Citizenship, character, sustainability: Differences and commonalities in three fields of education

Abstract

An adequate response to the environmental and sustainability issues we now face cannot be limited to single perspectives, disciplines, or ways of knowing, and instead requires an interdisciplinary approach. Despite the connections between the fields of citizenship-, character- and sustainability education, they have thus far run parallel to each other, without any substantial convergence. This paper focuses on the conceptual and historical reasons for this lack of integration, exploring the tensions among them perceived by many scholars and practitioners, such as an individual vs. a social vs. a global focus, a deliberative vs. fact based pedagogic approach, and an individual vs. socio- political educational context. The paper ends by exploring different ways in which these three fields of education might be integrated.