Critical Pedagogy, Ecoliteracy, & Planetary Crisis: The Ecopedagogy Movement

For students and teachers of critical pedagogy, and others interested in environmental studies and sustainability education, Kahn (educational foundations and research, U. of North Dakota) presents the foundations of an ecopedagogy, arguing that the world's current path of social and environmental disaster can be traced to the evolution of an anthropocentric worldview, a global technocapitalist infrastructure, an unsustainable model of institutional science, and the marginalization and repression of pro-ecological resistance. He claims that environmental education needs a makeover, and draws from the theories of Paulo Freire, Herbert Marcuse, and Ivan Illich to show how a northern version of ecopedagogy must be concerned with the larger hidden curriculum of unsustainable life and look to how social movements and a democratic public sphere provide knowledge about and against it. He describes the northern movement as one concerned with the cosmological, technological, and organizational dimensions of social life and providing ecoliteracy programs, creating alliances between scholars and the public, and creating a critical dialogue and solidarity across groups in education. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)