Sustainability Bound? A study of interdisciplinarity and values in universities

Abstract

The United Nations declared 2005 to 2014 to be the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. This agenda is being implemented enthusiastically in university facilities management and operations, and while research in sustainability is increasingly common, tertiary curriculum has not experienced a similar push. This thesis undertakes to explore the expressions of sustainability in the academic activities of universities, and to determine what sort of change (if any) is appropriate. It also seeks to mediate what has become a polarised debate between idealists and pragmatists around the implementation of EFS. Two key features of the work are: 1) the investigation of sustainability in the aggregate student experience, rather than individual subjects; and 2) returning to first principles to avoid a normative stance a priori. ¶ A range of methods is employed adaptively through the process of this alternately broad and deep exploratory study. A systemic approach to Canadian and Australian case work captures the diversity of institutional roles and academic motivations at play in adaptation to the EFS agenda. ¶ ...