Curriculum in the Global Culture: Is a Critical Pedagogy of Place Enough? Intersecting Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies with Environmental Education

As a result of global forms of education, schooling has a tendency to become more homogenized, and thus the particularities of the locality tend to be erased. Therefore, it is imperative for teachers to strive to sustain and revitalize the cultures of students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, and move toward a more pluralistic outcome in education. How can such pedagogies be integrated within the classroom? With global environmental issues such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, and urban pollution, a place-based form of environmental education would be a powerful alternative to integrate culturally sustaining pedagogies to protect local cultures and communities. This chapter examines three different versions of place-based pedagogies and analyzes what intersections occur with culturally sustaining pedagogies as described by Django Paris and H. Sami Alim. Specifically, it examines Greenwood’s Critical Pedagogy of Place, Bowers’s Eco-Justice Pedagogy, and Tuck’s Land Education in regard to how they bring about a pluralistic outcome to education, revere traditional culture with an eye to how culture evolves and focuses on the social justice aspects of environmental education.