Making an adequate response to our deteriorating environmental situation is a matter of ever increasing urgency. It is argued that a central obstacle to achieving this is the way that scientism has become normalized in our thinking about environmental issues. This is taken to reflect on an underlying "metaphysics of mastery" that vitiates proper…

With science and technology playing profound roles in mediating human relationships with the environment, a key question concerns which expectations and views of science and technology have emerged and prevail in visions of the social and environmental development of contemporary societies. This study engages this question through examining…

Over the past three decades, the environmental justice movement has developed out of growing concern about unequal distribution of environmental harm and unequal access to environmental resources. The mainstream environmental movement has been criticized for failing to address adequately environmental justice issues. Several scholars have claimed…

While modern science is receiving harsh criticism within the framework of environmental education, at the same time ecology is presented as an alternative science, characterized as 'holistic' and 'non-exploitative'. However, many of the characteristics of the science of ecology do not comply with its characterization as alternative science.…

Reviews some problems with the notion of sustainable development, as a policy, as the touchstone of environmental education, and explores understanding sustainability as a frame of mind. At the heart of this interpretation of sustainability lies the notion of a right relationship with nature which conditions attitudes towards the environment and a…

Addresses three issues: (1) the nature and importance of an eco-justice pedagogy; (2) how an eco-justice pedagogy differs from the recommendations of critical pedagogy theorists; and (3) the reforms that need to be undertaken in teacher education in order for teachers to balance critical inquiry with helping students recognize and participate in…

The Dearing Report emphasized the idea of a 'learning society' as the new context of UK higher education, but conceived this on a model of adaptivity to economically- and technologically-driven change. While there are real shifts in social relations with which universities have to reckon, they can be understood on a much richer model of…

Discusses whether the concept of education for sustainable development fosters reform in schools. Bases the discussion upon reflection on social challenges in education, a brief presentation of three concepts of environmental education (OECD Project 'Environment and School Initiatives' (ENSI), Action Competence Model, Socio-ecological…

Sustainable development can remain a regulative ideal for environmental educators with the acknowledgement that it has no absolute legitimation and that human reflexivity remains capable of reworking the cultural traditions that have shaped it. Claims that the quest for holism remains one voice in a continuing dialogue about the environment and…

Critiques one widely held idea about sustainable development and advances an approach to thinking about issues of sustainable development and learning, including formal education. This approach employs a metaphor for possible human interactions with non-human nature that is derived from the world of financial management. (Author/MM)

Offers comments based on three questions as an immediate response to the articles in this special issue: (1) What's in a name?; (2) What is possible in education for sustainable development?; and (3) Rather than what education might do for sustainable development, what might sustainable development do for education? (Author/MM)

Describes a multidisciplinary action research project to develop a theoretical framework and four exemplary teaching modules for elementary and secondary school that promote a pluralistic view on nature. Presents the theoretical framework that was developed during the project. Describes the teaching modules and delineates one of the modules.…

Analyzes what influences the environmental knowledge and perceptions of English and Mexican school children. Explores the extent to which culture and the school ethos with regard to the environment have an effect on the formation of environmental knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes in young children. Concludes that schools with strong…

Describes two parallel studies conducted shortly before the Kyoto conference on climate change: (1) an examination of media portrayals of global warming and the certainty with which information was reported; and (2) a telephone survey to assess public knowledge and attitudes about global climate change. Findings do not support a hypothesis that…

Presents an evaluation of a Spanish government program on environmental education that aimed to change the habits of the local population. Finds that common understanding of environmental education has changed in the local population though in a different sense than was expected. Argues that the relationship of social groups toward environmental…