Exploring a systems approach to mainstreaming sustainability in universities: A case study of Rhodes University in South Africa
- Togo, Muchaiteyi, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182857 , vital:43886 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2012.749974"
- Description: This paper explores the use of systems theory to inform the mainstreaming of sustainability in a university’s functions as it responds to sustainable development challenges in its local context. Offering a case study of Rhodes University, the paper shows how the use of systems models and concepts, underpinned by a critical realist ontology and an understanding of morphogenetic change processes, have the potential to enable universities to mobilise their operations to respond to local sustainability challenges. In this instance, the success of such an approach is shown to depend on commitments from the university community and the availability of enabling inputs, such as financial and human resources. The paper concludes with reflections and recommendations to inform further development of a newly emerging systems approach in sustainability mainstreaming at Rhodes University, and other institutions pursuing similar approaches and goals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Togo, Muchaiteyi , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182857 , vital:43886 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2012.749974"
- Description: This paper explores the use of systems theory to inform the mainstreaming of sustainability in a university’s functions as it responds to sustainable development challenges in its local context. Offering a case study of Rhodes University, the paper shows how the use of systems models and concepts, underpinned by a critical realist ontology and an understanding of morphogenetic change processes, have the potential to enable universities to mobilise their operations to respond to local sustainability challenges. In this instance, the success of such an approach is shown to depend on commitments from the university community and the availability of enabling inputs, such as financial and human resources. The paper concludes with reflections and recommendations to inform further development of a newly emerging systems approach in sustainability mainstreaming at Rhodes University, and other institutions pursuing similar approaches and goals.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Situated environmental learning in Southern Africa at the start of the UN decade of education for sustainable development
- O'Donoghue, Rob, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183059 , vital:43908 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0814062600001737"
- Description: Within the globalising trajectory of modernism, conservation, then environmental (EE) and now sustainability education (ESD) have each emerged as developing responses to risk produced by and in the modern state. Through adopting a long term process perspective, this paper narrates the emergence of situated learning perspectives and a developing re-orientation of EE at the start of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). We identified the need to examine ESD practice in responses to recent ESD consultations in 14 southern African countries, where a rhetorical marking was noted in discussions on ESD practices, particularly with regard to changing teaching and learning processes. The paper narrates how an interplay of review, research and practical engagement activities have all contributed to an extended critical review of learning interactions in environmental education in an attempt to provide useful perspective for educational activities within the UNDESD. We found that EE and ESD initiatives only acquired more substantive meaning and coherent orientation when examined within ongoing inquiries into situated learning, agency and risk reduction in contexts of poverty, vulnerability and risk, the key concern to us in this paper and the primary focus of the WEHAB (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity) sustainable development agenda in the region.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: O'Donoghue, Rob , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183059 , vital:43908 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0814062600001737"
- Description: Within the globalising trajectory of modernism, conservation, then environmental (EE) and now sustainability education (ESD) have each emerged as developing responses to risk produced by and in the modern state. Through adopting a long term process perspective, this paper narrates the emergence of situated learning perspectives and a developing re-orientation of EE at the start of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). We identified the need to examine ESD practice in responses to recent ESD consultations in 14 southern African countries, where a rhetorical marking was noted in discussions on ESD practices, particularly with regard to changing teaching and learning processes. The paper narrates how an interplay of review, research and practical engagement activities have all contributed to an extended critical review of learning interactions in environmental education in an attempt to provide useful perspective for educational activities within the UNDESD. We found that EE and ESD initiatives only acquired more substantive meaning and coherent orientation when examined within ongoing inquiries into situated learning, agency and risk reduction in contexts of poverty, vulnerability and risk, the key concern to us in this paper and the primary focus of the WEHAB (Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Biodiversity) sustainable development agenda in the region.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Exploring the practical adequacy of the normative framework guiding South Africa’s National Curriculum Statement
- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Schudel, Ingrid J
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294386 , vital:57217 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/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 post‐apartheid 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: 2007
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294386 , vital:57217 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/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 post‐apartheid 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: 2007
The Scope of Teaching and Learning in Environmental Education
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183037 , vital:43906 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/172809"
- Description: Environmental Education involves a variety of teaching and learning processes which are diversely situated in a range of social and educational contexts. The diversity of scope is an interesting 'contour' of a field like environmental education. Contemporary environmental sciences and complexity studies draw our attention to an ever-changing world and to increasingly complex social-ecological issues, patterns and risks that require our attention. These too influence the scope of environmental education teaching and learning processes. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education provides a window through which we may see some of the scope of environmental education activities, research questions, learning and teaching settings, and educational activity. It provides insight into the range of research methodologies that are being deployed to investigate the educational processes that are needed for re-orientation towards sustainability, equity, adaptability and transformation at the people-environment interface.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183037 , vital:43906 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/172809"
- Description: Environmental Education involves a variety of teaching and learning processes which are diversely situated in a range of social and educational contexts. The diversity of scope is an interesting 'contour' of a field like environmental education. Contemporary environmental sciences and complexity studies draw our attention to an ever-changing world and to increasingly complex social-ecological issues, patterns and risks that require our attention. These too influence the scope of environmental education teaching and learning processes. This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education provides a window through which we may see some of the scope of environmental education activities, research questions, learning and teaching settings, and educational activity. It provides insight into the range of research methodologies that are being deployed to investigate the educational processes that are needed for re-orientation towards sustainability, equity, adaptability and transformation at the people-environment interface.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2010
Links between the local trade in natural products, livelihoods and poverty alleviation in a semi-arid region of South Africa
- Shackleton, Sheona E, Campbell, Bruce, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E , Campbell, Bruce , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/181246 , vital:43712 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.03.003"
- Description: Can the local commercialization of natural products contribute to reduced poverty and vulnerability? Commentary on this issue is mixed, with some observers being quite optimistic, while others hold a counterview. This paper explores the poverty alleviation potential of four products traded in Bushbuckridge, South Africa—traditional brooms, reed mats, woodcraft, and “marula” beer. While key in enhancing the livelihood security of the poorest households, these products were unlikely to provide a route out of poverty for most, although there were exceptions. Incomes often surpassed local wage rates, and some producers obtained returns equivalent to the minimum wage. Non-financial benefits such as the opportunity to work from home were highly rated, and the trade was found to represent a range of livelihood strategies both within and across products.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E , Campbell, Bruce , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/181246 , vital:43712 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2007.03.003"
- Description: Can the local commercialization of natural products contribute to reduced poverty and vulnerability? Commentary on this issue is mixed, with some observers being quite optimistic, while others hold a counterview. This paper explores the poverty alleviation potential of four products traded in Bushbuckridge, South Africa—traditional brooms, reed mats, woodcraft, and “marula” beer. While key in enhancing the livelihood security of the poorest households, these products were unlikely to provide a route out of poverty for most, although there were exceptions. Incomes often surpassed local wage rates, and some producers obtained returns equivalent to the minimum wage. Non-financial benefits such as the opportunity to work from home were highly rated, and the trade was found to represent a range of livelihood strategies both within and across products.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
What’s in a conference theme?: Some reflections on critical realist research and its emergence in Africa over a period of 20+ years
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370739 , vital:66372 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2146923"
- Description: In keeping with the 2021 IACR Conference theme (Re) Envisaging Emancipatory Research, Science and Practice, this paper reviews over fifty instances of critical realist research in Africa which have sought to establish emancipatory research praxis by using critical realism to underlabour a range of applied studies in a diversity of disciplines and countries. The initiators of this research have been drawn to critical realism for several reasons, most notably its return to ontology, its interest in transformed, transformative praxis, and its potential for addressing knowledge and experiences exclusions. The paper ends with a reflection on ‘What's in a Conference Theme', returning to the earlier 2012 IACR conference hosted in Africa, and the 2021 conference’s focus on emancipatory research. It argues both for the deepening of conversations between critical realism and Africana Critical Theory; and for the grounding of these conversations in the voices and power of the people in our communities
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2022
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/370739 , vital:66372 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2023.2146923"
- Description: In keeping with the 2021 IACR Conference theme (Re) Envisaging Emancipatory Research, Science and Practice, this paper reviews over fifty instances of critical realist research in Africa which have sought to establish emancipatory research praxis by using critical realism to underlabour a range of applied studies in a diversity of disciplines and countries. The initiators of this research have been drawn to critical realism for several reasons, most notably its return to ontology, its interest in transformed, transformative praxis, and its potential for addressing knowledge and experiences exclusions. The paper ends with a reflection on ‘What's in a Conference Theme', returning to the earlier 2012 IACR conference hosted in Africa, and the 2021 conference’s focus on emancipatory research. It argues both for the deepening of conversations between critical realism and Africana Critical Theory; and for the grounding of these conversations in the voices and power of the people in our communities
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022
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
The Stinking Ontology of Sh#t in the Water: Higher Education Public Pedagogy and “Existance”?
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182754 , vital:43871 , xlink:href="http://doi.org/10.1089/sus.2019.29161"
- Description: “Existance” is not a spelling mistake. It is a word from Soweto street poet Zachariah Rapola’s poem, questioning our “stance in existence” . In the context of this essay, the poem raises the challenging perspective of our “stance in existence.” for engaging with the SDGs. The SDGs set a range of clear targets, but in doing so, they fail to give a good account of the stinking ontology of some of the issues to be dealt with, and thus lack a certain sense of realism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182754 , vital:43871 , xlink:href="http://doi.org/10.1089/sus.2019.29161"
- Description: “Existance” is not a spelling mistake. It is a word from Soweto street poet Zachariah Rapola’s poem, questioning our “stance in existence” . In the context of this essay, the poem raises the challenging perspective of our “stance in existence.” for engaging with the SDGs. The SDGs set a range of clear targets, but in doing so, they fail to give a good account of the stinking ontology of some of the issues to be dealt with, and thus lack a certain sense of realism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Environmental Education and Educational Quality and Relevance-Opening the debate
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182668 , vital:43852 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122756"
- Description: This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE) tackles a critical issue being debated across the world today, namely the question of educational quality and relevance. In 2005 the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report entitled Education for All: The Quality Imperative (UNESCO, 2004) was published. This global monitoring report drew attention to issues of educational quality, and raised the problem that physical access to education does not necessarily lead to epistemological access to knowledge or to relevant education being offered to learners. In the foreword to the 430-page assessment of educational quality issues, Koïchiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO, stated that ‘although much debate surrounds attempts to define educational quality, solid common ground exists … Quality must be seen in light of how societies define the purpose of education’ (UNESCO, 2004: Foreword). He went on to explain that there seem to be two mutually agreed upon purposes for education in the world today: cognitive development of learners, and creative and emotional growth of learners to help them acquire values and attitudes for responsible citizenship. He also pointed out that ‘quality must pass the test of equity’ (UNESCO, 2004: Foreword), emphasising the importance of equity of opportunity to access and participate in education and learning. Relevant to the field of environmental education, is the inclusion of educational quality as a major thrust of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) (UNESCO, 2004).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182668 , vital:43852 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122756"
- Description: This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE) tackles a critical issue being debated across the world today, namely the question of educational quality and relevance. In 2005 the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report entitled Education for All: The Quality Imperative (UNESCO, 2004) was published. This global monitoring report drew attention to issues of educational quality, and raised the problem that physical access to education does not necessarily lead to epistemological access to knowledge or to relevant education being offered to learners. In the foreword to the 430-page assessment of educational quality issues, Koïchiro Matsuura, Director General of UNESCO, stated that ‘although much debate surrounds attempts to define educational quality, solid common ground exists … Quality must be seen in light of how societies define the purpose of education’ (UNESCO, 2004: Foreword). He went on to explain that there seem to be two mutually agreed upon purposes for education in the world today: cognitive development of learners, and creative and emotional growth of learners to help them acquire values and attitudes for responsible citizenship. He also pointed out that ‘quality must pass the test of equity’ (UNESCO, 2004: Foreword), emphasising the importance of equity of opportunity to access and participate in education and learning. Relevant to the field of environmental education, is the inclusion of educational quality as a major thrust of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) (UNESCO, 2004).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Editorial. Perspectives on transformations in learning and education
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387277 , vital:68221 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137656"
- Description: Perspectives on transformations in learning and education
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387277 , vital:68221 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/137656"
- Description: Perspectives on transformations in learning and education
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Editorial. Methodology, Context and Quality
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387220 , vital:68216 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122254"
- Description: This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE) is a ‘double volume’ and contains papers submitted in 2012 and 2013. The production of a double volume has been necessitated by administrative problems experienced by the journal production team in 2012, which affected the successful publication of a 2012 edition. However, the Council of the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) agreed to respond by producing a double-volume edition for 2012/2013. Journal readers are reminded that the production of this journal is voluntary and depends heavily on voluntary administration and other systems. The patience of authors and readers in the 2012/2013 years of production is much appreciated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/387220 , vital:68216 , xlink:href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122254"
- Description: This edition of the Southern African Journal of Environmental Education (SAJEE) is a ‘double volume’ and contains papers submitted in 2012 and 2013. The production of a double volume has been necessitated by administrative problems experienced by the journal production team in 2012, which affected the successful publication of a 2012 edition. However, the Council of the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) agreed to respond by producing a double-volume edition for 2012/2013. Journal readers are reminded that the production of this journal is voluntary and depends heavily on voluntary administration and other systems. The patience of authors and readers in the 2012/2013 years of production is much appreciated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
‘Exploring the practical adequacy of the human rights, social justice, inclusivity and healthy environment policy discourse in 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/10962/391180 , vital:68629 , 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/10962/391180 , vital:68629 , 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
Refelcting on the 2007 World Environmental Education Congress
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183047 , vital:43907 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/097340820700100207"
- Description: What motivates more than 800 people from 101 countries around the world to meet at a World Environmental Education Congress? And how does one make the most of such an incredible gathering of people, cultures, thoughts and minds? What did people learn and was it worthwhile? These are just some of the questions that have been chasing through my mind in the weeks following the fourth World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa, in July 2007. This short paper shares some preliminary reflections on the 2007 WEEC event, noting that in-depth analyses will only become possible as time passes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183047 , vital:43907 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/097340820700100207"
- Description: What motivates more than 800 people from 101 countries around the world to meet at a World Environmental Education Congress? And how does one make the most of such an incredible gathering of people, cultures, thoughts and minds? What did people learn and was it worthwhile? These are just some of the questions that have been chasing through my mind in the weeks following the fourth World Environmental Education Congress held in Durban, South Africa, in July 2007. This short paper shares some preliminary reflections on the 2007 WEEC event, noting that in-depth analyses will only become possible as time passes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
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
Consider the unexpected: Scaling ESD as a matter of learning
- Mickelsson, Martin, Kronlid, David O, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Mickelsson, Martin , Kronlid, David O , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182438 , vital:43830 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1429572"
- Description: This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of ‘scaling up’ or ‘scaling’ of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how ‘scaling up’ ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as processes of transactional encounters, the article presents a conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning. This conceptual framework is intended to have implications for ESD policy and ESE research. The theoretical specifications and practical implications presented are results of data collected using a participatory research approach (Re-Solve) and an abductive analysis. In this article, we argue that viewing scaling as a learning process enables a nuanced notion of scaling ESD-activities. This should be seen in relation to (a) complex sustainability challenges, (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Mickelsson, Martin , Kronlid, David O , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182438 , vital:43830 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1429572"
- Description: This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of ‘scaling up’ or ‘scaling’ of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how ‘scaling up’ ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as processes of transactional encounters, the article presents a conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning. This conceptual framework is intended to have implications for ESD policy and ESE research. The theoretical specifications and practical implications presented are results of data collected using a participatory research approach (Re-Solve) and an abductive analysis. In this article, we argue that viewing scaling as a learning process enables a nuanced notion of scaling ESD-activities. This should be seen in relation to (a) complex sustainability challenges, (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
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
Think Piece: Learning, Living and Leading into Transgression–A reflection on decolonial praxis in a neoliberal world
- Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M, McGarry, Dylan K, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Authors: Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M , McGarry, Dylan K , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182406 , vital:43827 , xlink:href="10.4314/sajee.v36i1.14"
- Description: Three scholar activists from South Africa reflect on what it means to transgress the limits of a neoliberal world and its crisis times, particularly considering transgressions in the service of a decolonial future. The authors explore three questions: i) What kind of learning can help us transgress the status quo? ii) How do we extend this learning into a commitment to actively living in transgressive ways? iii) What does it mean to lead in ways that re-generate a transgressive ethic in a neoliberal world? In a dialogical conversation format, the authors outline nine different but interconnected perspectives on learning, living and leading into transgression, with the aim of concurrently revealing the multiple layers of work that a decolonial future depends on, while demonstrating the ambitions of a pluriversal decolonial future through their writing. The intertwined narrative is not conclusive, as the processes marked out in brief are experiences that still need to be fully practised in new relations in times to come within academia-in-society-and-the-world with human and more-than-human actors. However, they do offer a generative set of questions, concepts and metaphors to give courage to boundary-dwelling scholar activists attempting transgressive research. These reflections seek to regenerate the transgressive ‘decolonial gestures’ (decolonialfutures.net) that we can undertake in a neo-liberal world, as an important part of environment and sustainability education practices. It draws out what an embodied practice of transgressive learning can entail when we become discerning of hegemonic discourses that reproduce the status quo. We pay homage to those decolonial scholars in the field of environment and sustainability education as we traverse this terrain, recognising their imagination and the transgressive movement that has come before us, but importantly we seek to also open pathways for those yet to come.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Kulundu-Bolus, Injairu M , McGarry, Dylan K , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182406 , vital:43827 , xlink:href="10.4314/sajee.v36i1.14"
- Description: Three scholar activists from South Africa reflect on what it means to transgress the limits of a neoliberal world and its crisis times, particularly considering transgressions in the service of a decolonial future. The authors explore three questions: i) What kind of learning can help us transgress the status quo? ii) How do we extend this learning into a commitment to actively living in transgressive ways? iii) What does it mean to lead in ways that re-generate a transgressive ethic in a neoliberal world? In a dialogical conversation format, the authors outline nine different but interconnected perspectives on learning, living and leading into transgression, with the aim of concurrently revealing the multiple layers of work that a decolonial future depends on, while demonstrating the ambitions of a pluriversal decolonial future through their writing. The intertwined narrative is not conclusive, as the processes marked out in brief are experiences that still need to be fully practised in new relations in times to come within academia-in-society-and-the-world with human and more-than-human actors. However, they do offer a generative set of questions, concepts and metaphors to give courage to boundary-dwelling scholar activists attempting transgressive research. These reflections seek to regenerate the transgressive ‘decolonial gestures’ (decolonialfutures.net) that we can undertake in a neo-liberal world, as an important part of environment and sustainability education practices. It draws out what an embodied practice of transgressive learning can entail when we become discerning of hegemonic discourses that reproduce the status quo. We pay homage to those decolonial scholars in the field of environment and sustainability education as we traverse this terrain, recognising their imagination and the transgressive movement that has come before us, but importantly we seek to also open pathways for those yet to come.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Environmental education research and social change: Southern African perspectives
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182709 , vital:43855 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1350462042000258143"
- Description: Environmental issues and risks in southern Africa have, like elsewhere in the world, their roots in the structures and orientations of modern societies. In modernist fashion, we draw on education and research to address socio-ecological concerns. In 1995 Eureta Janse van Rensburg, then Murray and Roberts Chair of Environmental Education at Rhodes University,1 undertook a study to identify environmental education research priorities, and through her study she provided a description of research in environmental education as a ‘landscape of shifting priorites’ (Janse van Rensburg, 1995). The papers in this journal offer a contemporary ‘snapshot’ of the landscape of environmental education research in southern Africa, illustrating a fresh range of ‘shifting priorities’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182709 , vital:43855 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1350462042000258143"
- Description: Environmental issues and risks in southern Africa have, like elsewhere in the world, their roots in the structures and orientations of modern societies. In modernist fashion, we draw on education and research to address socio-ecological concerns. In 1995 Eureta Janse van Rensburg, then Murray and Roberts Chair of Environmental Education at Rhodes University,1 undertook a study to identify environmental education research priorities, and through her study she provided a description of research in environmental education as a ‘landscape of shifting priorites’ (Janse van Rensburg, 1995). The papers in this journal offer a contemporary ‘snapshot’ of the landscape of environmental education research in southern Africa, illustrating a fresh range of ‘shifting priorities’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Think Piece: Pioneers as relational subjects? Probing relationality as phenomenon shaping collective learning and change agency formation
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/182787 , vital:43874 , xlink:href="DOI 10.4314/sajee.v34i1.5"
- Description: This paper deliberates on how relationality is framed in collective learning and change agency formation processes, with an emphasis on green economy and renewable energy learning contexts. The paper is not focused on empirical analysis of relationality in collective learning, but rather probes the phenomenon in order to provide more carefully constituted theoretical and analytical tools for further empirical research. The paper uses references to South African and Danish cases (albeit in slightly different ways), and, through this, it sets out to provide tools for generative insights and research into a recent international policy and strategy process which is bringing national-level Green Economy Learning Assessments (GELA) into being, including one in South Africa. Central to these GELAs is the notion of participatory or relational competence, which appears to be a central feature of collective learning, although this is not empirically analysed in this paper. In case study work undertaken for the GELA in South Africa that focused on South Africa’s major renewable energy development, and in the Samsø Island renewable energy transition case in Denmark, this competence appeared to come into focus in praxis. Interestingly, however, it appeared to come into focus colloquially as a discourse on ‘pioneers’ or ‘champions’, a phenomenon noticed in both the South African and Danish contexts. This paper probes this phenomenon further, especially since it initially appears to be contradictory to the emphasis on participatory and relational competence in the GELA study framework. This is because the concept of ‘pioneer/champion’ appears to highlight individual capabilities rather than collective, relational competences. Yet, on closer inspection, it is indeed the relational competences of the pioneer/champion, who is constituted as a ‘relational subject’ with a key role to play in producing shared relational goods, that appears to be significant to the collective learning and action process. This, as argued in the paper, requires a differentiation of relationism and relational realism. This Think Piece, which thinks with both theory and praxis, therefore offers a possible framework for more detailed empirical studies on relationality in collective learning and change agency formation.
- 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/10962/182787 , vital:43874 , xlink:href="DOI 10.4314/sajee.v34i1.5"
- Description: This paper deliberates on how relationality is framed in collective learning and change agency formation processes, with an emphasis on green economy and renewable energy learning contexts. The paper is not focused on empirical analysis of relationality in collective learning, but rather probes the phenomenon in order to provide more carefully constituted theoretical and analytical tools for further empirical research. The paper uses references to South African and Danish cases (albeit in slightly different ways), and, through this, it sets out to provide tools for generative insights and research into a recent international policy and strategy process which is bringing national-level Green Economy Learning Assessments (GELA) into being, including one in South Africa. Central to these GELAs is the notion of participatory or relational competence, which appears to be a central feature of collective learning, although this is not empirically analysed in this paper. In case study work undertaken for the GELA in South Africa that focused on South Africa’s major renewable energy development, and in the Samsø Island renewable energy transition case in Denmark, this competence appeared to come into focus in praxis. Interestingly, however, it appeared to come into focus colloquially as a discourse on ‘pioneers’ or ‘champions’, a phenomenon noticed in both the South African and Danish contexts. This paper probes this phenomenon further, especially since it initially appears to be contradictory to the emphasis on participatory and relational competence in the GELA study framework. This is because the concept of ‘pioneer/champion’ appears to highlight individual capabilities rather than collective, relational competences. Yet, on closer inspection, it is indeed the relational competences of the pioneer/champion, who is constituted as a ‘relational subject’ with a key role to play in producing shared relational goods, that appears to be significant to the collective learning and action process. This, as argued in the paper, requires a differentiation of relationism and relational realism. This Think Piece, which thinks with both theory and praxis, therefore offers a possible framework for more detailed empirical studies on relationality in collective learning and change agency formation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Special section on urbanisation and ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa: Current status and scenarios
- Pauleit, Stephan, Lindley, Sarah, Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Authors: Pauleit, Stephan , Lindley, Sarah , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183082 , vital:43910 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.09.008"
- Description: The African continent is facing unprecedented population growth in the 21st century. Most of this growth will be absorbed by urban areas where the overall population is projected to triple from presently appr. 400 people to 1.3 billion people in 2050 (UN-Habitat, 2014). In sub-Saharan Africa, which is the focus of this Special Issue, not only the number of megacities with more than 10 million such as Lagos will rise, but smaller or medium sized cities will attract most of this growth (UN-Habitat, 2014). The majority of this increase is taking place in the form of informal settlements where people are living in poverty and where basic facilities and services such as a secure supply of clean drinking water and safe waste water disposal are missing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Pauleit, Stephan , Lindley, Sarah , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183082 , vital:43910 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2018.09.008"
- Description: The African continent is facing unprecedented population growth in the 21st century. Most of this growth will be absorbed by urban areas where the overall population is projected to triple from presently appr. 400 people to 1.3 billion people in 2050 (UN-Habitat, 2014). In sub-Saharan Africa, which is the focus of this Special Issue, not only the number of megacities with more than 10 million such as Lagos will rise, but smaller or medium sized cities will attract most of this growth (UN-Habitat, 2014). The majority of this increase is taking place in the form of informal settlements where people are living in poverty and where basic facilities and services such as a secure supply of clean drinking water and safe waste water disposal are missing.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018