ERIC Number: EJ1297089
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jun
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-2255-7547
EISSN: N/A
From the "Greta Thunberg Effect" to Green Conversion of Universities: The Reconstructive Praxis of Discursive Mobilizations
Feldman, Jonathan Michael
Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education, v12 n1 p121-139 Jun 2021
This paper investigates how one could envision a discursive mobilization process to transform protest movements into agents that help reconstruct the universities as agents supporting material mobilizations leading to ecological reconstruction. After reviewing universities' ecological footprints, the author shows how theories of mobilization and conjunctures could contribute to understanding how this transformation could occur. "Discursive mobilizations" advance values or ideas but stop short of innovation and production system changes. "Material mobilizations" affect deployment of human, technological, industrial and financial resources. "Conjunctures" involve linkages of political activity to spaces implicated in both kinds of mobilizations in a given historical time frame. The study shows many nations having both extensive climate activism and concentrations of university students creating a possibility for greening education centers based on various models for doing so. Yet, two key problems emerge. First, some nations lag in climate activism. Second, interest in a Green Deal or Green New Deal does not always match the level of attention to leading activist Greta Thunberg. The paper illustrates how such problems can be addressed by university-based campaigns linking activist cohorts, mobilization supporting green conversion of higher education and solidaristic, mutual aid exchanges among regions.
Descriptors: Universities, Conservation (Environment), Political Influences, Activism, Climate, Change Agents, Organizational Change, Social Theories, History, College Students, International Cooperation, Higher Education, Educational Change, Energy Conservation, Wastes, Water, Food, Transportation, Foreign Countries, Sustainability
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A