Educating for Eco-Justice and Community - by C a Bowers (Paperback)

About the Book

Bowers outlines a strategy for educational reform that confronts the rapid degradation of our ecosystems by renewing the face-to-face, intergenerational traditions that can serve as alternatives to our hyper-consumerist, technology-driven worldview.

Book Synopsis

We believe in social justice. We support educational reform. Yet unless we reframe our approaches to both, says C. A. Bowers, the social justice attained through educational reform will only lead to more intractable forms of consumerism and further impoverishment of our communities. In Educating for Eco-Justice and Community Bowers outlines a strategy for educational reform that confronts the rapid degradation of our ecosystems by renewing the face-to-face, intergenerational traditions that can serve as alternatives to our hyper-consumerist, technology-driven worldview.

Bowers explains how current technological and progressive programs of educational reform operate on deep cultural assumptions that came out of the Enlightenment and led to the Industrial Revolution. These beliefs frame our relationship with nature in adversarial terms, view progress as inevitable, and elevate the individual over community, expertise over intergenerational knowledge, and profit over reciprocity.

By making eco-justice a priority of educational reform, we can begin to: democratize developments in science and technology in ways that eliminate eco-racism;reverse the global processes that are worsening the economic and political inequities between the hemispheres;expose the cultural forces that turn aspects of daily life--from education and entertainment to work and leisure--into market-dependent relationships;uplift knowledge and traditions of intergenerationally connected communities; anddevelop a sense of moral responsibility for the long-term consequences of our excessive material demands.

In the tradition of Wendell Berry, David Orr, and Kirkpatrick Sale, Bowers thinks about our place in the natural world and the current economies to show how we can reform education and create a less consumer-driven society.

Review Quotes

Bowers' is a unique voice in the discourse of environmental education/education for sustainability. He has the courage to question deeply-held beliefs and fundamental convinctions which others either dare not touch or are unaware of, and he has recognized that educational practice cannot continue to be a specialist discipline ignorant of the wider world around it.

--Resurgence

About the Author

C. A. BOWERS has served on the faculty of the University of Oregon and Portland State University. He is the author of several books that examine the connections between education, culture, and the environmental crisis, including Educating for an Ecologically Sustainable Culture and The Culture of Denial.