Southern Africa, where most of these book chapters originate, has been identified as one of regions of the world most at risk of the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change. At the same time, it is still seeking ways to overcome the century long ravages of colonial and apartheid impositions of structural and epistemic violence. Research deliberations and applied research case studies in environmental education and activism from this region provide an emerging contextualized engagement that is related to a wider internationally articulated quest to achieve social-ecological justice, resilience and sustainability through educational interventions. This book introduces a decade of mainly southern African critical realist environmental education research and thinking that asks the question: "How can we facilitate learning processes that will lead to the flourishing of the Earth’s people and ecosystems in more socially just ways?" The environmental education research topics represented in this book are wide-ranging. However, they all exhibit the common theme of social justice and wanting to create change towards a better future. All the authors have used critical realist or critical realist-influenced research methodologies. Offering contributions from a small but growing community of researchers working with critical realism in the global South, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of environmental education, sustainability, development and the philosophy of critical realism in general.

Southern Africa, where most of these book chapters originate, has been identified as one of regions of the world most at risk of the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change. At the same time, it is still seeking ways to overcome the century long ravages of colonial and apartheid impositions of structural and epistemic violence. Research deliberations and applied research case studies in environmental education and activism from this region provide an emerging contextualized engagement that is related to a wider internationally articulated quest to achieve social-ecological justice, resilience and sustainability through educational interventions. This book introduces a decade of mainly southern African critical realist environmental education research and thinking that asks the question: "How can we facilitate learning processes that will lead to the flourishing of the Earth’s people and ecosystems in more socially just ways?" The environmental education research topics represented in this book are wide-ranging. However, they all exhibit the common theme of social justice and wanting to create change towards a better future. All the authors have used critical realist or critical realist-influenced research methodologies. Offering contributions from a small but growing community of researchers working with critical realism in the global South, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of environmental education, sustainability, development and the philosophy of critical realism in general.

This book provides a critique of over two decades of sustained effort to infuse educational systems with education for sustainable development. Taking to heart the idea that deconstruction is a prelude to reconstruction, this critique leads to discussions about how education can be remade, and respond to the educational imperatives of our time, particularly as they relate to ecological crises and human-nature relationships. It will be of great interest to students and researchers of sociology, education, philosophy and environmental issues.

This book proposes transformative, realist methodology for skills research and planning through an analysis of case studies of the changing world of work, new learning pathways and educational system challenges. Studies of the green economy and sustainability transitions are a growing field internationally, however there are few books that link this interest to the development of skills. This book draws on, and showcases, the experience and insights of researcher-practitioners who are at the cutting edge in this emerging field, internationally and in South Africa. The context for this book is South Africa, but application is worldwide. In many ways indicative of the global picture, South Africa is in the grip of economic and environmental imperatives, searching for safe and just transitions. The authors present a new, embedded transitioning systems model for studying skills for a sustainable, just future. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainable development, ecological economics and skills planning.

Drawing on studies in environmental and sustainability education, this book brings together new work that has explored the research-policy interface in varied contexts and from diverse perspectives.It will be beneficial to those interested in understanding the interface between research and policy. The relationship between research and policy has become an increasing focus for theoretical inquiry, empirical investigation, and practical development across many different fields. This volume highlights new empirical insights, theoretical ideas, practical examples, and methodological approaches for understanding, navigating, and developing more productive research-policy relationships. This book will be beneficial to anyone who is interested in understanding the interface between research and policy. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Environmental Education Research.

This book consists of stories of struggles in science education presented by a network of science educators working in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Britain, and the United States. The common goal of these educators is to produce more socially/ecologically just models and practices of science education. The book considers and reworks the key-terms of current social justice: agency, realism, justice, and power. Its first section explores re-inhabiting science in the quest for more just worlds including reterritorializing science within emergent theories of critical realism, engaging citizens activists with corporate science, and challenging neoliberalism and the forces that organize (structure) knowledge. The second section redefines praxis of science education itself through nuanced explorations of agency, decolonialism, and justice in ways that emphasize complexity, hybridity, ambivalence, and contradiction. The stories of this international group capture individual and collective efforts, motivated by a persistent sense that science and science education matter for questions of justice.

This book goes beyond environmental protection and looks at sustainability by predominantly focusing on human and social sustainability and this focus is carried into sections of the book that discuss sustainable policies, media and gender. The book takes an academic and practitioner approach.