Education for sustainable living: a useful concept?

Abstract

In recent years education for sustainability (EFS) initiatives have significantly influenced debates and activities related to environmental education. Sustainability has come to be viewed from/in various theoretical perspectives such as liberalist, critical and postmodern. The concept is a contested one, open to debate and speculation. In this article I critically discuss some emerging discourses on environmental education and how sustainability has been taken up within different discourses. I argue that the contested nature of the concept, however, does not mean that it cannot be usefully taken up within environmental education processes. I specifically focus on how the concept has been adopted by students in a preservice science education programme at the University of Stellenbosch.


South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.16(2) 2002: 49-55