ABSTRACT
Sustainability emerged as a new field, reframing many environmental studies programs, which had historically housed the study of humanity's social and ecological problems, and enlivening other areas of the curriculum. Sustainability is framed in different ways depending on different groups' goals and values, which are socially constructed, emergent, and often contested. For instance, in classrooms, there is a natural tendency to think of sustainability as a fixed, unchanging state that can be attained at some point, a goal that human societies should aspire to achieve. However, perhaps most challenging, concepts of sustainability and sustainability education are too often explored in the context of the historically dominant Western cultures that have now become a globally capitalist set of beliefs and values, including emphases on progress, reason, competition, individualism, and materialism Sustainability education requires a kind of pedagogy that sees learning as not only a cognitive endeavor, but also a somatic, affective, and ethical one.
