This research programme focuses on how environment and sustainability education can contribute to and improve educational quality and relevance in schools, colleges and universities. It includes micro-level analyses of learning, practice and curriculum development in schools and classrooms, and macro-level analyses of curriculum, knowledge systems, and discourse on quality and relevance. Examples include: studies on Eco-Schools practices and assumptions; how Life Sciences curricula is enacted in rural schools; how educational policy is constituted.

Theories of social learning, transformative learning, curriculum change, cultural reproduction, quality and relevance and educational policy development, all help researchers examine environment and sustainability education contributions to promote educational quality and relevance. Social learning, involving environment and sustainability education in schools, requires engagement with the wider school-community and society to establish relevance. This, in turn, requires curriculum transformation and new forms of educational knowledge, structures, policy and practice. Such transformations are complex, given the format of modern education systems, which remain primarily concerned with reproduction rather than transformation in society. They are, however, necessary if education systems are to respond to contemporary environment and sustainability challenges facing humanity, and if education is to be relevant to the future.

For information on studies in progress, completed studies, research partners, and information on how to link up with, or participate in this research programme and the SADC ESD EdQual research network, email elrc@ru.ac.za

Last Modified: Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:47:19 SAST