Environmentalism as Social Purpose in Higher Education: A Green Education Agenda

Abstract

This paper considers some recent ideas about tertiary environmental education and about environmentalism as an emerging social purpose of universities. It shows that total reliance on education about the environment results in unacceptable views of the environment, environmental education and 'environmental problems'. The paper considers approaches to teaching, arguing for one which assumes that learners construct their own concepts of the environment. It distinguishes between current discipline-based teaching in universities and the more holistic Green Education. The paper concludes with a list of characteristics of Green Education which follow from the arguments presented.