Four Impediments to Embedding Education for Sustainability in Higher Education
2015
Higher education institutions have an unavoidable responsibility to
address the looming economic, environmental and social crises imperilling
humans and ecosystems by placing 'education for sustainability' at
the heart of their concerns. Yet, for over three decades, the practice of
'higher education for sustainability' (HEfS) has encountered significant
barriers to implementation, begging the question as to why. Drawing on
a diverse, interdisciplinary literature, we identify four structural impediments
to implementing HEfS: (1) disciplinary contestation, which creates
confusion over what 'sustainability' means; (2) institutional fragmentation,
which prevents the interdisciplinary dialogue that sustainability
demands; (3) economic globalisation, which transforms higher education
into just another market opportunity; and (4) 'fast and frugal' habits of
reasoning, which steer time-pressed academics towards poorly integrated
decisions and unsustainable positions. Our analysis highlights that wider
structural change within and beyond the academy will be required if higher
education institutions are to meet their responsibilities and drive the necessary
social transformation.
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