Abstract
AbstractThis paper explores the innovative socio-educational experience ofHuerto Alegre(Spain), linking it to a critical perspective of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Going beyond the ‘pluralist practices’ associated with the ESD, our case study seeks to redefine ESD from a critical and ecocentric perspective within the context of the Earth Charter (EC). Huerto Alegre’s social-educational programme is aimed at children and young people with the objective of creating critical thinking and fostering connections between school and the natural environment by working collaboratively with teaching professionals. The methodology of the paper focuses on a content analysis of the centre’s key documents and on the narratives of students, in addition to an in-depth interview with its director. It also presents a critical reconstruction of the subject. This complements, and gives meaning to, the theoretical debates surrounding ESD — debates that call for structural changes to our current model of society.
Highlights
It is interesting to note that the language, which was used in this international seminar was much more explicit and categorical than the language currently used by the DESD with regard to the underlying problems related to the environment: economic model, global governance and political order (Huckle and Wals, 2015)
Neoliberalism has succeeded in colonising the nascent critical perspective of Environmental Education, which emerged at the Belgrade Seminar of 1975 (UNESCO-UNEP, 1975), incorporating market logic to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has shifted the focus of structural issues towards issues that are more in line with individual decisions relating to values, lifestyles and behaviours (Selby and Kagawa, 2010)
Summary
Objectives of theHA environmental education projectHA members start from the goals proposed in the Environmental Education Seminar of Belgrade, 1975. It is interesting to note that the language, which was used in this international seminar was much more explicit and categorical than the language currently used by the DESD with regard to the underlying problems related to the environment: economic model, global governance and political order (Huckle and Wals, 2015). In this conference, raising awareness about the environment and its problems, relating them to human interactions with the natural world and interactions between humans themselves, were identified as EE goals. She highlights values and their environmental importance: How we develop attitudes, values, behaviours, and how they can be changed has the ultimate objective of helping to change the direction of this society, so that it can move towards more humanistic and sustainable goals and develop a new environmental culture (director).
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