Preamble: Singers gathering on stage. This is a paper for three voices. An attempt at a philosophic experience in the symphonic form. The first voice carries the tune and holds the shape of the paper as it focuses on Baudrillard and proposes that public education in Canada today is in fact a simulacra. The second voice has more room to roam,…

This response problematizes Stefan Bengtsson's (2016) defense of education for sustainable development. He argues that sustainable development and education for sustainable development are not globalizing and hegemonic discourses, as some have claimed, and uses case-study analysis of Vietnamese policy documents to support his claims. He observes…

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…

This article traces the development of the World Environmental Congress movement and its establishment as an important international forum. Reflecting on the 5th Congress, it notes the particular contribution of the Congress theme, "Our Common Home". Finally, it considers environmental education's place alongside other parallel transformative…

This study contends that environmental education is being significantly altered by globalizing forces, witnessing the effort to convert environmental education into education for sustainable development. This internationally propagated conversion can be challenged from many vantage points. This study identifies anomalies that have arisen as…

In Canada education for sustainable development is not flourishing. This may seem curious as The Decade of Education For Sustainable Development is now well underway. But this isn't a bad news story. There are interesting dynamics at play and many great initiatives are emerging. This assessment is a story too. There are many ways of interpreting…

Examines the limitations associated with the language of sustainability and their implications for environmental thinking. Explores what sustainability is not by using the idea of digital watches as a metaphor. Uses contemporary examples from advertising, curriculum development, and wildlife management to illustrate the central theme. (Author/SAH)

It is higher education's responsibility continuously to challenge and critique value and knowledge claims that have prescriptive tendencies. Part of this responsibility lies in engaging students in socio-scientific disputes. The ill-defined nature of sustainability manifests itself in such disputes when conflicting values, norms, interests, and…

This article takes the view that in a globalizing context the concept of "sustainable development" should not be assumed uncritically. Further, tensions arise when education is constructed as an instrument for the implementation of this concept, as manifest in the term "education for sustainable development". With critical concern about…

The incompatibility between educating for "sustainable development" and the broader concept of education is discussed, pointing out the imprecision of the term "sustainable development." Alternative, and more educationally justifiable, approaches to studying environmental education and development are explored. (SLD)