ABSTRACT
Curriculum change for sustainability has been slow to happen in university contexts with few accounts of wholesale reformation or transformation reported (Holdsworth et al. 2006;Wals 2014). As Wals (2014: 11) points out ‘despite the early signs of a transition in some parts of the academic community, sustainability by and large is still largely external to the student, academic faculty member and administrator within higher education’. Ferrer-Balas et al. (2008: 298) conclude that ‘while there are undoubtedly some universities that are already on their way to embodying some of these ideals [of a sustainable institution], achieving change at the majority of universities around the world will require tremendous effort’. Notwithstanding, there is overwhelming agreement that in order to address growing
concerns about the future viability of life on Earth, teaching university students about sustainability and to act more sustainably in their chosen professions is a necessary part of a university education (Corcoran andWals 2004;Wals 2009). Essentially, university curricula which encompass learning outcomes, learning activities and assessment tasks for the award/degree as a whole, as well as for each of its components, should ‘make students aware of the values that are present in the professional’s work and options for their own role in global challenges’ (Mulder 2007: 155). There continues to be considerable discussion across the higher education sector worldwide
about how best to support the integration of sustainability into the curriculum (Sterling and Thomas 2006; Gough and Scott 2007), to achieve at the minimum reformation and at best transformation outcomes. In order to achieve reformation sustainability related content is integrated into the curriculum using ‘a critically reflective, adaptive response or second-order change’, while transformation requires that the entire curriculum is redesigned reflecting a paradigm change underpinned by ‘new meaning-making and examination of existing assumptions’ (Sterling 2004b: 55). In fact, for systemic transformation outcomes, a redesign of not only the curriculum in totality (whole of degree) but also the generative education system is required. While achieving either reformation or transformation of the higher education curriculum
is not straight forward, it remains critical that universities play their part in moving society to a more sustainable world by finding ways to encourage and support at the very least the
reformation of university curricula so that graduates leave university prepared to make a difference through their chosen fields. No longer is it possible to depend on individual and isolated ad hoc academic efforts since,
relying on individual change to lead to systemic change commits the error of ‘methodological individualism’; it exaggerates the power of agency over that of structure, seeing individual actors as the prime movers and shakers in social change. Individuals are important, of course, but policies based on methodological individualism do not automatically lead to institutional change.
