Education for sustainability in business schools by practicing social learning

Paola Schmitt Figueiró,Soraia Schutel,Bruno Anicet Bittencourt

doi:10.1186/s40552-016-0014-7

Abstract

The insertion of sustainability in business schools has been more relevant in the last decades. One of the purposes of education for sustainability (EfS) is to develop individuals with knowledge and skills to make decisions based on their environmental, social and economic context, through reflection and critical thinking, so that students are oriented toward action and change. Therefore, this paper emphasizes the need of collaboration between different actors on the teaching and learning process through Social Learning, as a theoretical perspective that considers socializing and learning as inseparable processes. Thus, the question that has oriented this research is “how can Social Learning, focusing on collaboration between different actors, contribute to effective EfS in business schools?” To answer this question, action research was conducted with a social project developed in a public high school, with children in high social vulnerability conditions, considering their interactions with two business schools in southern Brazil, in undergraduate and MBA courses. Through the integration of different socioeconomic realities, it was possible to analyze the construction of knowledge on issues related to sustainability and the transformation of those involved in the process of teaching and learning.

Highlights

The paradigms of management still reinforce the mainstream modus operandi of organizations, where decision-making is limited, in particular, to economic factors, without considering an integral perspective of management and human beings
If the objective of management is the proper functioning of an organization, the pursuit of efficiency, one may wonder: efficiency for whom, for what purpose, why? Organizations are being evaluated for economic factors, and from an environmental and social point
Cooperation has to be promoted between individuals, because when people are gathered in groups, the construction of a consensus and mutual learning are effective means to deal with conflicting interests in a cooperative manner and toward sustainability (Hansmann 2010)

Summary

Background

The paradigms of management still reinforce the mainstream modus operandi of organizations, where decision-making is limited, in particular, to economic factors, without considering an integral perspective of management and human beings. The power of collectivities can boost individual action, the development of socioemotional skills, and the construction of a more critical view in students, based on social practices that take into account experience sharing, interaction and collaboration For such intent, cooperation has to be promoted between individuals, because when people are gathered in groups, the construction of a consensus and mutual learning are effective means to deal with conflicting interests in a cooperative manner and toward sustainability (Hansmann 2010). No steps were pre-defined by researchers, but appeared as a consequence of one another In this context, two Interactions as part of a teaching episode were carried out involving collaboration between students from the field of management and elementary school students in a disadvantaged community in southern Brazil that were members of a social project—Convexo School—that aims to stimulate leadership by intertwining different realities. The children spoke about their involvement with Convexo School, and one of the mothers gave a touching testimony about the changes that the school has been promoting in her daughters’ lives

Involvement in the preparation of activities and their conduction

The heterogeneity of the actors who participated in the project