Paradigms and Ethics in Environmental Education

Environmental and other nature-related problems, such as climate change, can be understood through different lenses: a technical lens, which itself contains many perspectives, a political lens, a personal lens, and so on. In this dissertation, I analysed which perspectives dominate university environmental education and how they shape notions of responsibility for environmental problems.
At the broadest level, these perspectives reflect either an ecological or a mechanistic view of nature and of humanity’s relationship with it. An analysis of WUR courses on environmental problems showed a wide variety of perspectives at the university level, but within individual study programmes certain perspectives still clearly dominate. There is also a strong bias towards cognitive learning, while non-cognitive learning, such as emotions and skills, is essential for responsibility. Finally, the dissertation shows that the lens through which we view environmental problems is closely linked to how we understand our responsibility for them.
In short, environmental problems are complex because their very nature is contested: they can be understood from multiple perspectives. It is therefore important that education presents this plurality, which also enables students to collaborate more critically and responsibly. Teachers should create space for democratic, pluralistic education in which their own position is explicit yet open to debate.