Using a meta-review approach organized historically in relation to critical policy incidents, this paper critically reviews the process of developing and (re) invigorating Environment and Sustainability Education (ESE) (policy) research "as ESE policy" engagement over a 30+ year period in a rapidly transforming society, South Africa. It…

This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of 'scaling up' or 'scaling' of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how 'scaling up' ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as…

The SDGs mark the clearest global acceptance yet that the previous approach to development was unsustainable. In VET, UNESCO has responded by developing a clear account of how a transformed VET must be part of a transformative approach to development. It argues that credible, comprehensive skills systems can be built that can support individuals,…

In this response article, I draw on critical realist perspectives to engage with the argument put forward in Bengtsson's study, which sees agency as an ontological necessity for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) policy engagement. Bengtsson supports a notion of the logic of contingent action over the logic of power as dominance,…

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the cross-institutional assessment of sustainable development practices in the University of Gondar (UoG). The focus of the assessment was the level of UoG academic departments' integration of sustainability concerns in teaching, research and community service. Management contributions to…

International policy analysis tends to simplify the nation state, portraying countries as coherent units that can be described by one statistic or placed into one category. As scholars from Brazil, South Africa, and the USA, we find the nation-centric research perspective particularly challenging. In each of our home countries, the effective…

The Bonn Declaration, approved by the 900 participants at the UNESCO World Conference on Sustainable Development, differs from other conference declarations in that it is the first declaration to deal exclusively with education for sustainable development. It received input from official State representatives and, perhaps because of that, it is…

This article deliberates the possibilities for Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) to become "experiments" in social learning. The purpose of the article is to advance the broader research agenda of RCEs through reflection on the empirical research agenda of one RCE, Makana RCE in South Africa. As such it opens questions on how we might…

This paper explores the use of systems theory to inform the mainstreaming of sustainability in a university's functions as it responds to sustainable development challenges in its local context. Offering a case study of Rhodes University, the paper shows how the use of systems models and concepts, underpinned by a critical realist ontology and an…

This paper considers the question of what education for sustainable development (ESD) research might signify when linked to the concept of "retention", and how this relation (ESD and retention) might be researched. It considers two different perspectives on retention, as revealed through educational research trajectories, drawing on existing…

Badiou's ontological work draws attention to multiplicities--the oneness of ontology, which he explains can only become ontologically differentiated into events or sites through political, artistic or amorous practices that philosophies can think and invent from. He also draws attention to the fusion of events and sites, and he explains that…

What motivates more than 800 people from 101 countries around the world to meet at a World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC)? And how does one make the most of such an incredible gathering of people, cultures, thoughts and minds? What did people learn and was it worthwhile? These are just some of the questions that have been chasing through…

Recent international policy literature on Education for Sustainable Development puts forward utopian concepts of sustainable development and transformed learning as objects for educational thinking and practice. This paper, drawing on three illustrative educational investigations with youth in a South African context, critically examines how we…

This paper traces the translation processes associated with the mobilization of resources and human agency in the development of a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Innovations Course for universities in Africa. University teachers are often neglected in teacher education initiatives. There are…

This response to McKenzie suggests that the issues of representivity, legitimacy and politics, inscribed within an institutional continuism characteristic of modernity within the McKenzie discourse, could well be recast within a reflexive view informed by insights derived with developing social theory. It briefly overviews the struggle for human…