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…

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)