Higher environmental education: core disciplines and the transition to sustainability the transition to sustainability

Abstract

Environmental practitioners hiring staff or seeking study opportunities may be curious about how meaningfully Australian environmental and sustainability programs are named. Here, an internet-based audit of the core curricula of relevant Australian offerings, an expert questionnaire, and a novel application of quantitative clustering contribute some understanding. Various types of environmental education are suggested by clustering core curricula, but those types are not consistently indicated by course names, especially in undergraduate-level studies. Although very few programs use the term ‘sustainable’ or ‘sustainability’ in their name (especially at the undergraduate level), many do explicitly aim to educate for sustainability according to web marketing. Such programs are closer to approximating an expert-derived ‘ideal core curriculum’ than the rest, although in aggregate they still lack relevant policy and philosophy content.