ABSTRACT
Curriculum content and practice in Higher Education (HE) is commonly seen as the central wellspring of change for the diffusion of sustainability throughout HE. In the light of a nearly complete UN Decade it is timely to consider the learnings of the sustainability education movement. With more than a decade of initiatives, we may well stop to reflect on the various approaches to recalibration of higher education (HE) towards sustainability. One important aspect of this is to consider the various and flourishing curriculum initiatives which have emerged the world over under the ESD banner. This chapter offers context and theorisation of the means by which we might revisit notions
of curriculum, effective change and design for the researches to identify these. We will evaluate the terrain by which we arrived at this point in the ESD project, consider common (tacit) assumptions which have underpinned work in ESD and explore ways to respond. We will capture and consider implications of the learnings gained through consideration of curriculum work undertaken over the last, UN, decade in key ESD journals. In our canvas of the key journals for the period of the UN Decade on ESD,we bring eclec-
tic lenses to bear. These include deep interdisciplinarity, as all approaches to and framings of curriculum are then equally valued at the point of entry, regardless of differences in focus and professional field (Hegarty 2009). We bring a constructivist ontology to our scholarly practice, seeking to engage the authentic narratives of peers in ESD,which we argue is a hallmark practice of interdisciplinarity. Our methodology in this instance is thus grounded theory, which allows us to theorise ‘what’s going on’ as it emerges from the chosen methods of enquiry (Dawes and Larson 2011). The authors note that there has been some debate about nomenclature in the environmen-
tal education and ESD literature over the period of the UN DESD. As scholars and practitioners, we bring varied understandings of sustainability education to our work, as do many academics. Nonetheless, we have determined to use ESD throughout this chapter. This decision was taken in the interests of clarity and in recognition that ESD is arguably the dominant term applied in Europe. The literature consulted for this chapter reflects the range of nomenclature used in sustainability education domains.
