An Exploration of what Grade 7 Natural Sciences Teachers Know, Believe and Say about Biodiversity and the Teaching of Biodiversity
- Isaacs, Dorelle, Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Authors: Isaacs, Dorelle , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435153 , vital:73134 , ISBN 9781928502241 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/64082
- Description: This chapter shares the findings of a small-scale qualitative research project that investigated what three Grade 7 Natural Sciences teachers know, believe and say about biodiversity (Isaacs 2016). The study was sparked by the researcher’s interest in environmental learning and the importance of school curricula in preparing children to take care of their local and global environments. Biodiversity refers to Earth’s rich variety of plants and animals. It has been described as ‘the complex web of life’that includes diversity at genetic, species and ecosystem levels (Gurr et al. 2012: 4). The concept came to prominence in 1992 when the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity defined biological diversity as ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems’(United Nations 1992: Article 2).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Isaacs, Dorelle , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435153 , vital:73134 , ISBN 9781928502241 , https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/64082
- Description: This chapter shares the findings of a small-scale qualitative research project that investigated what three Grade 7 Natural Sciences teachers know, believe and say about biodiversity (Isaacs 2016). The study was sparked by the researcher’s interest in environmental learning and the importance of school curricula in preparing children to take care of their local and global environments. Biodiversity refers to Earth’s rich variety of plants and animals. It has been described as ‘the complex web of life’that includes diversity at genetic, species and ecosystem levels (Gurr et al. 2012: 4). The concept came to prominence in 1992 when the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity defined biological diversity as ‘the variability among living organisms from all sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems’(United Nations 1992: Article 2).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
Boundary making and boundary crossing in learning pathways access and progression: Voices from the workplace
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Mohanoe, M Nthabiseng, Ramsarup, Preesha, Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Mohanoe, M Nthabiseng , Ramsarup, Preesha , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436374 , vital:73265 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In the South African Qualifications Authority and Rhodes University (SAQA-Rhodes) partnership research it was found that ‘researching the boundary’is an important unit of analysis in learning pathways research (see Papers 1 and 2 in this Bulle-tin). The researchers have argued that this focus has rele-vance for discussions on articulation, as articulation is a boundary crossing practice39. However, to understand boundary crossing processes, it is important to understand what the boundaries are in learning pathways research and to understand how these boundaries were developed. Bounda-ries in learning pathways are both social and material and are constructed by people’s actions and practices, and can only be resolved through people’s actions and practices. This pa-per–Paper 5–considers the manner in which social-material factors are ‘boundary makers’ in learning pathways, affecting access, mobility, progression and articulation possibilities, with specific reference to articulation between workplace experi-ences and contexts on one hand, and education and training systems on the other. The paper argues for a perspective on the social-material that includes the Critical Realist concept of ‘absence’(Bhaskar, 1993) as an important shaping force in learning pathways research (see Paper 4, in this Bulletin). By identifying ‘boundary making’processes and factors, as articu-lated through ‘voices in the workplace’[one perspective on this issue], the paper identifies key areas for ‘boundary cross-ing’practices in the South African National Qualifications Framework (NQF) system and its associated sub-systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Mohanoe, M Nthabiseng , Ramsarup, Preesha , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , bulletin
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/436374 , vital:73265 , ISBN bulletin , https://www.saqa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SAQA-Bulletin-2017-1.pdf#page=37
- Description: In the South African Qualifications Authority and Rhodes University (SAQA-Rhodes) partnership research it was found that ‘researching the boundary’is an important unit of analysis in learning pathways research (see Papers 1 and 2 in this Bulle-tin). The researchers have argued that this focus has rele-vance for discussions on articulation, as articulation is a boundary crossing practice39. However, to understand boundary crossing processes, it is important to understand what the boundaries are in learning pathways research and to understand how these boundaries were developed. Bounda-ries in learning pathways are both social and material and are constructed by people’s actions and practices, and can only be resolved through people’s actions and practices. This pa-per–Paper 5–considers the manner in which social-material factors are ‘boundary makers’ in learning pathways, affecting access, mobility, progression and articulation possibilities, with specific reference to articulation between workplace experi-ences and contexts on one hand, and education and training systems on the other. The paper argues for a perspective on the social-material that includes the Critical Realist concept of ‘absence’(Bhaskar, 1993) as an important shaping force in learning pathways research (see Paper 4, in this Bulletin). By identifying ‘boundary making’processes and factors, as articu-lated through ‘voices in the workplace’[one perspective on this issue], the paper identifies key areas for ‘boundary cross-ing’practices in the South African National Qualifications Framework (NQF) system and its associated sub-systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Cultivating a scholarly community of practice
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ellery, Karen, Olvitt, Lausanne L, Schudel, Ingrid J, O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Schudel, Ingrid J , O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69777 , vital:29579 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15102
- Description: In the field of Environment and Sustainability Education we are seeking ways of developing our teaching and supervision practices to enable social changes in a rapidly transforming field of practice where global issues of truth, judgement, justice and sustainability define our engagements with the public good. This article explores the process of cultivating a scholarly community of practice as a model of supervision that not only engages scholars in an intellectual community oriented towards socio-ecological transformation, but also extends and enhances dialogue with individuals on the technical and theoretical aspects of their postgraduate studies.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Schudel, Ingrid J , O'Donoghue, Rob B
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69777 , vital:29579 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15102
- Description: In the field of Environment and Sustainability Education we are seeking ways of developing our teaching and supervision practices to enable social changes in a rapidly transforming field of practice where global issues of truth, judgement, justice and sustainability define our engagements with the public good. This article explores the process of cultivating a scholarly community of practice as a model of supervision that not only engages scholars in an intellectual community oriented towards socio-ecological transformation, but also extends and enhances dialogue with individuals on the technical and theoretical aspects of their postgraduate studies.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
Editorial
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/391156 , vital:68625 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/121960"
- Description: This year marks the end of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development which was first proposed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg. At the end of 2014 UNESCO hosted the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development in Nagoya, Japan. To mark this occasion Professor Rob O’Donoghue produced a reflective Think Piece that traces the emergence of education for sustainable development (ESD) from its educational roots in the Modernist project, to the diversity of practices that currently frame ESD as a transgressive process of cultural change. O’Donoghue interrogates tensions around knowledge and participation in the ESD terrain and proposes that knowledge-led and ethics-led learning in relation to valued purposes might create educational possibilities for expansive, transgressive and reflexive learning processes towards a more sustainable future. This Think Piece opens the Journal; many of the strengths, tensions and generative opportunities in environment and sustainability education referred to by O’Donoghue are reflected in this edition of the journal.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/391156 , vital:68625 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/121960"
- Description: This year marks the end of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development which was first proposed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg. At the end of 2014 UNESCO hosted the World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development in Nagoya, Japan. To mark this occasion Professor Rob O’Donoghue produced a reflective Think Piece that traces the emergence of education for sustainable development (ESD) from its educational roots in the Modernist project, to the diversity of practices that currently frame ESD as a transgressive process of cultural change. O’Donoghue interrogates tensions around knowledge and participation in the ESD terrain and proposes that knowledge-led and ethics-led learning in relation to valued purposes might create educational possibilities for expansive, transgressive and reflexive learning processes towards a more sustainable future. This Think Piece opens the Journal; many of the strengths, tensions and generative opportunities in environment and sustainability education referred to by O’Donoghue are reflected in this edition of the journal.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Education in the Anthropocene: Ethico-moral dimensions and critical realist openings
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372753 , vital:66620 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2017.1342613"
- Description: Human-induced changes in planetary bio-geo-chemical processes have tipped earth into a newly-proposed geological epoch: the Anthropocene, which places moral and ethical demands on people regarding who should take responsibility for the well-being of people and planet, how, and why. Drawing generally on critical realist ontology, and more particularly on Roy Bhaskar’s concept of the person as a ‘four-planar social being’ living in the world as a laminated ontological whole, the article examines the dimensions of people’s ethico-moral engagement with the Anthropocene and considers what types of learning processes might enable people to understand, live in, and co-create this period known as ‘the Anthropocene’ in just, care-filled and—where necessary—transformative ways. The article points to the need for a radical re-orientation of education systems in the light of ethico-moral challenges that come to prominence in the Anthropocene, and argues for learning processes that nurture individual and collective moral agency through transformative, even transgressive, learning processes that are relational, humble, interdisciplinary, multi-perspectival, systemic, reality-congruent and contextually responsive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372753 , vital:66620 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2017.1342613"
- Description: Human-induced changes in planetary bio-geo-chemical processes have tipped earth into a newly-proposed geological epoch: the Anthropocene, which places moral and ethical demands on people regarding who should take responsibility for the well-being of people and planet, how, and why. Drawing generally on critical realist ontology, and more particularly on Roy Bhaskar’s concept of the person as a ‘four-planar social being’ living in the world as a laminated ontological whole, the article examines the dimensions of people’s ethico-moral engagement with the Anthropocene and considers what types of learning processes might enable people to understand, live in, and co-create this period known as ‘the Anthropocene’ in just, care-filled and—where necessary—transformative ways. The article points to the need for a radical re-orientation of education systems in the light of ethico-moral challenges that come to prominence in the Anthropocene, and argues for learning processes that nurture individual and collective moral agency through transformative, even transgressive, learning processes that are relational, humble, interdisciplinary, multi-perspectival, systemic, reality-congruent and contextually responsive.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Environmental ethics as processes of open-ended, pluralistic, deliberative enquiry
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437309 , vital:73368 , ISBN 9780203813331 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203813331-15/environmental-ethics-processes-open-ended-pluralistic-deliberative-enquiry-lausanne-olvitt
- Description: By the very nature of their work, environmental education re-searchers must engage with environmental philosophy and questions of values and ethics. But this terrain, despite being resourced with an apparently endless supply of typologies, an-thologies, and handbooks, can remain a vast and daunting philosophical sea—at least in my experience as a newcomer to the field, and possibly for many other scholars and re-searchers. This essay makes no claim to altering that and in-stead optimistically pursues Ball’s (2001, p. 89) suggestion that “there is much to be learned about, and from, the philosophical life-forms inhabiting these thickets and swamps.” My intention here is to review a relatively small but growing cluster of work in environmental ethics that proposes that:“Ethical positions are always open for discussion, re-examination, and revi-sion”(Jickling, 2004, p. 16) and are thus, by their very nature, open-ended, relational processes. My starting point in writing this essay is as an educator-researcher-environmentalist trying to explore what the field of environmental ethics has to offer in response to the question:“As educators, how can we learn and do more with others in the face of an unprecedented socioeco-logical crisis?”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437309 , vital:73368 , ISBN 9780203813331 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203813331-15/environmental-ethics-processes-open-ended-pluralistic-deliberative-enquiry-lausanne-olvitt
- Description: By the very nature of their work, environmental education re-searchers must engage with environmental philosophy and questions of values and ethics. But this terrain, despite being resourced with an apparently endless supply of typologies, an-thologies, and handbooks, can remain a vast and daunting philosophical sea—at least in my experience as a newcomer to the field, and possibly for many other scholars and re-searchers. This essay makes no claim to altering that and in-stead optimistically pursues Ball’s (2001, p. 89) suggestion that “there is much to be learned about, and from, the philosophical life-forms inhabiting these thickets and swamps.” My intention here is to review a relatively small but growing cluster of work in environmental ethics that proposes that:“Ethical positions are always open for discussion, re-examination, and revi-sion”(Jickling, 2004, p. 16) and are thus, by their very nature, open-ended, relational processes. My starting point in writing this essay is as an educator-researcher-environmentalist trying to explore what the field of environmental ethics has to offer in response to the question:“As educators, how can we learn and do more with others in the face of an unprecedented socioeco-logical crisis?”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Environmental ethics: A sourcebook for educators
- Jickling, Bob, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Olvitt, Lausanne L, O’Donoghue, Rob B, Schudel, Ingrid J, McGarry, Dylan K, Niblett, Blair
- Authors: Jickling, Bob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Olvitt, Lausanne L , O’Donoghue, Rob B , Schudel, Ingrid J , McGarry, Dylan K , Niblett, Blair
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435834 , vital:73205 , ISBN 978-1991201287 , https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Ethics-Sourcebook-Bob-Jickling/dp/1991201281
- Description: This well-constructed, and highly original, sourcebook inte-grates educational materials for teaching environmental eth-ics with theoretical reflections. The book is set to contribute immensely to its aim of taking ethics out of philosophy de-partments and putting it into the streets, into villages, and on the Earth—to make ethics an everyday activity, not some-thing left to experts and specialists. Context-based activities are presented in almost every chapter. While it acknowledg-es foundational theories in environmental ethics, and the work that they continue to do, it wholeheartedly embraces a growing body of literature that emphasises contextual, pro-cess-oriented, and place-based approaches to ethical reflec-tion, deliberation, and action. It walks on the ground and isn’t afraid to get a little dirty or to seek joy in earthly relationships. And it ultimately breaks with much Western academic tradi-tion by framing “ethics in a storied world”, thus making room to move beyond Euro-American perspectives in environmen-tal issues. This work will be of interest to school teachers and other non-formal and informal educators, teacher educators, college instructors, university professors, and other profes-sionals who wish to bring environmental ethics to the fore-front of their pedagogical practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Jickling, Bob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Olvitt, Lausanne L , O’Donoghue, Rob B , Schudel, Ingrid J , McGarry, Dylan K , Niblett, Blair
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/435834 , vital:73205 , ISBN 978-1991201287 , https://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Ethics-Sourcebook-Bob-Jickling/dp/1991201281
- Description: This well-constructed, and highly original, sourcebook inte-grates educational materials for teaching environmental eth-ics with theoretical reflections. The book is set to contribute immensely to its aim of taking ethics out of philosophy de-partments and putting it into the streets, into villages, and on the Earth—to make ethics an everyday activity, not some-thing left to experts and specialists. Context-based activities are presented in almost every chapter. While it acknowledg-es foundational theories in environmental ethics, and the work that they continue to do, it wholeheartedly embraces a growing body of literature that emphasises contextual, pro-cess-oriented, and place-based approaches to ethical reflec-tion, deliberation, and action. It walks on the ground and isn’t afraid to get a little dirty or to seek joy in earthly relationships. And it ultimately breaks with much Western academic tradi-tion by framing “ethics in a storied world”, thus making room to move beyond Euro-American perspectives in environmen-tal issues. This work will be of interest to school teachers and other non-formal and informal educators, teacher educators, college instructors, university professors, and other profes-sionals who wish to bring environmental ethics to the fore-front of their pedagogical practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
Ethical deliberations in environmental education workplaces: a case story of contextualised and personalised reflexivity
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437421 , vital:73377 , ISBN 9789086867578 , https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086867578_0010
- Description: This chapter explores the fluidity and complexity of individual ethical deliberations in an environmental education workplace and ‘teases out’the associated learning processes. Based on the author’s recent doctoral research, the chapter tells the story of one South African environmental educator grappling with environmentoriented ethical tensions in his work. These ten-sions range from immediate officebased concerns such as paper wastage, to wider concerns such as lowering his carbon footprint through his choice of transport. The environmental educator has recently completed a one-year part-time course in environmental education. Does the course’s new capital of concepts and terminology influence his ethical deliberations? Does learning about environmental philosophies and other people’s ethical dilemmas support him to deepen his engage-ment with ethical tensions in his ownwork? The case study suggests that course-based learning processes are not espe-cially influential until they interface with the multi-layered soci-ocultural and historical dynamics in work-based and home-based ethical deliberations. Deciding what is ‘right’, and then teaching others about that ‘rightness’ is not as simple as know-ing the facts or norms, and acting on them. Past experiences, cultural norms, religious convictions, power gradients and even logistical constraints, all influence the nature and outcome of individual ethical deliberations, as do people’s future aspira-tions and their professional identities as environmental educa-tors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437421 , vital:73377 , ISBN 9789086867578 , https://doi.org/10.3920/9789086867578_0010
- Description: This chapter explores the fluidity and complexity of individual ethical deliberations in an environmental education workplace and ‘teases out’the associated learning processes. Based on the author’s recent doctoral research, the chapter tells the story of one South African environmental educator grappling with environmentoriented ethical tensions in his work. These ten-sions range from immediate officebased concerns such as paper wastage, to wider concerns such as lowering his carbon footprint through his choice of transport. The environmental educator has recently completed a one-year part-time course in environmental education. Does the course’s new capital of concepts and terminology influence his ethical deliberations? Does learning about environmental philosophies and other people’s ethical dilemmas support him to deepen his engage-ment with ethical tensions in his ownwork? The case study suggests that course-based learning processes are not espe-cially influential until they interface with the multi-layered soci-ocultural and historical dynamics in work-based and home-based ethical deliberations. Deciding what is ‘right’, and then teaching others about that ‘rightness’ is not as simple as know-ing the facts or norms, and acting on them. Past experiences, cultural norms, religious convictions, power gradients and even logistical constraints, all influence the nature and outcome of individual ethical deliberations, as do people’s future aspira-tions and their professional identities as environmental educa-tors.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Ethics-oriented learning in environmental education workplaces: An activity theory approach
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370961 , vital:66398 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122874"
- Description: In the context of increasing national and global environmental challenges and their implications for the working world, new ethics and practices are being introduced into workplaces that take better account of socio-ecological relations. Little is understood, however, about the nature of ethics-oriented workplace learning. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which enables historically and contextually situated relational perspectives to emerge, this paper explores contradictions in the activity systems of two young environmental education learner-practitioners struggling to engage with the ethical dimensions of their professional work and the professional development course they are studying. The study focuses in particular on the environmental values and ethics component of their course – a year-long Learnership in Environmental Education, Training and Development Practices (EETDP). The paper reflects how tensions and contradictions within and between the interacting activity systems of the workplace, the course, and its regulating qualifications authority influence the teaching and learning of the environmental ethics component of the course. Ethics-oriented teaching and learning processes are found to be strongly influenced by the ‘rules’ and ‘mediating tools’ of these interacting systems, but these are often at odds with the ethical perspectives, socio-cultural context and skills of the ‘subject’ and ‘community’. These systemic contradictions can be more fully understood when their cultural and historical origins are made explicit. The analytical process has led to a more nuanced understanding of ethics-oriented teaching and learning in a workplace-based course, and has revealed several areas needing more careful research (particularly the area of environmental discourses) and the explicit and implicit language of ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370961 , vital:66398 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122874"
- Description: In the context of increasing national and global environmental challenges and their implications for the working world, new ethics and practices are being introduced into workplaces that take better account of socio-ecological relations. Little is understood, however, about the nature of ethics-oriented workplace learning. Drawing on Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which enables historically and contextually situated relational perspectives to emerge, this paper explores contradictions in the activity systems of two young environmental education learner-practitioners struggling to engage with the ethical dimensions of their professional work and the professional development course they are studying. The study focuses in particular on the environmental values and ethics component of their course – a year-long Learnership in Environmental Education, Training and Development Practices (EETDP). The paper reflects how tensions and contradictions within and between the interacting activity systems of the workplace, the course, and its regulating qualifications authority influence the teaching and learning of the environmental ethics component of the course. Ethics-oriented teaching and learning processes are found to be strongly influenced by the ‘rules’ and ‘mediating tools’ of these interacting systems, but these are often at odds with the ethical perspectives, socio-cultural context and skills of the ‘subject’ and ‘community’. These systemic contradictions can be more fully understood when their cultural and historical origins are made explicit. The analytical process has led to a more nuanced understanding of ethics-oriented teaching and learning in a workplace-based course, and has revealed several areas needing more careful research (particularly the area of environmental discourses) and the explicit and implicit language of ethics.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Identifying needs and opportunities for local government environmental education and training in South Africa
- Olvitt, Lausanne L, Hamaamba, Tyson
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L , Hamaamba, Tyson
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370991 , vital:66400 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122739"
- Description: Effective environmental management and public engagement with environmental concerns are needed for the attainment of sustainable development goals and socio-ecological balance in local government contexts. This vision is clearly articulated in international environmental policy frameworks and in South Africa’s national and regional legislation. However, policy and legislation fall short of identifying the range of a priori competences required by local government officials and environmental managers before well intended policy can be translated into effective practice. This paper reports on recent research into identifying the underlying competences required for better environmental management and the establishment of education and training processes for local government managers. The research draws on the notion of ‘applied competence’ put forward by South Africa’s National Qualifications Framework, and argues that greater attention needs to be paid to competence-based capacity building processes within local government departments if environmental sustainability and development goals are to be met. The paper draws on the researchers’ experiences of formulating a national level generic competence framework for environmental management, and conducting an education and training needs analysis for the Makana Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Early findings suggest that a broad range of competences all have a role in ensuring the capacity and effectiveness of local governments to better manage their local environment. The paper argues that these are significant for the development of environmental education and training programmes in local government contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L , Hamaamba, Tyson
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370991 , vital:66400 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122739"
- Description: Effective environmental management and public engagement with environmental concerns are needed for the attainment of sustainable development goals and socio-ecological balance in local government contexts. This vision is clearly articulated in international environmental policy frameworks and in South Africa’s national and regional legislation. However, policy and legislation fall short of identifying the range of a priori competences required by local government officials and environmental managers before well intended policy can be translated into effective practice. This paper reports on recent research into identifying the underlying competences required for better environmental management and the establishment of education and training processes for local government managers. The research draws on the notion of ‘applied competence’ put forward by South Africa’s National Qualifications Framework, and argues that greater attention needs to be paid to competence-based capacity building processes within local government departments if environmental sustainability and development goals are to be met. The paper draws on the researchers’ experiences of formulating a national level generic competence framework for environmental management, and conducting an education and training needs analysis for the Makana Municipality in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Early findings suggest that a broad range of competences all have a role in ensuring the capacity and effectiveness of local governments to better manage their local environment. The paper argues that these are significant for the development of environmental education and training programmes in local government contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Perceived benefits of nature-based experiences as mediators of connectedness with nature: The case of Mystic Mountain
- Ward-Smith, Chesney, Naidoo, Tony, Olvitt, Lausanne L, Akhurst, Jacqueline E
- Authors: Ward-Smith, Chesney , Naidoo, Tony , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Akhurst, Jacqueline E
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372782 , vital:66622 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00812463209470"
- Description: Perceived nature disconnection lies at the heart of the world’s socio-ecological crisis. Finding ways to reconnect with nature is fundamental towards reducing the adverse psychological–social– ecological consequences of this disconnection. Understanding the psychological and social benefits of nature-based experiences is important towards actualising reconnection. This article discusses such benefits for child and adult participants from the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This work stems from Ecopsychology research with an outdoor education centre, Mystic Mountain. The experiences of two groups of children (n=25, aged 10–14years) and adult instructors (n=12, aged 18–50years) were explored using interpretive case-study methodology. Through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, participant observation, and reflexive journaling, data were collected and analysed thematically. This article centralises participants’ perceived psychological and social benefits of nature-based experiences as mediators of deeper self and nature connectedness. Integrating these benefits into nature-based pedagogy-design processes could contribute towards more effective enhancements of nature connectedness, and in turn, foster Earth’s larger flourishment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Ward-Smith, Chesney , Naidoo, Tony , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Akhurst, Jacqueline E
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372782 , vital:66622 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00812463209470"
- Description: Perceived nature disconnection lies at the heart of the world’s socio-ecological crisis. Finding ways to reconnect with nature is fundamental towards reducing the adverse psychological–social– ecological consequences of this disconnection. Understanding the psychological and social benefits of nature-based experiences is important towards actualising reconnection. This article discusses such benefits for child and adult participants from the Eastern Cape, South Africa. This work stems from Ecopsychology research with an outdoor education centre, Mystic Mountain. The experiences of two groups of children (n=25, aged 10–14years) and adult instructors (n=12, aged 18–50years) were explored using interpretive case-study methodology. Through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, participant observation, and reflexive journaling, data were collected and analysed thematically. This article centralises participants’ perceived psychological and social benefits of nature-based experiences as mediators of deeper self and nature connectedness. Integrating these benefits into nature-based pedagogy-design processes could contribute towards more effective enhancements of nature connectedness, and in turn, foster Earth’s larger flourishment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Planetary Urgency, Researcher Reflexivity and ESE Research: Questions Arising from an Initial Exploration of Goethean-inspired Phenomenology
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437541 , vital:73392 , ISBN
- Description: Many of the theoretical and methodological frameworks that are currently influential in Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE) research in South Africa foreground interventionist research, activism, causal explanation, critique, social-ecological transformation and decoloniality. These frameworks guide ESE researchers to design, implement and report on research in particular ways, hence influencing how social-ecological phenomena, learning and social change are understood and enacted. In this essay, I present some exploratory perspectives on the relevance and potential contribution of phenomenological approaches to ESE research, especially Goethean inspired observation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437541 , vital:73392 , ISBN
- Description: Many of the theoretical and methodological frameworks that are currently influential in Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE) research in South Africa foreground interventionist research, activism, causal explanation, critique, social-ecological transformation and decoloniality. These frameworks guide ESE researchers to design, implement and report on research in particular ways, hence influencing how social-ecological phenomena, learning and social change are understood and enacted. In this essay, I present some exploratory perspectives on the relevance and potential contribution of phenomenological approaches to ESE research, especially Goethean inspired observation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Revised Schools and Sustainability Pack offers Curriculum Support
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389852 , vital:68489 , xlink:href="https://eeasa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bulletin_vol24-_March-2003.pdf"
- Description: Since the mid 1990s, the School Environmental Policy and Management Plan (SEP) Pack has supported educators in developing a whole-school environmental policy. This year, Share-Net has updated the pack in line with the South African revised National Curriculum and the National Environmental Education Programme (NEEP).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389852 , vital:68489 , xlink:href="https://eeasa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bulletin_vol24-_March-2003.pdf"
- Description: Since the mid 1990s, the School Environmental Policy and Management Plan (SEP) Pack has supported educators in developing a whole-school environmental policy. This year, Share-Net has updated the pack in line with the South African revised National Curriculum and the National Environmental Education Programme (NEEP).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Situating the diversity of Southern African environmental education scholarship within a global conversation at a critical juncture on Earth
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389869 , vital:68491 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/247386"
- Description: ¬The collection of papers in Volume 38 in many ways mirrors the diversity of research methodologies and teaching approaches in the contemporary eld of Environmental and Sustainability Education. ¬ e seven papers remind us that, whilst environmental educators and researchers are largely in agreement over the nature and causes of the social-ecological problems that we face in sub-Saharan Africa, there is less certainty around what types of educational approaches and pedagogies are adequate to help resolve them. ¬ e papers in this volume either o er pedagogical innovations that may strengthen teaching and learning for sustainable futures, or they provide insights into the social, cultural and economic contexts in which such teaching and learning occurs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389869 , vital:68491 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/247386"
- Description: ¬The collection of papers in Volume 38 in many ways mirrors the diversity of research methodologies and teaching approaches in the contemporary eld of Environmental and Sustainability Education. ¬ e seven papers remind us that, whilst environmental educators and researchers are largely in agreement over the nature and causes of the social-ecological problems that we face in sub-Saharan Africa, there is less certainty around what types of educational approaches and pedagogies are adequate to help resolve them. ¬ e papers in this volume either o er pedagogical innovations that may strengthen teaching and learning for sustainable futures, or they provide insights into the social, cultural and economic contexts in which such teaching and learning occurs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
South Africa: Strengthening responses to sustainable development policy and legislation
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437382 , vital:73374 , ISBN 978-1-4020-8194-1 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8194-1_23
- Description: A key objective of the newly established South African national qualifi-cations framework (NQF) is to enable the transformation of society, fol-lowing the demise of apartheid in 1994. Through the South African Constitution, which enshrines the right to a healthy environment for all citizens, and the sustainable utilization of resources for current and fu-ture generations (RSA, 1996), South African society adopted a devel-opment path that is oriented towards sustainable development. The de-velopment and implementation of the NQF (established by the South African Qualifications Authority Act in 1995) has involved various initia-tives to design and develop qualifications that respond to the environ-mental rights and sustainable development clauses of the Constitution and associated national policy. The past 10 years have been an active period for reconceptualizing education and training in South Africa, par-ticularly in the previously neglected1 area of workplacebased learning. New structures were put in place to develop and approve flexible and portable qualifications in unit-standard format, new service delivery structures and mechanisms have been established which allow for flex-ible forms of programme delivery and new learning programmes have been designed to respond to the outcomes-based, flexible format of the NQF. The NQF has created new opportunities for lifelong learning and new possibilities for those formerly disadvantaged by apartheid exclu-sionary policies and systems to gain access to education and training, and recognition for their skills and competencies. It has also created the space for new innovative programmes to emerge that respond to emerging issues in society, such as increased environmental degradation, increased health risks and new social and economic challenges.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437382 , vital:73374 , ISBN 978-1-4020-8194-1 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8194-1_23
- Description: A key objective of the newly established South African national qualifi-cations framework (NQF) is to enable the transformation of society, fol-lowing the demise of apartheid in 1994. Through the South African Constitution, which enshrines the right to a healthy environment for all citizens, and the sustainable utilization of resources for current and fu-ture generations (RSA, 1996), South African society adopted a devel-opment path that is oriented towards sustainable development. The de-velopment and implementation of the NQF (established by the South African Qualifications Authority Act in 1995) has involved various initia-tives to design and develop qualifications that respond to the environ-mental rights and sustainable development clauses of the Constitution and associated national policy. The past 10 years have been an active period for reconceptualizing education and training in South Africa, par-ticularly in the previously neglected1 area of workplacebased learning. New structures were put in place to develop and approve flexible and portable qualifications in unit-standard format, new service delivery structures and mechanisms have been established which allow for flex-ible forms of programme delivery and new learning programmes have been designed to respond to the outcomes-based, flexible format of the NQF. The NQF has created new opportunities for lifelong learning and new possibilities for those formerly disadvantaged by apartheid exclu-sionary policies and systems to gain access to education and training, and recognition for their skills and competencies. It has also created the space for new innovative programmes to emerge that respond to emerging issues in society, such as increased environmental degradation, increased health risks and new social and economic challenges.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
The emergence of environmental ethics discourses in laminated, open systems: Some educational considerations
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437094 , vital:73330 , ISBN 9781315660899 , https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Realism-Environmental-Learning-and-Social-Ecological-Change/Price-Lotz-Sistka/p/book/9780367597689
- Description: The contemporary social-ecological condition is characterized by powerful changes in the way that we relate to each other and to the environment. This has led to increased ecological vulnerability, which is also accompanied by ongoing, and in-creased societal vulnerability. Nevertheless there remain op-portunities for developing new social-ecological relations, and for social-ecological learning and change. This would seem to require a strong project of recovering ontology, and a challeng-ing and broadening of dominant ways of knowing (Mignolo, 2000) that also tend to commit what Bhaskar describes as the ‘epistemic fallacy’, or the ‘the analysis or reduction of being to knowledge of being’ (Bhaskar, 2010, p. 1). In response, Bhaskar (ibid.) suggests critical realism as an alternative that embodies a ‘compatibility of ontological realism, epistemologi-cal relativism and judgmental rationality’. This includes a ‘re-vindication of ontology’ and the possibility of recognizing and accounting for structure, difference and change in the world in ways that escape ontological actualism and ontological mono-valence or ‘the generation of a purely positive account of reali-ty’ (ibid., p. 15).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book chapter
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/437094 , vital:73330 , ISBN 9781315660899 , https://www.routledge.com/Critical-Realism-Environmental-Learning-and-Social-Ecological-Change/Price-Lotz-Sistka/p/book/9780367597689
- Description: The contemporary social-ecological condition is characterized by powerful changes in the way that we relate to each other and to the environment. This has led to increased ecological vulnerability, which is also accompanied by ongoing, and in-creased societal vulnerability. Nevertheless there remain op-portunities for developing new social-ecological relations, and for social-ecological learning and change. This would seem to require a strong project of recovering ontology, and a challeng-ing and broadening of dominant ways of knowing (Mignolo, 2000) that also tend to commit what Bhaskar describes as the ‘epistemic fallacy’, or the ‘the analysis or reduction of being to knowledge of being’ (Bhaskar, 2010, p. 1). In response, Bhaskar (ibid.) suggests critical realism as an alternative that embodies a ‘compatibility of ontological realism, epistemologi-cal relativism and judgmental rationality’. This includes a ‘re-vindication of ontology’ and the possibility of recognizing and accounting for structure, difference and change in the world in ways that escape ontological actualism and ontological mono-valence or ‘the generation of a purely positive account of reali-ty’ (ibid., p. 15).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Transforming environmental health practitioners’ knowledge-sharing practices through inter-agency formative intervention workshops
- Masilela, Priscilla, Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Authors: Masilela, Priscilla , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372809 , vital:66624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2020.1717458"
- Description: Home-based care facilities provide basic healthcare services to people too sick or frail to access formal clinics and hospitals. These facilities produce ‘healthcare risk waste’ which must be managed responsibly, and it is the work of Environmental Health Practitioners working within municipalities to ensure that the waste produced by home-based care facilities is managed in line with legislation. This paper presents a case study of a twenty-seven-month expansive learning intervention in a South African municipality that sought to transform its healthcare risk waste management practices. Limited knowledge and inadequate knowledge-sharing practices were identified as the main hindrances to effective waste management. The practitioner-researcher facilitated a series of inter-agency, formative intervention workshops with municipal employees and Community Health Workers using the Developmental Work Research methodology. These workshops strengthened both groups of practitioners’ knowledge of the ‘who, how, what, why and when’ that underpins effective healthcare risk waste management, and enabled ‘boundary crossing’ for practitioners to work across their specialist areas towards co-defining and analysing problems and constructing new solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Masilela, Priscilla , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372809 , vital:66624 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2020.1717458"
- Description: Home-based care facilities provide basic healthcare services to people too sick or frail to access formal clinics and hospitals. These facilities produce ‘healthcare risk waste’ which must be managed responsibly, and it is the work of Environmental Health Practitioners working within municipalities to ensure that the waste produced by home-based care facilities is managed in line with legislation. This paper presents a case study of a twenty-seven-month expansive learning intervention in a South African municipality that sought to transform its healthcare risk waste management practices. Limited knowledge and inadequate knowledge-sharing practices were identified as the main hindrances to effective waste management. The practitioner-researcher facilitated a series of inter-agency, formative intervention workshops with municipal employees and Community Health Workers using the Developmental Work Research methodology. These workshops strengthened both groups of practitioners’ knowledge of the ‘who, how, what, why and when’ that underpins effective healthcare risk waste management, and enabled ‘boundary crossing’ for practitioners to work across their specialist areas towards co-defining and analysing problems and constructing new solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Trees stocks in domestic gardens and willingness to participate in tree planting initiatives in low-cost housing areas of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Gwedla, Nanamhla, Shackleton, Charlie, Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Authors: Gwedla, Nanamhla , Shackleton, Charlie , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372825 , vital:66626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2022.127484"
- Description: Increasing human populations and rapid urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa have prompted the development and maintenance of urban green infrastructure, including urban trees for sustainability, human wellbeing, liveability and climate resilience. However, there are still insufficient amounts and large inequities in the distribution of trees between and within towns and cities of the Global North and South. In South Africa, urban green space planning and planting are encoded in several policies at national level. However, these policies are rarely translated into specific guides, standards or actions, and consequently disparities in urban trees and green space distribution persist. This study assessed the prevalence of urban trees in domestic gardens in low-cost housing areas (LCHAs) of eight small to medium-sized towns in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and examined residents’ perceptions in this regard. This was done via surveys with 800 households in old and recently developed LCHAs. The results revealed that most households (52 %) had at least one tree in their yard, with more households in the older neighbourhoods (60 %) reporting having trees than in the newer ones (44 %). Most of the trees (66 %) had been deliberately planted as opposed to natural regeneration. Experience of formal urban tree planting programs was low, but 75 % of residents expressed willingness to participate in the future, preferably in tree planting and maintenance. Urban green spaces and trees cannot be an afterthought in the development of sustainable human settlements, and municipal plans should reflect tangible commitments in this regard. Meeting goals for greener LCHAs requires the involvement of local residents, and for municipal authorities to be receptive to the wishes of residents and willingness to green their residential areas.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Gwedla, Nanamhla , Shackleton, Charlie , Olvitt, Lausanne L
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/372825 , vital:66626 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2022.127484"
- Description: Increasing human populations and rapid urbanization in sub-Saharan Africa have prompted the development and maintenance of urban green infrastructure, including urban trees for sustainability, human wellbeing, liveability and climate resilience. However, there are still insufficient amounts and large inequities in the distribution of trees between and within towns and cities of the Global North and South. In South Africa, urban green space planning and planting are encoded in several policies at national level. However, these policies are rarely translated into specific guides, standards or actions, and consequently disparities in urban trees and green space distribution persist. This study assessed the prevalence of urban trees in domestic gardens in low-cost housing areas (LCHAs) of eight small to medium-sized towns in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and examined residents’ perceptions in this regard. This was done via surveys with 800 households in old and recently developed LCHAs. The results revealed that most households (52 %) had at least one tree in their yard, with more households in the older neighbourhoods (60 %) reporting having trees than in the newer ones (44 %). Most of the trees (66 %) had been deliberately planted as opposed to natural regeneration. Experience of formal urban tree planting programs was low, but 75 % of residents expressed willingness to participate in the future, preferably in tree planting and maintenance. Urban green spaces and trees cannot be an afterthought in the development of sustainable human settlements, and municipal plans should reflect tangible commitments in this regard. Meeting goals for greener LCHAs requires the involvement of local residents, and for municipal authorities to be receptive to the wishes of residents and willingness to green their residential areas.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
Understanding Collective Learning and Human Agency in Diverse Social, Cultural and Material Settings
- Olvitt, Lausanne L, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Læssøe, Jeppe, Jordt Jørgensen, Nanna
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Læssøe, Jeppe , Jordt Jørgensen, Nanna
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/127226 , vital:35979 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/172221/161620
- Description: The significance of environment and sustainability education research and practice, and its potential contribution to a sustainable future for humanity, is conveyed by the International Social Science Council (n.d.), which explains: People everywhere will need to learn how to create new forms of human activity and new social systems that are more sustainable and socially just. However, we have limited knowledge about the type of learning that creates such change, how such learning emerges, or how it can be scaled-up to create transformations at many levels.Here, the important shift is towards considering what social systems, forms of knowledge, learning processes and questions of justice are associated with perpetuating or halting the decline of Earth’s bio-geo-chemical systems. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education contributes three research papers and a themed Think Piece collection to these international deliberations about the role of education in enabling transformations to sustainability. Collectively, the articles highlight how relationality and the formation of human agency in socio-cultural and material settings in past–present–future configurations underpin all environment-oriented learning processes. The three research papers constituting the first part of this volume offer glimpses into how current unsustainable socio-cultural and material configurations might be transformed to address social inequalities and damaged people–nature relations. The Think Piece collection, introduced by Lotz-Sisitka, Læssøe and Jørgensen later in this editorial, focuses on how learning can foster and contribute to the development of change agents and collective agency for climate-resilient development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Understanding Collective Learning and Human Agency in Diverse Social, Cultural and Material Settings
- Authors: Olvitt, Lausanne L , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Læssøe, Jeppe , Jordt Jørgensen, Nanna
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/127226 , vital:35979 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/172221/161620
- Description: The significance of environment and sustainability education research and practice, and its potential contribution to a sustainable future for humanity, is conveyed by the International Social Science Council (n.d.), which explains: People everywhere will need to learn how to create new forms of human activity and new social systems that are more sustainable and socially just. However, we have limited knowledge about the type of learning that creates such change, how such learning emerges, or how it can be scaled-up to create transformations at many levels.Here, the important shift is towards considering what social systems, forms of knowledge, learning processes and questions of justice are associated with perpetuating or halting the decline of Earth’s bio-geo-chemical systems. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education contributes three research papers and a themed Think Piece collection to these international deliberations about the role of education in enabling transformations to sustainability. Collectively, the articles highlight how relationality and the formation of human agency in socio-cultural and material settings in past–present–future configurations underpin all environment-oriented learning processes. The three research papers constituting the first part of this volume offer glimpses into how current unsustainable socio-cultural and material configurations might be transformed to address social inequalities and damaged people–nature relations. The Think Piece collection, introduced by Lotz-Sisitka, Læssøe and Jørgensen later in this editorial, focuses on how learning can foster and contribute to the development of change agents and collective agency for climate-resilient development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
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