Why ontology matters to reviewing environmental education
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182646 , vital:43850 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620902807550"
- Description: This paper responds to a keynote paper presented by William Scott at the 2007 World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa. The keynote address reviewed 30 years of environmental education research. In this response to William Scott's paper I contemplate the way in which environmental education research may enable reflexivity in modernity and develop knowledge that can serve as cultural mediator between individual and society. Through emphasizing ontology, I consider the reality of global knowledge production in relation to the way in which ontology may influence the reasons how and why we come to do particular forms of research, providing an ontological reference for the ever‐expanding pluralism that characterizes the field of environmental education research. The paper comments on various aspects of the Scott paper, but presents an argument for not only valuing pluralism, methodological experimentation and ‘reaching out’, but for embracing the cosmopolitan implications of wider ontological referents of environmental concerns in environmental education research. The paper argues that research in environmental education ought to become ontologically defensible at both local and global scales.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182646 , vital:43850 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620902807550"
- Description: This paper responds to a keynote paper presented by William Scott at the 2007 World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa. The keynote address reviewed 30 years of environmental education research. In this response to William Scott's paper I contemplate the way in which environmental education research may enable reflexivity in modernity and develop knowledge that can serve as cultural mediator between individual and society. Through emphasizing ontology, I consider the reality of global knowledge production in relation to the way in which ontology may influence the reasons how and why we come to do particular forms of research, providing an ontological reference for the ever‐expanding pluralism that characterizes the field of environmental education research. The paper comments on various aspects of the Scott paper, but presents an argument for not only valuing pluralism, methodological experimentation and ‘reaching out’, but for embracing the cosmopolitan implications of wider ontological referents of environmental concerns in environmental education research. The paper argues that research in environmental education ought to become ontologically defensible at both local and global scales.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Viewpoint: reading conference recommendations in a wider context of social change
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67411 , vital:29085 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122783
- Description: publisher version , This short Viewpoint paper considers the role and value of conference recommendations in shaping the field of environmental education. It explores the social politics, and often contested nature, of conference recommendations and their institutional histories, arguing that the act of producing conference recommendations forms part of the practices of new social movements. The paper recommends historicising conference recommendations and OEcross readings‚ to consider changing discourses and new developments in the field. Accompanying the short Viewpoint paper, are two sets of recently produced conference recommendations, one from the 4th International Environmental Education Conference held in Ahmedabad, India, and the other from the 1st International Conference on Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities held in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67411 , vital:29085 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122783
- Description: publisher version , This short Viewpoint paper considers the role and value of conference recommendations in shaping the field of environmental education. It explores the social politics, and often contested nature, of conference recommendations and their institutional histories, arguing that the act of producing conference recommendations forms part of the practices of new social movements. The paper recommends historicising conference recommendations and OEcross readings‚ to consider changing discourses and new developments in the field. Accompanying the short Viewpoint paper, are two sets of recently produced conference recommendations, one from the 4th International Environmental Education Conference held in Ahmedabad, India, and the other from the 1st International Conference on Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in African Universities held in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Integrating scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a post-graduate professional degree
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ellery, Karen
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69489 , vital:29542 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37710
- Description: This article argues for the integration of both scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies within an Environmental Education (EE) post-graduate curriculum that is oriented towards sustainability and socio-ecological justice. It is an interpretive study based on an in-depth analysis of five assignments by four scholars registered for the M.Ed. EE course at Rhodes University where a contextualised, reflexive research process, based in a work-place context, forms the integrative pedagogic tool. Analyses indicate that involving students in such a process, with close support and guidance, is an effective means of developing both scholastic and practical epistemologies. It is concluded that research-led integration of scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a transformational curriculum has the potential to provide epistemological access to the academy, advance knowledge within disciplines, and challenge the dominance of scholastic knowledge in higher education settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69489 , vital:29542 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC37710
- Description: This article argues for the integration of both scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies within an Environmental Education (EE) post-graduate curriculum that is oriented towards sustainability and socio-ecological justice. It is an interpretive study based on an in-depth analysis of five assignments by four scholars registered for the M.Ed. EE course at Rhodes University where a contextualised, reflexive research process, based in a work-place context, forms the integrative pedagogic tool. Analyses indicate that involving students in such a process, with close support and guidance, is an effective means of developing both scholastic and practical epistemologies. It is concluded that research-led integration of scholastic and practice-centred epistemologies in a transformational curriculum has the potential to provide epistemological access to the academy, advance knowledge within disciplines, and challenge the dominance of scholastic knowledge in higher education settings.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
National case study : teacher professional development with an education for sustainable development focus in South Africa: development of a network, curriculum framework and resources for teacher education
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of , Career development , Sustainable development -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59646 , vital:27634 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122242
- Description: This national case study reports on the development of a national network, curriculum framework and resources for teacher education, with specific focus on the inclusion of environment and sustainability, also known as education for sustainable development (ESD) in the South African teacher education system. It reviews and reports on the history of environment and sustainability education in teacher education, and from this, the national case study begins to conceptualise a new approach to environment and sustainability teacher education within a new curriculum policy environment, and a new teacher education and development policy environment. Action research case study methodology is used to document the first phase of the emergence of this network, and this report covers Phase 1 of the initiative, which covers formation of the network, review of previous practices, three conceptual development pilot studies undertaken in both in-service and pre-service teacher education environments and a piloting of a ‘Train the Trainers’ or ‘Educate the Teacher Educators’ programme, which complements and extends the actual teacher education and development (TED) programme under development. The study highlights critical insights of relevance to the shift to a content referenced curriculum in South Africa, and shows how the ‘knowledge mix’ which forms the foundation of the new Teacher Education Qualifications Framework can be engaged. It also highlights some features of the changing knowledge environment, and what dominant knowledge practices are in environment and sustainability-related teaching and teacher education practices, opening these up for further scrutiny. It raises concerns that dominant knowledge work, while integrating a range of forms of knowledge (as is expected of the teacher education system under the new policy), tends to be limited by content on problems and issues for raising awareness, and fails to develop deeper conceptual depth and understanding of environment and sustainability, as issues based knowledge dominates. Similarly, it fails to support social innovation as a response to environment and sustainability concerns, as awareness raising dominates in dominant knowledge work. The study provides a revised conceptual framework for the Teacher Development Network (TEDN) programme, with guidance on key elements necessary to take the programme forward in Phase 2.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of , Career development , Sustainable development -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59646 , vital:27634 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122242
- Description: This national case study reports on the development of a national network, curriculum framework and resources for teacher education, with specific focus on the inclusion of environment and sustainability, also known as education for sustainable development (ESD) in the South African teacher education system. It reviews and reports on the history of environment and sustainability education in teacher education, and from this, the national case study begins to conceptualise a new approach to environment and sustainability teacher education within a new curriculum policy environment, and a new teacher education and development policy environment. Action research case study methodology is used to document the first phase of the emergence of this network, and this report covers Phase 1 of the initiative, which covers formation of the network, review of previous practices, three conceptual development pilot studies undertaken in both in-service and pre-service teacher education environments and a piloting of a ‘Train the Trainers’ or ‘Educate the Teacher Educators’ programme, which complements and extends the actual teacher education and development (TED) programme under development. The study highlights critical insights of relevance to the shift to a content referenced curriculum in South Africa, and shows how the ‘knowledge mix’ which forms the foundation of the new Teacher Education Qualifications Framework can be engaged. It also highlights some features of the changing knowledge environment, and what dominant knowledge practices are in environment and sustainability-related teaching and teacher education practices, opening these up for further scrutiny. It raises concerns that dominant knowledge work, while integrating a range of forms of knowledge (as is expected of the teacher education system under the new policy), tends to be limited by content on problems and issues for raising awareness, and fails to develop deeper conceptual depth and understanding of environment and sustainability, as issues based knowledge dominates. Similarly, it fails to support social innovation as a response to environment and sustainability concerns, as awareness raising dominates in dominant knowledge work. The study provides a revised conceptual framework for the Teacher Development Network (TEDN) programme, with guidance on key elements necessary to take the programme forward in Phase 2.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Epistemological access as an open question in education
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:21219 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7123 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_46_June_2009/Epistemological_access_as_an_open_question_in_education.sflb.ashx
- Description: In his book Learning to Teach in South Africa Morrow (2007)1 argues that teacher education’s ultimate aim is to enable epistemological access2 to knowledge in the modern world, and that there is a need to find new ways of thinking about teaching in South Africa if we are to meet the challenge of enabling all learners to gain such epistemological access. Morrow relates problems of epistemological access to the dominance of an empiricist epistemology in education, and he also comments on how this is obscured by the ideologies of Outcomes Based Education and learner-centred education (with attendant constructivist, relativist assumptions about knowledge). These problems, he argues, have come to shape curriculum thinking, and hence teaching practice, creating a muddled epistemological context in which teaching practices are taking place. He argues for a realist focus but he does not elaborate on what such a realist focus might mean for enabling epistemological access or for associated teaching practice or for teacher education. He does, however, propose that systematic learning is a necessary way forward.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:21219 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7123 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_46_June_2009/Epistemological_access_as_an_open_question_in_education.sflb.ashx
- Description: In his book Learning to Teach in South Africa Morrow (2007)1 argues that teacher education’s ultimate aim is to enable epistemological access2 to knowledge in the modern world, and that there is a need to find new ways of thinking about teaching in South Africa if we are to meet the challenge of enabling all learners to gain such epistemological access. Morrow relates problems of epistemological access to the dominance of an empiricist epistemology in education, and he also comments on how this is obscured by the ideologies of Outcomes Based Education and learner-centred education (with attendant constructivist, relativist assumptions about knowledge). These problems, he argues, have come to shape curriculum thinking, and hence teaching practice, creating a muddled epistemological context in which teaching practices are taking place. He argues for a realist focus but he does not elaborate on what such a realist focus might mean for enabling epistemological access or for associated teaching practice or for teacher education. He does, however, propose that systematic learning is a necessary way forward.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Exploring learning networks for homestead food gardening and smallholder farming
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182775 , vital:43873 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-f09c3866c "
- Description: The Water Research Commission (WRC) is well known for its high quality knowledge products. The Water Utilisation in Agriculture (WUA) section has, over the years, produced valuable knowledge to guide the harvesting and conservation of rainwater to improve agricultural productivity among smallholder crop farmers and household food producers. This knowledge is useful for especially the many women farmers around the country growing crops to feed their families, and whenever possible selling excess to generate some income. However, one of the problems experienced in the field is that this knowledge does not always reach the intended audience. This is the problem that the Amanzi [Water] for Food project was engaged with.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182775 , vital:43873 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-f09c3866c "
- Description: The Water Research Commission (WRC) is well known for its high quality knowledge products. The Water Utilisation in Agriculture (WUA) section has, over the years, produced valuable knowledge to guide the harvesting and conservation of rainwater to improve agricultural productivity among smallholder crop farmers and household food producers. This knowledge is useful for especially the many women farmers around the country growing crops to feed their families, and whenever possible selling excess to generate some income. However, one of the problems experienced in the field is that this knowledge does not always reach the intended audience. This is the problem that the Amanzi [Water] for Food project was engaged with.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
The green economy learning assessment South Africa: Lessons for higher education, skills and work-based learning
- Rosenberg, Eureta, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ramsarup, Presha
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182765 , vital:43872 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-03-2018-0041"
- Description: The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference to the competency framings of Scharmer (2009) and Wiek et al. (2011); and implications for university and work-based sustainability education, broadly conceptualised in a just transitions framework. The assessment was conducted using desktop policy reviews and an audit of sustainability education providers, online questionnaires to sector experts, focus groups and interviews with practitioners driving green economy initiatives. Policy monitoring and evaluation, and education for sustainable development, emerged as key change levers across nine priority areas including agriculture, energy, natural resources, water, transport and infrastructure. The competencies required to drive sustainability in these areas were clustered as technical, relational and transformational competencies for: making the case; integrated sustainable development planning; strategic adaptive management and expansive learning; working across organisational units; working across knowledge fields; capacity and organisational development; and principle-based leadership. Practitioners develop such competencies through formal higher education and short courses plus course-activated networks and “on the job” learning. The paper adds to the literature on sustainability competencies and raises questions regarding forms of hybrid learning suitable for developing technical, relational and transformative competencies. A national learning needs assessment methodology and tools for customised organisational learning needs assessments are shared. The assessment methodology is novel in this context and the workplace-based tools, original.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Rosenberg, Eureta , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ramsarup, Presha
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182765 , vital:43872 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-03-2018-0041"
- Description: The purpose of this paper is to share and analyse the methodology and findings of the 2016 Green Economy Learning Assessment South Africa, including learning needs identified with reference to the competency framings of Scharmer (2009) and Wiek et al. (2011); and implications for university and work-based sustainability education, broadly conceptualised in a just transitions framework. The assessment was conducted using desktop policy reviews and an audit of sustainability education providers, online questionnaires to sector experts, focus groups and interviews with practitioners driving green economy initiatives. Policy monitoring and evaluation, and education for sustainable development, emerged as key change levers across nine priority areas including agriculture, energy, natural resources, water, transport and infrastructure. The competencies required to drive sustainability in these areas were clustered as technical, relational and transformational competencies for: making the case; integrated sustainable development planning; strategic adaptive management and expansive learning; working across organisational units; working across knowledge fields; capacity and organisational development; and principle-based leadership. Practitioners develop such competencies through formal higher education and short courses plus course-activated networks and “on the job” learning. The paper adds to the literature on sustainability competencies and raises questions regarding forms of hybrid learning suitable for developing technical, relational and transformative competencies. A national learning needs assessment methodology and tools for customised organisational learning needs assessments are shared. The assessment methodology is novel in this context and the workplace-based tools, original.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Transitioning into work: A learning and work transitioning process perspective
- Ramsarup, Presha, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392944 , vital:68814 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: Due to the relative newness and contemporary emergence of environmental concerns and sustainable development challenges, policies and forms of work, little is known about the transitioning patterns from education to work. As environmental occupations are found in multiple sectors, and at multiple levels, it is necessary to understand how diversity of disciplinary foundation, historical factors and the nature of the field-based occupation as it is emerging influence transitions into work, especially for highly specialised occupations that are in high demand, such as wildlife vets or wetland ecologists, and in critical occupations that shape sustainable development for whole communities, such as sustainable development employees in municipalities. This chapter utilises a complex notion of learning pathways as neither completely individualistic nor wholly structurally determined, and positions our interest in transitions research within a framing of critical vocationalism that seeks to address not only individual experiences of transitioning, or individual agentive factors, but also structural dynamics and structural processes that can help to ‘ease’ the transitioning process in these critical areas of green skills development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Ramsarup, Presha , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/392944 , vital:68814 , ISBN 9780429279362 , https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279362
- Description: Due to the relative newness and contemporary emergence of environmental concerns and sustainable development challenges, policies and forms of work, little is known about the transitioning patterns from education to work. As environmental occupations are found in multiple sectors, and at multiple levels, it is necessary to understand how diversity of disciplinary foundation, historical factors and the nature of the field-based occupation as it is emerging influence transitions into work, especially for highly specialised occupations that are in high demand, such as wildlife vets or wetland ecologists, and in critical occupations that shape sustainable development for whole communities, such as sustainable development employees in municipalities. This chapter utilises a complex notion of learning pathways as neither completely individualistic nor wholly structurally determined, and positions our interest in transitions research within a framing of critical vocationalism that seeks to address not only individual experiences of transitioning, or individual agentive factors, but also structural dynamics and structural processes that can help to ‘ease’ the transitioning process in these critical areas of green skills development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Situated culture, ethics and new learning theory: emerging perspectives in environmental education research
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6095 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008617
- Description: Celebrating the 8th International Invitational Research and Development Seminar. This edition of the EEASA Journal celebrates the hosting of the 8th International Invitational Research and Development Seminar on Environmental and Health Education in South Africa in March 2005. The International Invitational Research and Development Seminars are ‘special events’ in the field of environmental and health education research. They are characterised by their democratic, deliberative nature, and by their intent to scope innovation and methodological issues. First established some years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, these seminars have provided an evolving international forum for researchers interested in research methodology to meet and frame new themes, trends and issues arising in the field of environmental education and health education research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6095 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008617
- Description: Celebrating the 8th International Invitational Research and Development Seminar. This edition of the EEASA Journal celebrates the hosting of the 8th International Invitational Research and Development Seminar on Environmental and Health Education in South Africa in March 2005. The International Invitational Research and Development Seminars are ‘special events’ in the field of environmental and health education research. They are characterised by their democratic, deliberative nature, and by their intent to scope innovation and methodological issues. First established some years ago in Copenhagen, Denmark, these seminars have provided an evolving international forum for researchers interested in research methodology to meet and frame new themes, trends and issues arising in the field of environmental education and health education research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Weaving cloths: Research design in contexts of transformation
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/184745 , vital:44268 , xlink:href="https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/viewFile/259/136"
- Description: Through storytelling, I apply methodological and epistemological reflexivity to ask questions about the way in which environmental education research is framed in transformational settings. I ask questions about the role of research teachers/supervisors in the “weaving enterprise” or the research process. Do we have the dual task of developing contextually relevant frameworks, and of making sure that these frameworks are not adopted on an “industrial scale”—in other words, as new paradigms which have the potential to narrow research possibilities? The paper concerns itself with a broader question, notably the potentially debilitating effects of mass production of research, or the globalizing of knowledge production. The story I use to raise these, and other questions for consideration by teachers/supervisors of research is a research workers story (my own), constructed between 1992 and 1996, in a context of rapid socio-political and educational transformation in South Africa (Lotz, 1996). In addition to the above, the paper opens a debate about reflexivity as research methodological rigour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/184745 , vital:44268 , xlink:href="https://cjee.lakeheadu.ca/article/viewFile/259/136"
- Description: Through storytelling, I apply methodological and epistemological reflexivity to ask questions about the way in which environmental education research is framed in transformational settings. I ask questions about the role of research teachers/supervisors in the “weaving enterprise” or the research process. Do we have the dual task of developing contextually relevant frameworks, and of making sure that these frameworks are not adopted on an “industrial scale”—in other words, as new paradigms which have the potential to narrow research possibilities? The paper concerns itself with a broader question, notably the potentially debilitating effects of mass production of research, or the globalizing of knowledge production. The story I use to raise these, and other questions for consideration by teachers/supervisors of research is a research workers story (my own), constructed between 1992 and 1996, in a context of rapid socio-political and educational transformation in South Africa (Lotz, 1996). In addition to the above, the paper opens a debate about reflexivity as research methodological rigour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
Some insights on the gap
- O'Donoghue, Rob, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182720 , vital:43856 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620220145410"
- Description: In our response to 'Mind the gap' by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) we review contemporary pro-environmental behaviour research and perspectives. We apply a social processes vantage point to reveal a blindness to the historical origins of these perspectives. Through drawing on a case in an African context, we illuminate the way in which experts in institutional contexts come to etch instrumental perspectives, and thus we probe the limitations of instrumentalist assumptions associated with pro-environmental behaviour research and perspectives. We also point to ideological blind spots and blockages that persist in disallowing social politics and history to illuminate the complexities of human social habitus, and we reveal some of the complexities that have been set aside in the Kollmuss and Agyeman article.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182720 , vital:43856 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620220145410"
- Description: In our response to 'Mind the gap' by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) we review contemporary pro-environmental behaviour research and perspectives. We apply a social processes vantage point to reveal a blindness to the historical origins of these perspectives. Through drawing on a case in an African context, we illuminate the way in which experts in institutional contexts come to etch instrumental perspectives, and thus we probe the limitations of instrumentalist assumptions associated with pro-environmental behaviour research and perspectives. We also point to ideological blind spots and blockages that persist in disallowing social politics and history to illuminate the complexities of human social habitus, and we reveal some of the complexities that have been set aside in the Kollmuss and Agyeman article.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
Being Brave: Writing Environmental Education Research
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Burt, Jane C
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Burt, Jane C
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/184734 , vital:44267 , xlink:href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ654591"
- Description: The heroine came back from her very important quest and sat down to write a thesis . . . While mythical journeys do not always end this way, the stories have to be told. The work of telling the story in the hero’s journey is often left untold. This paper explores some of the headwork that goes into textwork (Van Manen, 1995) in environmental education research. We argue that writing is an integral part of the research process, and should not be viewed as an “add on” or a silent, untold part of the adventure. We reflect on some of the institutional and epistemological issues associated with writing social science (in our case environmental education) research texts. Writing research is never an easy enterprise, it is bound by history and tradition, convention, institutional habit, and regulation. It is also constrained by the uncertainty of the process of writing itself, by problems of power relations in research, and the difficulty of writing to represent experience rigorously and authentically while recognizing that all writing is a constructed symbolic representation of experience. The paper reflexively reviews our attempts at “being brave” in the construction of our research texts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Burt, Jane C
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/184734 , vital:44267 , xlink:href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ654591"
- Description: The heroine came back from her very important quest and sat down to write a thesis . . . While mythical journeys do not always end this way, the stories have to be told. The work of telling the story in the hero’s journey is often left untold. This paper explores some of the headwork that goes into textwork (Van Manen, 1995) in environmental education research. We argue that writing is an integral part of the research process, and should not be viewed as an “add on” or a silent, untold part of the adventure. We reflect on some of the institutional and epistemological issues associated with writing social science (in our case environmental education) research texts. Writing research is never an easy enterprise, it is bound by history and tradition, convention, institutional habit, and regulation. It is also constrained by the uncertainty of the process of writing itself, by problems of power relations in research, and the difficulty of writing to represent experience rigorously and authentically while recognizing that all writing is a constructed symbolic representation of experience. The paper reflexively reviews our attempts at “being brave” in the construction of our research texts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
Towards a better grasp of what matters in view of ‘the posts’
- O'Donoghue, Rob, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182693 , vital:43854 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620500169593"
- Description: This response to McKenzie suggests that the issues of representivity, legitimacy and politics, inscribed within an institutional continuism characteristic of modernity within the McKenzie discourse, could well be recast within a reflexive view informed by insights derived with developing social theory. It briefly overviews the struggle for human agency that played out within the deconstructive engagements of the posts and probes how perspectives in social theory are opening the way for a break with features of environmental education as an institutional field. The review points to a reconstituting of the idea of environmental education research from scholastic field of/for environmental awareness and sustainable development, to a reflexive engagement within processes of social reproduction and reorientation in a changing world. A shift such as this would constitute a subtle change in a developing field of research, to situated design decisions of reflexive engagement (research) in social fields constituted within developing cultural contexts of risk.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182693 , vital:43854 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504620500169593"
- Description: This response to McKenzie suggests that the issues of representivity, legitimacy and politics, inscribed within an institutional continuism characteristic of modernity within the McKenzie discourse, could well be recast within a reflexive view informed by insights derived with developing social theory. It briefly overviews the struggle for human agency that played out within the deconstructive engagements of the posts and probes how perspectives in social theory are opening the way for a break with features of environmental education as an institutional field. The review points to a reconstituting of the idea of environmental education research from scholastic field of/for environmental awareness and sustainable development, to a reflexive engagement within processes of social reproduction and reorientation in a changing world. A shift such as this would constitute a subtle change in a developing field of research, to situated design decisions of reflexive engagement (research) in social fields constituted within developing cultural contexts of risk.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Rhizome connections...
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6097 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008620
- Description: There are a number of papers in the journal that reflect a trend in environmental education towards deliberating recuperative, relational epistemologies. In their paper addressing the near-schism between those that appear to be antagonistic to post-structuralism and deconstruction, and those that find them generative in their inquiries, Noel Gough and Leigh Price go right to the heart of human inquiry by questioning the most commonly held assumption in the research enterprise – that the social sciences require a different methodology from the natural sciences.Through giving attention to relativist (constructionist) epistemology and a stratified, realist ontology – which assumes a relational account of ontology – they suggest the same basic methodology for both the social and natural sciences, arguing that ‘... society and humans mutually transform/reproduce each other, just as nature and humans mutually transform/reproduce each other’. In doing this, they address over-simplified dialectics between ‘constructionism’ and realism which has shaped much human inquiry (including environmental education research).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6097 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008620
- Description: There are a number of papers in the journal that reflect a trend in environmental education towards deliberating recuperative, relational epistemologies. In their paper addressing the near-schism between those that appear to be antagonistic to post-structuralism and deconstruction, and those that find them generative in their inquiries, Noel Gough and Leigh Price go right to the heart of human inquiry by questioning the most commonly held assumption in the research enterprise – that the social sciences require a different methodology from the natural sciences.Through giving attention to relativist (constructionist) epistemology and a stratified, realist ontology – which assumes a relational account of ontology – they suggest the same basic methodology for both the social and natural sciences, arguing that ‘... society and humans mutually transform/reproduce each other, just as nature and humans mutually transform/reproduce each other’. In doing this, they address over-simplified dialectics between ‘constructionism’ and realism which has shaped much human inquiry (including environmental education research).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Editorial: the policy-in-practice nexus
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Obol, Charles, Nhamo, Godwell
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Obol, Charles , Nhamo, Godwell
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67389 , vital:29083 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122661/112205
- Description: publisher version , Environmental policy development and implementation has become a ‘hot topic’ in southern Africa, following global imperatives for countries around the world to articulate their intentions to become more sustainable through public policy. Many policies in the region have been developed with the support of large scale donor funding. Much of the funding is often allocated to policy development processes rather than policy implementation processes, and many countries have experienced ‘gaps’ between policy intention and policy playing out in the field. Recently the Southern African Development Community’s Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP) appointed an environmental education policy advisor to influence regional policy (our Guest Editor, Charles Obol).This edition of the journal, funded by SADC REEP, aims to provide perspective on the policy-in-practice nexus in southern Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Obol, Charles , Nhamo, Godwell
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67389 , vital:29083 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122661/112205
- Description: publisher version , Environmental policy development and implementation has become a ‘hot topic’ in southern Africa, following global imperatives for countries around the world to articulate their intentions to become more sustainable through public policy. Many policies in the region have been developed with the support of large scale donor funding. Much of the funding is often allocated to policy development processes rather than policy implementation processes, and many countries have experienced ‘gaps’ between policy intention and policy playing out in the field. Recently the Southern African Development Community’s Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP) appointed an environmental education policy advisor to influence regional policy (our Guest Editor, Charles Obol).This edition of the journal, funded by SADC REEP, aims to provide perspective on the policy-in-practice nexus in southern Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Exploring the practical adequacy of the normative framework guiding South Africa’s National Curriculum Statement
- Schudel, Ingrid, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Schudel, Ingrid , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/391193 , vital:68630 , xlink:href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504620701284860"
- Description: This article examines the practical adequacy of the recent defining of a normative framework for the South African National Curriculum Statement that focuses on the relationship between human rights, social justice and a healthy environment. This politically framed and socially critical normative framework has developed in response to socio-political and socio-ecological histories in postapartheid curriculum transformation processes. The article critically considers the process of working with a normative framework in the defining of environmental education teaching and learning interactions, and seeks not only to explore the policy discourse critically, but also to explore what it is about the world that makes it work in different ways. Drawing on Sayer’s perspectives on the possibilities of enabling ‘situated universalism’ as a form of normative theory, and case-based data from a teacher professional development programme in the Makana District (where the authors live and work), the article probes the relationship between the establishment of a ‘universalising’ normative framework to guide national curriculum, and situated engagements with this framework in/as democratic process. In this process it questions whether educators should adopt the ‘norms’ as presented by society and simply universalize and implement them as prescribed by curriculum statements, or whether educators should adopt the strategies of postmodernists and reduce normative frameworks to relations of power situated in particular contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Schudel, Ingrid , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/391193 , vital:68630 , xlink:href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504620701284860"
- Description: This article examines the practical adequacy of the recent defining of a normative framework for the South African National Curriculum Statement that focuses on the relationship between human rights, social justice and a healthy environment. This politically framed and socially critical normative framework has developed in response to socio-political and socio-ecological histories in postapartheid curriculum transformation processes. The article critically considers the process of working with a normative framework in the defining of environmental education teaching and learning interactions, and seeks not only to explore the policy discourse critically, but also to explore what it is about the world that makes it work in different ways. Drawing on Sayer’s perspectives on the possibilities of enabling ‘situated universalism’ as a form of normative theory, and case-based data from a teacher professional development programme in the Makana District (where the authors live and work), the article probes the relationship between the establishment of a ‘universalising’ normative framework to guide national curriculum, and situated engagements with this framework in/as democratic process. In this process it questions whether educators should adopt the ‘norms’ as presented by society and simply universalize and implement them as prescribed by curriculum statements, or whether educators should adopt the strategies of postmodernists and reduce normative frameworks to relations of power situated in particular contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Active learning in schools
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Timmermans, Ingrid
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Timmermans, Ingrid
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389696 , vital:68475 , xlink:href="https://eeasa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bulletin_vol21-_Sep-2001.pdf"
- Description: The Rhodes University Environmental Education Unit has initiated a project to support school-based environmental education work in Grahamstown. In line with national environmental education policy, the project supports a focus on environmental learning in the context of the OBE curriculum, and provides professional development support to teachers implementing the project (NEEP, 2000). An action research evaluation is taking place to monitor key aspects of the project and a number of interim evaluation reports have been produced (Mbanjwa, 2001).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Timmermans, Ingrid
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/389696 , vital:68475 , xlink:href="https://eeasa.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Bulletin_vol21-_Sep-2001.pdf"
- Description: The Rhodes University Environmental Education Unit has initiated a project to support school-based environmental education work in Grahamstown. In line with national environmental education policy, the project supports a focus on environmental learning in the context of the OBE curriculum, and provides professional development support to teachers implementing the project (NEEP, 2000). An action research evaluation is taking place to monitor key aspects of the project and a number of interim evaluation reports have been produced (Mbanjwa, 2001).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
Participating in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainability: voices in a southern African consultation process
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67367 , vital:29081 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122720
- Description: publisher version , This paper documents the outcomes of the consultation process on participating in the UNDESD which was led by the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme in 2005/2006, assisted by the Rhodes University Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit and Environment Africa. The goals of the consultation process were to explore interpretations and meaning-making around the global discourse of ESD in a southern African context. Findings from the consultation process provide useful baseline information on the status of debate on sustainable development in educational circles; participation and partnerships; insights into environmental and sustainability education (ESD) practice and mechanisms needed for supporting this practice. The paper ends by outlining a research agenda for ESD in southern Africa, as discussed during the consultation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67367 , vital:29081 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122720
- Description: publisher version , This paper documents the outcomes of the consultation process on participating in the UNDESD which was led by the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme in 2005/2006, assisted by the Rhodes University Environmental Education and Sustainability Unit and Environment Africa. The goals of the consultation process were to explore interpretations and meaning-making around the global discourse of ESD in a southern African context. Findings from the consultation process provide useful baseline information on the status of debate on sustainable development in educational circles; participation and partnerships; insights into environmental and sustainability education (ESD) practice and mechanisms needed for supporting this practice. The paper ends by outlining a research agenda for ESD in southern Africa, as discussed during the consultation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Reflections on the ‘3rd World Environmental Education Congress: Educational pathways towards sustainability’, Italy, 2005
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6096 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008619
- Description: Conference Theme: The congress theme ‘Educational pathways towards sustainability’ foregrounded the current ‘state of play’ in environmental education / education for sustainability, at the start of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), and drew attention to the role of education in creating pathways towards sustainability. Mario Solomone, convenor of the congress, in his orientation to the congress describes the congress as being about ‘cultural changes and cultural forces for change’, highlighting the role of education, training and communication in redirecting values, knowledge and behaviour to construct a human society ‘that is fairer and more aware of the equilibrium of a beautiful and fragile planet’ (Salomone, 2005: 6). To facilitate deliberations during the conference a set of interrelated themes were established which included: communication and the environment; paths to sustainability; research and assessment in environmental education; sustainable education; training the trainers; community awareness; promoting participation and governance and creating a network; economics and ecology; environment and health; farming and related issues; ethics; and emotional involvements. These congress themes, together with an impressive array of keynote papers kept congress participants actively engaged with the question of the DESD.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6096 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008619
- Description: Conference Theme: The congress theme ‘Educational pathways towards sustainability’ foregrounded the current ‘state of play’ in environmental education / education for sustainability, at the start of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), and drew attention to the role of education in creating pathways towards sustainability. Mario Solomone, convenor of the congress, in his orientation to the congress describes the congress as being about ‘cultural changes and cultural forces for change’, highlighting the role of education, training and communication in redirecting values, knowledge and behaviour to construct a human society ‘that is fairer and more aware of the equilibrium of a beautiful and fragile planet’ (Salomone, 2005: 6). To facilitate deliberations during the conference a set of interrelated themes were established which included: communication and the environment; paths to sustainability; research and assessment in environmental education; sustainable education; training the trainers; community awareness; promoting participation and governance and creating a network; economics and ecology; environment and health; farming and related issues; ethics; and emotional involvements. These congress themes, together with an impressive array of keynote papers kept congress participants actively engaged with the question of the DESD.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Food for us: reducing food waste, supporting social learning, creating value
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Ward, Mike, Jenkin, Nicola P, Tantsi, Thato
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ward, Mike , Jenkin, Nicola P , Tantsi, Thato
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Instructional and educational works , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70859 , vital:29754 , 978-0-620-82216-9 , https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/70859
- Description: An estimated third of the 29 million tons of food produced annually in South Africa goes to waste (Oelofse, 2014). Fifty percent of this waste (by mass) occurs during the agricultural production and post-harvest handling and storage stages (von Bormann et al., 2017). At the same time 13 million South Africans routinely experience hunger, with malnutrition a serious concern for early childhood development (StatsSA, 2018). This disconnect between the need for food and the food that is available for consumption but being wasted, has profound social, environmental and economic impacts. This, in turn, suggests that there must be opportunities to create social, environmental and economic value through innovative and transformative initiatives that link food producers with food consumers in South Africa, particularly those in need. Food for Us is a sustainable food systems mobile phone learning pilot project initiated in 2017 by a consortium of partners in South Africa working with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Lifestyles and Education Programme within the One Planet Network. The intention was to design and develop a mobile application (app) that could help reduce on-farm food surplus, while also supporting social learning. The initial phase of the project was 18 months. This publication shares what has been learned and can also be considered a springboard for the potential that is possible.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ward, Mike , Jenkin, Nicola P , Tantsi, Thato
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Instructional and educational works , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70859 , vital:29754 , 978-0-620-82216-9 , https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/70859
- Description: An estimated third of the 29 million tons of food produced annually in South Africa goes to waste (Oelofse, 2014). Fifty percent of this waste (by mass) occurs during the agricultural production and post-harvest handling and storage stages (von Bormann et al., 2017). At the same time 13 million South Africans routinely experience hunger, with malnutrition a serious concern for early childhood development (StatsSA, 2018). This disconnect between the need for food and the food that is available for consumption but being wasted, has profound social, environmental and economic impacts. This, in turn, suggests that there must be opportunities to create social, environmental and economic value through innovative and transformative initiatives that link food producers with food consumers in South Africa, particularly those in need. Food for Us is a sustainable food systems mobile phone learning pilot project initiated in 2017 by a consortium of partners in South Africa working with the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Lifestyles and Education Programme within the One Planet Network. The intention was to design and develop a mobile application (app) that could help reduce on-farm food surplus, while also supporting social learning. The initial phase of the project was 18 months. This publication shares what has been learned and can also be considered a springboard for the potential that is possible.
- Full Text: