Skip to main content

Education and the Common Good

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment ((PSEE))

Abstract

The chapter responds to a recent invitation by the UNESCO to respond to the contents of their book on the purpose of education, entitled Rethinking Education: Towards a Global Common Good? I explore the concept of the common good (as it relates to concepts of commons and commoning activity) and what it might mean to engage with commoning as an educational activity, if the commons, as argued by Amin and Howell, is to be “released” from historical descriptions of commons and commoning activity, to embrace a futures orientation. Drawing on critical realism and decolonization theory, as well as experience of working with expansive social learning, I propose that an educational theory grounded in a concept of emergence is needed in such a context.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Location 241 of 7081 in e-book version

  2. 2.

    Location 387 of 7081 in e-book version

  3. 3.

    Location 5240 of 7081 in the e-book version

  4. 4.

    Location 192 of 7081 in e-book version

References

  • Amin, A., & Howell, P. (2016). Releasing the commons: Rethinking the futures of the commons. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Appadurai, A. (2014). The future as cultural fact: Essays on the global condition. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, M. (2015). Introduction: Other conceptions of generative mechanisms. In M. Archer (Ed.), Generative mechanisms transforming the social order (pp. 1–26). Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhaskar, R. (2008). Dialectic: The pulse of freedom. New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chakrabarty, D. (2009). The climate of history: Four theses. Critical Inquiry, 35(Winter), 197–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Choudry, A. (2015). Learning activism: The intellectual life of contemporary social movements. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Angelis, M. (2006). Editorial. The Commoner, 11(Spring/Summer), 1–3. Retrieved from http://www.commoner.org.uk

    Google Scholar 

  • De Sousa Santos, B. (2009). Epistemilogicas do Sul. Coimbra: Almendina [Translated into English as Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide]. [2014]. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Delors, J. et al. (1996). Learning: The treasure within. Paris: UNESCO.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dussel, E. (1998). Beyond Eurocentrism: The world-system and the limits of modernity. In F. Jameson & M. Myoshi (Eds.), The cultures of globalization (pp. 3–31). Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.

    Google Scholar 

  • Engeström, Y. (2007). Enriching the theory of expansive learning: Lessons from journeys towards co-configuration. Mind, Culture and Activity, 14(1–2), 23–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Educational Research Review, doi:10.1016/j.edurv.200212.002

    Google Scholar 

  • Engeström, Y., & Sannino, A. (2016). Expansive learning on the move: Insights from ongoing research. Infancia y Aprendizaje /Journal for the Study of Education and Development, 39(3), 401–435. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02103702.2016.1189119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (Myra Bergman Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson-Graham, J. K. (1996). The end of capitalism (As we knew it): A feminist critique of political economy. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson-Graham, J. K., Cameron, J., & Healy, S. (2016). Commoning as postcapitalist politics. In A. Amin & P. Howell (Eds.), Releasing the commons: Rethinking the futures of the commons (pp. 192–212). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 2343–1248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kachilonda, D. (2015). Investigating and expanding learning in co-management of fisheries resources to inform extension training. (Unpublished PhD thesis). Rhodes University, Grahamstown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linebaugh, P. (2008). The Magna Carta manifesto: Liberties and commons for all. California: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Linebaugh, P. (2014). Stop thief! The commons, enclosures and resistance. Oakland, CA: PM Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martinez-Alier, J., Anguelovski, I., Bond, P., Del Bene, D., Demaria, F., Gerber, J.-F., Yánez, I. (2014). Between activism and science: Grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations. Journal of Political Ecology, 21, 19–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mukute, M. (2010). Exploring and expanding learning in sustainable agricultural practices in Southern Africa. (Unpublished draft PhD). Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mukute, M. (2016). Dialectical critical realism and cultural historical activity theory (CHAT): Exploring and expanding learning processes in sustainable agriculture workplace contexts. In L. Price & H. B. Lotz-Sisitka (Eds.), Critical realism, environmental oearning and social-ecological change (pp. 190–211). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mukute, M., & Lotz-Sisitka, H. (2012). Working with cultural-historical activity theory and critical realism to investigate and expand farmer learning in Southern Africa. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(4), 342–367.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nixon, R. (2011). Slow violence and the environmentalism of the poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, E. (2010). Beyond markets and states: Polycentic governance of complex economic systems. American Economic Review, 100(3), 641–672. doi:10.1257/aer.100.3.641

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pesanayi, T. (2016). Exploring contradictions and absences in mobilizing “learning as process” for sustainable agricultural practices. In L. Price & H. B. Lotz-Sisitka (Eds.), Critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change (pp. 230–253). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pithouse, R. (2014). An urban commons? Notes from South Africa. Community Development Journal, 49(suppl 1), i31–i43. doi:10.1093/cdj/bsu013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plumwood, V. (2007, (August–September)). A review of Deborah Bird Rose’s report from a wild country: Ethics of decolonisation. Australian Humanities Review, 42, 1–4.

    Google Scholar 

  • Price, L., & Lotz-Sisitka, H. (Eds.), (2016). Critical realism, environmental learning and social-ecological change. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, D., with Bhaskar, R. (2015). Roy Bhaska:. A theory of education. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Shiva, V. (1992). The seed and the earth: Women, ecology and biotechnology. The Ecologist, 22(1), 4–8.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shiva, V. (2005). Earth democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Slater, D. (2004). Geopolitics and the post-colonial: Rethinking North-South relations. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Solnit, R. (2014). The encyclopaedia for trouble and spaciousness. San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • UNESCO. (2015). Rethinking education: Towards a global common good? Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002325/232555e.pdf

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheelahan, L. (2010). Competency-based training, powerful knowledge and the working class. In K. Maton & R. Moore (Eds.), Social realism, knowledge and the sociology of education: Coalitions of the mind (pp. 93–109). New York and London: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zipin, L., Fataar, A., & Brennan, M. (2015). Can social realism do social justice? Debating the warrants for curriculum knowledge selection. Education as Change, 19(2), 9–36. doi:10.1080/16823206.2015.1085610

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Heila Lotz-Sisitka .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lotz-Sisitka, H. (2017). Education and the Common Good. In: Jickling, B., Sterling, S. (eds) Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education. Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51322-5_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51322-5_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-51321-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-51322-5

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics