University responsibility in a world of environmental catastrophe: cognitive justice, engagement and an ethic of care in learning

Abstract

Higher education has provided little leadership and few conceptual tools to assist us to better understand our place, among others, in leading the world towards a more sustainable future. We continue to educate society in ways oblivious to the mounting crisis of unsustainability (Orr 1992). Instead, our universities reinforce human exceptionalism in environmental matters with a diet of managerialism, funding demands, competitive ratings predicated on institutional instrumentalism, and path-dependent curricula based on a ‘knowing about’ pedagogy rather than one that enhances capability in ‘being-for’. This approach has proven spectacularly disastrous in dealing with critical concerns of the planet. This chapter suggests an alternative curriculum to transform our institutions of higher education