Ideological Cultural And Linguistic Roots Of Educational Reforms To Address The Ecological Crisis

In this volume C.A. (Chet) Bowers, whose pioneering work on education and environmental and sustainability issues is widely recognized and respected around the world, brings together a carefully curated selection of his seminal work on the ideological, cultural, and linguistic roots of the ecological crisis; misconceptions underlying modern consciousness; the cultural commons; a critique of technology; and educational reforms to address these pressing concerns. In the World Library of Educationalists series, international scholars themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field, as well as the development of the field itself. Contributors to the series include: Michael Apple, James A. Banks, Joel Spring, William F. Pinar, Stephen J. Ball, Elliot Eisner, Howard Gardner, John Gilbert, Ivor F. Goodson, and Peter Jarvis.

This edited volume extends ecological approaches to curriculum theory by recognizing and building on the contributions of the late Chet A. Bowers to curriculum and ecological studies globally. Chapters provide in-depth explanation of Bowers’ central contributions to the field, including his identification of the linguistic roots of ecological degradation; the need for school curricula to support sustainability; and the principles of cultural commons, eco-justice, and ecological intelligence. Building on these ideas and emphasizing the links between curriculum studies, social justice, and environmental education, the text illustrates how Bowers’ ideas must now inform future approaches to schooling, teacher education, research, and Indigenous communities to guard against the global ecological crises we now face. This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in curriculum studies, sustainability education, and environmental studies in particular. Those interested in the sociology of education, educational change, and school reform will also benefit from the book.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field. Language and the Joint Creation of Knowledge draws on the most prominent writing of Neil Mercer, covering his ground-breaking and critically acclaimed work on the role of talk in education, and on the relationship between spoken language and cognition. The text explores key themes, relating theoretical ideas to research evidence and to practical educational situations that improve children’s lives. Offering students and researchers a clear, accessible and up-to-date account of a sociocultural perspective on the relationship between spoken language and cognition, it explains one of the key themes in Neil Mercer’s work – that humans have uniquely evolved the capacity to think together, or ‘interthink’. Offering a crucial insight into the work of Neil Mercer, this selection showcases why his approach has become the dominant paradigm in educational research, and why it is increasingly influential in the psychology of teaching and learning. This unique collection of published articles and chapters, which represent the key themes and range of his research over the last 40 years, will be of interest to all followers of his work and any reader interested in the role of language in education.

The enclosure of the cultural and environmental commons has been going on for hundreds of years, privatizing what was previously available to all members of the community. Recently, however, the process of enclosure has been accelerated by the spread of economic globalization. This timely book champions the cultural and environmental commons as sites of resistance to this current trend, and explains the nature of educational reforms that promote ecological sustainability, conserving of cultural and linguistic diversity, local democracy, and greater community self-sufficiency. Revitalizing the Commons will be of interest to scholars of environmental studies, education, and community development alike.

Chet Bowers wrote his first book on the connections between education, cultural ways of knowing, and the ecological crisis in 1974. Since then he has written more than 20 books that variously explore two concerns: how language reproduces ways of thinking that were formed before there was an awareness of ecological limits, and how the world's diverse cultural commons can serve as sites of resistance to economic globalization and further environmental degradation. In this book he focuses attention on the cultural and linguistic roots of the ecological crisis and claims that these have been ignored across the academic disciplines. He explores alternative pathways to living less consumer-dependent lives that have a smaller ecological footprint, and he asks critical questions about how the digital revolution is leading to the loss of important traditions such as democracy, privacy, and long-term memory. The book argues for a reform of higher education that promotes the formation of ecological intelligence by clarifying the colonizing effects of the West's penchant for print-based, abstract thinking, and showing how inherited vocabularies that reproduce the misconceptions and silences of earlier thinkers can be reframed by introducing students to culturally and environmentally informed analogs. Bowers argues that classroom teachers and university professors need to understand their role as mediators in helping students to recognize the ecological differences between their cultural commons and consumer-based experiences. His goal is nothing short of the transformation of culture through ecological thinking.

It is widely acknowledged that Gregory Bateson's ideas have been influential in a number of fields. Unfortunately, the importance of his ideas for understanding why public schools and universities continue to perpetuate ecologically unsustainable ways of thinking has not been adequately recognized. Given the deepening ecological and economic crises, this book is particularly timely as it clarifies how Bateson's five key ideas, when taken as a whole, provides the conceptual framework for introducing educational reforms that address both problems. That is, he explains why educators unconsciously continue to perpetuate the deep cultural assumptions that were constituted before there was an awareness of environmental limits, and how the emphasis on a possessive form of individualism and endless material progress undermines traditions of self-reliance within the world's diversity of communities. His contributions to making substantive educational reforms include: (1) Rethinking social justice issues in ways that take account of how the ecological crisis impacts the most vulnerable people; (2) How to make the transition to exercising ecological intelligence in the areas of democratic decision making and moral values; (3) Clarifying how computer-mediated learning perpetuates abstract thinking and the deep cultural assumptions that are at the cultural roots of the ecological and economic crises. The chapter on pedagogical and curricular decisions that foster ecological intelligence provides practical suggestions for how public school teachers and university professors can begin to make the transition to an ethnically diverse and ecologically sustainable future. Comments about the book: "We need an ecological consciousness which, in Gregory Bateson's words, is aware of the 'patterns that connect.' Chet Bowers leads us into that unmapped territory with a compass which helps." - Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute; author of Consulting the Genius of Place, and Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place "Chet Bowers' philosophical reflections on Bateson's thought and its implications for education are thought-provoking, challenging, and very inspiring." - Fritjof Capra, author of The Web of Life, and The Hidden Connections