A social ecological model of education: Economic problems, citizenship solutions

Abstract

This article develops a model of education from Murray Bookchin’s social ecology by demonstrating how “the economy,” specifically growth and employment, intervenes between the environment and education, impeding the goal of environmental education. By reformulating Bookchin’s central claim in terms of power, rather than domination, the argument for limits to growth is strengthened and gives rise to a necessary feature of ecological sustainability; namely, the collective imposition of limits on throughput, the technical term for resource use. To make such collective action effective, the model proposes that active citizenship become a more common aim of education, especially in relation to the increasingly narrow goal of education for employment.