Conceptual Analysis in Environmental Education: Why I Want My Children To Be Educated For Sustainable Development

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing global movement towards sustainable development (defined in the Brundtland report Our Common Future as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987)). Indeed, the Brundtland report, along with the revised World Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1990) and Agenda 21 (UNCED 1992) all place high expectations on environmental education as a key means of achieving sustainability. Changes for sustainability will affect individual lifestyles, and attitudes to, and relationships with nature, and education is a critical part of turning the idea of sustainable development into reality (Slocombe & van Bers 1991, p. 12). In arguing that our children should be educated for sustainable development, we must evaluate the arguments about sustainability and see what role environmental education has to play.Jickling (1992, pp. 6-7) claims that various attempts to analyse the meaning of the term sustainable development have resulted in a ‘conceptual muddle’ which precludes the possibility of accepting any educational prescription for it. However, in drawing this conclusion, he appears to have neglected the alternative conceptions of sustainable development that have been proposed (Fien & Trainer 1993a, p. 14) and the values basis underlying them and, thereby, has not provided a critical direction for a pathway to sustainability.