Higher Education for Sustainability: Seeking Intellectual Independence in Aotearoa New Zealand

Preface
Contents
Series Editors’ Introduction
I Exploring Our Practices
1 About Higher Education for Sustainable Development and for Sustainability in New Zealand, and Elsewhere
	Is There a Problem to Address?
	Is There a Solution to the Problem that May or May not Be?
	Where Does Higher Education Fit?
	Seeking Clearer Distinctions in a Complex World
	Sustainability as a Quest for Individuals and a Task for Readers
	Sustainability as a Process, Rather Than as a Destination
	A Way Forward
	Summary
	References
2 Campus Sustainability
	Physical, Biological and Chemical Environment
	Social, Economic and Ethical Considerations
	Educational Imperatives
	Governance
	Trees and Concrete Pavers
	Situating Campus Sustainability Within the Broader Context of Higher Education
		Can Poor Performance in One Domain Be Compensated by Good Things Happening in Another?
		Higher Education Institutions as Role Models for Sustainability
	Summary
	References
3 University Teacher as Critic and Conscience of Society
	The Critic and Conscience Construct in New Zealand’s Higher Education
		Academics as Individuals
	Academics’ Diverse Rationales for Critiquing Society
	How the Critic and Conscience Construct Sits Within the Higher Education Landscape in New Zealand
	How Higher Education Does or Does not Research Its Own Practices
	Conclusions
	References
4 Environmental Education in New Zealand
	Some Personal Experiences of Environmental Education: Family, School and Lifestyle
	New Zealand’s 1998 National Strategy for Environmental Education and Proposed Changes in 2016
	The Underlying Ethos of New Zealand’s 1998 National Strategy for Environmental Education
	But Is It Working?
	OK, What Is Really Going on Here?
	Research into Values
	Roles for Higher Education
	My Own Research
	New Proposals in 2016
	The National Situation in 2018
	Some International Comparisons
	Conclusions
	References
5 Roles and Responsibilities for Higher Education in New Zealand, and Elsewhere
	Some Assumptions
	New Zealand’s Productivity Commission’s Review of Tertiary Education
	Submissions to the Productivity Commission’s Review of Tertiary Education
	If Submissions to the Review Were not About Sustainability Education, What Was on the Minds of Those Who Submitted?
	Higher Education from Economic, Societal and Individual Perspectives
	Conclusion
	References
6 Global Perspectives and Competitive Individualism
	Researching the Educational Nature of Global Perspective
	Production: New Zealand Punches Above Its Weight
	Representation: As More Than One Perspective
	Consumption
	Different Ways of Interacting Globally
	References
II Researching Our Practices
7 What Guides Our Beliefs and Actions?
	Social and Personal Identities and Who Gets to Influence Them
	Nudging, Advertising and Consumerism
	Framing the World as We See It
	Societal Influences on Personal and Social Identity
	The Psychology of Choice, Motivation and Staying Put
	Professional Values and Professional Education
	Governance and Economic Instruments
	So How Does Education Guide the Beliefs and Actions of Citizens?
	Changing Personal and Social Identity from the Inside: On Critical Thinking
	Back to Leopold
	References
8 On Deep, Critical and Independent Thinking and Why It Is So Challenging for Higher Education to Teach These Things
	A Road map to Education for Sustainability
	Teaching Skills May Be Easier Than Teaching Dispositions but Learning Both Is Important: Cognition and Affect
	Acquiring and Valuing Dispositions to Think Critically: Or not
	Let’s Explore Two of These Dispositions in Detail
		On Having a Disposition to Being Open to the Possibility of Changing My Mind
	On Having a Disposition to Fairness
	A Note on Universal Values
	A Note on Recursive Thinking
	A Note on Critical Mass
	References
III Changing Our Practices
9 Community Engagement and Higher Education’s Third Mission
	On Reflection
	Is There Something Special About Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching?
	On National and Institutional Rhetoric About Community Engagement
	On Institutional Reality
	Research-Led Enquiry About Community-Engaged Learning and Teaching in New Zealand
		Diverse Conceptualisations About Community Engagement and Higher Education’s Responsibility to Be Community Engaged
		On Getting Community Engagement into the Curriculum
		On Valuing Community Engagement
	Some Conclusions and Possible Ways Forward
	References
10 Empowering Students in Higher Education
	Empowering Students in Higher Education to Teach and Learn
	References
11 On Assessment and Evaluation, and Researching the Practices of Higher Education
	Some Assessment and Evaluation Issues to Address
		Opposition to an Accountability Culture
		Good Intentions Subverted
		Attempts to Agree Measures of Learning Gain
		Do Higher Education People Have the Skills and Dispositions to Think Deeply, Independently and Critically?
	What Should We Measure, Assess, Evaluate or Research?
		Direct Measures of Deep, Critical and Independent Thinking Skills
		Addressing Societal Lack of Trust in Academia
		Skills or Dispositions?
		Measures of Pro-environmental and Sustainability Attitudes, Ecological Worldviews and Similar Things
	What if Institutional Measures Over the Coming Decades Do not Identify Progress?
	References
A Final Conversation with a Critical Friend
Index