESD, measurement of learning outcomes was felt to be crucial. And yet, regardless of the rich history of research into cognitive learning outcomes of subjects such as mathematics, science, and (native) language, effectiveness research relating to action competence as a learning outcome of education for sustainable development has been scarce if not missing to date. The five studies presented in this dissertation aim to complement and add to the growing insight into what action competence is exactly, and whether certain educational approaches are promising for facilitating early adolescents’ action competence development. From a methodological perspective, we took a pragmatic stance in which the research aims and questions guided the flow of the five studies. Therefore, we adopted an exploratory sequential multi-method design, which is recommended for investigating complex real world issues, such as action competence and sustainable development, in social and educational contexts. The first study started with redefining action competence as a generic competence of (groups) of people. The concept was then exemplified in the context of sustainable development as action competence in sustainable development (ACiSD), which consists of the relevant knowledge and skills, willingness, and self-efficacy needed to contribute to sustainable development. Secondly, early adolescents were given a voice so they could teach us what actions for sustainable development they thought most urgent and at the same time feasible for someone their age. Based on the findings in the first two qualitative studies, we operationalised ACiSD and developed a valid and reliable questionnaire instrument (the ACiSD-Q) that allowed to measure certain features of ACiSD (study 3). The last two quantitative studies established the importance of the classroom level (study 4) and provided evidence for the merits of action-oriented ESD for early adolescents’ ACiSD development (study 5). This dissertation further developed the growing insight into action competence as a competence of (groups of) people who want to contribute to building a sustainable world for current and future generations without exhausting the planet. The first steps have been taken. We disentangled the different interpretations regarding the concept of action competence, made it measurable, and found empirical evidence for theoretic assumptions concerning the effectiveness of ESD for early adolescents’ ACiSD development. Consequently, the conclusion of this doctoral research is that democratic approaches to teaching, such as action-oriented education for sustainable development, can foster students’ action competence, and equip them for taking an active part in efforts needed to face future sustainability challenges." "Education as a response to sustainability issues. Practices of environmental education in the context of the United Nations Decade of education for sustainable development." "Katrien Van Poeck" "The United Nations designated the decade 2005-2014 as the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Practices of environmental education (EE) are facing this changing policy discourse and practice and are challenged to find new ways to relate to it. Drawing on an empirical analysis of the policymaking process in Flanders as well as of seven very diverse EE practices we aim at grasping the educational dynamics emerging in concrete practices within a policy-context focusing on ESD.Throughout the history of EE and ESD education is pre-eminently framed as an instrument to tackle social and ecological challenges through a narrowly conceived process of socialisation. Sustainability appears as a goal that can be reached by applying the proper learning strategies and, thus, education is reduced to the acquisition of those skills, competences, knowledge, or dispositions that are regarded vital so as to qualify people for sustainable behaviour or for active, democratic, and sustainable citizenship. Our analysis of the scholarly discussion about EE and ESD shows how this narrow focus on learning is inadequate so as to grasp what is at stake in educational practices addressing sustainability issues. Researchers on EE and ESD point at the importance of educational practices that, in one way or another, take into account the far-reaching implications of sustainability issues. Yet, all the same criticism is raised about the expectation that these educational practices can solve social and political problems. A variety of different opinions exists simultaneously centred around the paradox between acknowledging pluralism and taking into account sustainability concerns. The insights of Bruno Latour and Noortje Marres about public issues inspired us to develop a conception of EE and ESD that moves beyond normative socialisation without falling into a sheer plurality of opinions, values, interests, and points of view. Thus, this doctoral research aims at deepening our understanding of what it means to approach sustainability issues as public issues within educational processes.Our analysis of the interaction between policymaking and educational practices shows the emergence of a regime that fosters the privatisation rather than public-isation of sustainability issues within EE practices. That is, policymakers as well as practitioners and participants are somehow expected to be willing and able to see these practices, think and speak about them and act in/toward them in a very particular way and, as a result, EE practices tend to contain (instead of proliferate) contestation and controversy and to limit (rather than broaden) the public around sustainability issues. Yet, this regime to which ESD policymaking contributes does not force EE practices to the privatisation of sustainability issues. It is merely appealing for such practices. As our case study reveals, at particular moments EE practices do create a space for public-isation and, thus, resist the appeal for privatisation. By bringingthisforward in our descriptions we want to invite and inspire the reader to be attentive to different ways of seeing, speaking, thinking, and acting." "Education as a response to sustainability issues. Practices of environmental education in the context of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable development (Thesis Summary)" "Katrien Van Poeck" "Education as a response to sustainability issues. Practices of environmental education in the context of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable development (Thesis Summary)" "Katrien Van Poeck" "Education as a response to sustainability issues: practices of environmental education in the context of the United Nations Decade of education for sustainable development" "Katrien Van Poeck" "Advancing higher education for sustainable development : international insights and critical reflections" "Rodrigo Lozano, Francisco Lozano, Karel Mulder, Donald Huisingh, Tom Waas" "Globalisation and education for sustainable development : emancipation from context and meaning" "Stefan L. Bengtsson, Leif O. Ostman" "This article tries to contribute to the critical debate on the ideological and globalising potential of education for sustainable development (ESD), which exists in the research field of environmental education, by highlighting potential contradictions in the argumentation for ESD's ideological and globalising tendency. Further, the authors of this article argue for an alternative perspective on how education policy on ESD can be seen to contribute to globalisation and homogenisation by merging two conceptualisations of globalisation as connection' and the role of empty signifiers' in political discourse. The ambition with the merger is not to provide a universal explanation of globalisation and ideology, instead, the intention is to outline an alternative theoretical outlook that allows for an empirical study of the processes that can be seen to feed into or interrupt the preservation of hegemony in a global setting."