Sustainability, Social Justice & Education Reform for New Futures

This session includes four presentations, discussing sustainability, social justice, and education reform for new futures. The papers cover a wide range of urgent policy issues, including a policy ethnography of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Taiwan, alternative education frameworks for interspecies justice, and intersections of social justice education and sustainability. Please listen to the recorded presentations and join authors and the invited discussant, Sonia Mehta, to further explore these issues together in a live session on March 25, 2020 at 12:00-13:30 pm ETS:

‘Implementing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): A Policy Ethnography of Taiwan’s Environmental Education Act’ by Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang, McGill University (see abstract)

‘Dismantling the Human-Animal Divide in Education: The Case for Critical Humane Education’ by Sarah Rose Olson, Western Washington University (see abstract)

‘Social Justice Education – the Forgotten Heart of Sustainability Education: A Critical Analysis and Agenda for the Future’ by Daniel Fischer & Carlos R. Casanova, Arizona State University (see abstract)

‘Ethical Internationalization: Challenges, Frameworks and Responsible Practices in International Higher Education’ by Aryn Baxter, University of Idaho (see abstract)

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‘Implementing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): A Policy Ethnography of Taiwan’s Environmental Education Act’ by Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang, McGill University

‘Dismantling the Human-Animal Divide in Education: The Case for Critical Humane Education’ by Sarah Rose Olson, Western Washington University 

‘Social Justice Education – the Forgotten Heart of Sustainability Education: A Critical Analysis and Agenda for the Future’ by Daniel Fischer & Carlos R. Casanova, Arizona State University

‘Ethical Internationalization: Challenges, Frameworks and Responsible Practices in International Higher Education’ by Aryn Baxter, University of Idaho

Presenters

Ying-Syuan (Elaine) Huang is a recent PhD graduate from McGill University (Montréal, Canada) with a passion for advancing creative practices for sustainability transformations. She has a strong interest in working with multi-disciplinary teams on research related to the evaluation and implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)at various scale. Elaine is currently a part of a research team studying how social learning has influenced international partnerships on climate resilience and development research. E-mail: ying.huang6@mail.mcgill.ca

Sarah Rose Olson is an M.Ed. Candidate in Environmental Education at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. She holds a B.A. in Comparative History of Ideas with a tri-focus in Critical Animal, Environmental, and Gender Studies from the University of Washington. Sarah’s main research interest is incorporating critical animal studies into humanities and environmental education contexts, specifically examining how animals are socially constructed through language and education. Sarah can be contacted at solson208@gmail.com

Carlos R. Casanova is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the School of Sustainability. Carlos’ is a trained sociologist and social justice educator. He has nearly a decade of professional work experience with historically marginalized social groups in community-based organizations. His main fields of interest are education and society with a focus on social justice, youth activism, healing, pedagogy and curriculum, power, privilege, and oppression. Carlos is interested in (Un)documented Latinx youth ideology (e.g. ideas, attitudes, and beliefs) development. His focus is on ideologies promoted in public education and the impact they have on individual and social group behavior. He also explores how social practices critique, transform, and construct ideologies. His three-year critical ethnography dissertation in social and cultural studies of education is titled “(Un)documented Midwest Latinx youth resistance towards politics of immigration and education.” His research offers a critical youth development model and a pedagogy he calls, “humanizing pedagogy of knowledge and healing.” E-mail: ccasano3@asu.edu

Daniel Fischer is an assistant professor at the School of Sustainability and an affiliate faculty member at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Before that, he worked for 10 years at Leuphana University in Germany, where he still is a guest professor. In his research and teaching, Daniel casts an educational perspective on the question of how sustainable consumption can be promoted through communication and learning. He uses inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to understand how consumption patterns evolve and change. Daniel has a strong interest in how innovative teaching and learning strategies like mindfulness, storytelling or citizen science can increase reflexivity in learners and – in an educational tradition – help us reshape our relations to the consumer societies that we have been born, encultured and socialized into in the industrialized world. E-mail: dfische6@asu.edu

Aryn Baxter is an Executive Director of International Programs at the University of Idaho. In this role, she oversees International Grants, Contracts and Initiatives, Education Abroad, International Services, and the American Language and Culture Program, as well as collaborates with colleagues across the university to expand access to transformative global learning and engagement opportunities and advance comprehensive internationalization. Aryn’s expertise lies at the intersection of international education and international development with a focus on international scholarship programs and university partnerships in African and North American contexts. She holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in Education Policy and Administration with a concentration in Comparative and International Development Education from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. from Gordon College. E-mail: abaxter@uidaho.edu

Discussant

Sonia Mehta teaches Education and the Challenge of Globalization, and Education and Social Change, at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. Her research interests focus on comparative education, international/ global studentship, critical social cartographer and open source, accessible life-long learning. She is currently engaged with two specific adventures: exploring education as an ethic of ecological and social justice and building knowledge networks for a sustainable planet.