Sustainability education through critical communication pedagogy : a methodological study

This study began by questioning pedagogical approaches to sustainability and scrutinizing the paradigmatic assumptions inherent to those approaches. The following text focuses the investigation of a means through which students might be educated not about sustainability, but in sustainability. Differentiating between the two calls into question the ideological categorization – e.g., separate ecological and social perspectives – that has resulted from dominant sustainability paradigms. The essence of these paradigms discloses a common interest in the consequences of human action, a finding which suggests (a) that sustainability and sustainability education ought to be primarily concerned with considering the past and potential consequences of a specific action, and (b) that this is best accomplished by assembling the perspectives of those affected by the consequences, and those who might be able to expound upon those perspectives. Using an architectural study abroad program as point of intervention, critical communication pedagogy is considered for its potential to assemble and examine multiple perspectives and enhance the overall effectiveness of sustainability education.