This chapter describes a course module for an interdisciplinary university course about questions of sustainability that aims to teach students how to reject approaches to sustainability questions that focus on individualizing the responsibility for climate catastrophe to instead take systemic approaches that also consider questions of global economy and production systems. The course module has been designed and taught by an interdisciplinary group of researchers to integrate critical social science perspectives with nature science in a productive way that informs and supports the broader critical points while contextualizing nature science politically. The chapter lays out the design of the course module in a way that makes it possible for the reader to use it in their own circumstances and evaluates it based on notes taken during the planning and teaching as well as student presentations and feedback. The results indicate that the course module works in getting the students to start thinking critically and systemically, for example by rejecting greenwashing, but that they are also still quickly defaulting to a framework of individual responsibility. Getting the students to start thinking systemically can be seen as an acceptable outcome for a 2-weeks course module in the face of life-long hegemony. The interdisciplinary approach takes more time for planning, but can be recommended because of the way in which the approaches support each other. Finally, the reactions of the students have shown that there is a need to plan for emotional responses to this kind of education. Questioning the frame of individual responsibility produces reactions of guilt and shame in the students and even reveals stories of manipulation by previous educators and family members. These responses are something that the course module and education like this in general might need to consider in the future.

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Teaching Sustainable Development: On Systemic Issues and Fake Excuses

  • Patrick Prax,
  • Sieglind Wallner Hahn,
  • Adrianus Both

摘要

This chapter describes a course module for an interdisciplinary university course about questions of sustainability that aims to teach students how to reject approaches to sustainability questions that focus on individualizing the responsibility for climate catastrophe to instead take systemic approaches that also consider questions of global economy and production systems. The course module has been designed and taught by an interdisciplinary group of researchers to integrate critical social science perspectives with nature science in a productive way that informs and supports the broader critical points while contextualizing nature science politically. The chapter lays out the design of the course module in a way that makes it possible for the reader to use it in their own circumstances and evaluates it based on notes taken during the planning and teaching as well as student presentations and feedback. The results indicate that the course module works in getting the students to start thinking critically and systemically, for example by rejecting greenwashing, but that they are also still quickly defaulting to a framework of individual responsibility. Getting the students to start thinking systemically can be seen as an acceptable outcome for a 2-weeks course module in the face of life-long hegemony. The interdisciplinary approach takes more time for planning, but can be recommended because of the way in which the approaches support each other. Finally, the reactions of the students have shown that there is a need to plan for emotional responses to this kind of education. Questioning the frame of individual responsibility produces reactions of guilt and shame in the students and even reveals stories of manipulation by previous educators and family members. These responses are something that the course module and education like this in general might need to consider in the future.