The different responses, interpretations, and consequent critiques of Stefan Lars Bengtsson's "Hegemony and the Politics of Policy Making for Education for Sustainable Development" highlight how the various critical outlooks are framed by, seemingly, incommensurable positions, or figures of reasoning, that inform their thinking.…

In responding to Jesse Bazzul's and Annette Gough's articles I maintain that contemporary positivist science curricula cannot address the urgent issues of sustainability and biopower that confront us. Drawing on the writings and interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas I argue that contemplating the meaning of responsibility to the Other is a radically…

One of the major points to grow out of the four papers presented in this issue is how to think of education in relation to the various challenges facing the biosphere, facing the future of human and other than human life forms, and facing the sheer difficulties of planning what to do about them. The differences in the role of education, of course,…

Marie Ståhl and Anita Hussénius have defined what discourses dominate national tests in chemistry for Grade 9 in Sweden by using feminist, critical didactic perspectives. This response seeks to expand the results in Ståhl and Hussénius's article "Chemistry inside an epistemological community box!--Discursive exclusions and inclusions in the…

Johan Dahlbeck works as senior lecturer at Malmo University. His research interest is in the philosophy of education, focusing especially on ethics and the pedagogical implications of Spinoza's philosophy. In this article, he responds to Jim Mackenzie's "Dahlbeck and Pure Ontology" (EJ1105980), which was written in reply to his…

The estimated number of forcibly displaced persons around the globe is at a record high--nearly 70.8 million (UNHCR 2019)--75 percent of whom are women and children. This includes 34 million adolescent girls and young women, who are among the groups with the highest risk for health concerns. Indeed, many of the countries with the worst maternal…

Dr. Michael E. Newman presented the 2016 AAAE Distinguished Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Agricultural Education in Kansas City, Missouri in May, 2016. The article is a philosophical work based upon the author's experiences in the agricultural education profession.

This paper seeks to develop a case for (re)thinking education and sustainability with specific reference to rural Australia. It proposes a critical view of rural-regional sustainability, taking into account notions of bioregionality and ecosocial change. Two key points are made. One is the assertion that rural education as such is better…

This Policy Paper aims at analysing the most important aspects of Public Responsibility, Financing and Governance of Higher Educations while seeking to formulate a students perspective on the state of play within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). In doing so it touches upon the very foundation of how and in which socio-political…

In response to Stefan Bengtsson's search for alternatives to Education for Sustainable Development practices outside the mainstream of the state and its policy formulations, this response outlines how our journey, experiences, and approaches reflect a de-professionalizing encounter with autonomous places of learning emerging from indigenous…

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 European Students' Union (ESU) believes that open access to all levels of education is the cornerstone of a socially, culturally and democratically inclusive society and a pre-requisite for individual and societal development and well-being. ESU sees higher education as a human right, guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and…

In order to have long-term impact ESD concepts, practices and policies should move into societal, policy and research arenas with high visibility and traction. In the process of going "transboundary", the ESD label may fade but the practice and organization of social and collaborative learning may gain.

In this dialogue between two friends and colleagues with different takes on education for sustainability, Canadian environmental education scholar Bob Jickling argues that education "for" any cause is not true education, which should strive to prepare minds to create new ideas, not follow a doctrine. Since we don't have solutions to…

In this paper, the author reviews "Sense & Sustainability: Educating for a Circular Economy," by Ken Webster and Craig Johnson. He reviews the core text that underpins the work of the education team at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (http://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/). He shows that while it is strong on some technical aspects of…