To stop the downward spiral of intensifying environmental violence that inevitably leads to social violence we, as humans, need to better understand what is at stake and to determine how to make changes at the root levels. Ecopedagogy is centered on understanding the struggles of and connections between human acts of environmental and social violence. Greg W. Misiaszek argues that ecopedagogies grounded in critical, Freirean pedagogies construct learning that leads to human actions geared towards increased social and environmental justice and planetary sustainability. Throughout the book he discusses the need for teaching, reading, and researching through problematizing the causes of socio-environmental violence, including oppressive processes of globalization and constructs of “development”, “economics”, and “citizenship”, to name a few, that emerge from socio-historical oppressions (e.g., colonialization, racism, patriarchy, neoliberalism, xenophobia, epistemicide) and dominance over the rest of nature. Misiaszek concludes with ecopedagogies’ challenges within the current post-truth era and possibilities of reimagining UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This handbook brings together a range of global perspectives in the field of critical studies in education to illuminate multiple ways of knowing, learning, and teaching for social wellbeing, justice, and sustainability. The handbook covers areas such as critical thought systems of education, critical race (and racialization) theories of education, critical international/global citizenship education, and critical studies in education and literacy studies. In each section, the chapter authors illuminate the current state of the field and probe more inclusive ways to achieve multicentric knowledge and learning possibilities.

On the occasion of the centennial of Paulo Freire’s birth in September 2021 and of fifty years since the initial publication of his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this book focuses on how scholars continue to reinvent his work across geographic and thematic contexts. Reinvention is specifically used because Freire vehemently opposed simply repeating his work, calling on scholars to instead meaningfully recontextualize it. The book illustrates how without critical, contextual reinvention, teaching cannot lead to praxis – students’ critical reflexivity about how to make a better world and sustainable planet. The chapter authors’ explorations of past, present, and future-looking praxis, including their own, offer foundations, histories, possibilities, challenges, and examples of reinventing Freire’s work. It is work that counters fatalistic teaching that reproduces and justifies oppressions. In Pedagogy of Indignation, Freire stated that students should be educated to “dream of constant reinvention of the world, the dream of liberation, thus the dream of a less ugly society, one less mean-only dream of human beings' silent adaptation to a reality considered untouchable.” Readers will have the opportunity to understand how reinventions of Freire’s work continue to commit to these crucial goals. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.

Misiaszek examines the (dis)connection between critical global citizenship education models and ecopedagogy which is grounded in Paulo Freire's pedagogy. Exploring how concepts of citizenship are affected by globalization, this book argues that environmental pedagogues must teach critical environmental literacies in order for students to understand global environmental issues through the world's diverse perspectives. Misiaszek analyses the ways environmental pedagogies can use aspects of critical global citizenship education to better understand how environmental issues are contextually experienced and understood by societies locally and globally through issues of globalization, colonialism, socio-economics, gender, race, ethnicities, nationalities, indigenous issues, and spiritualties.

Building on Paulo Freire’s educational theory and critical pedagogy movements, this book provides a short and accessible introduction to ecopedagogy – Freirean environmental teaching and environmentalism overall. Ecopedagogy offers a political and educational vision that strives for a critical, culturally relevant forms of knowledge centred on sustainability for securing the future of our planet, ending all forms of oppression, and ensuring peace globally. Using examples from around the globe, Misiaszek shows how different populations (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) are affected in unbalanced ways by ongoing environmental destruction and argues that these systematic socio-environmental inequalities are ignored in much of environmental teaching. He argues through reinventing Freire’s work that environmental justice is inseparable to social justice and should be seen as part of wider debates around, for example, globalization, development, citizenship, racism, feminism, neo/colonialization, and linguistics. The book calls for global and local approaches to understanding socio-environmental issues beyond anthropocentric models (beyond humans) and epistemologies of the North (e.g., Western knowledges). Written for anyone with an interest in environmentalism this book offers news ways of thinking and teaching about environmental crises we are living through.

Misiaszek examines the (dis)connection between critical global citizenship education models and ecopedagogy which is grounded in Paulo Freire's pedagogy. Exploring how concepts of citizenship are affected by globalization, this book argues that environmental pedagogues must teach critical environmental literacies in order for students to understand global environmental issues through the world's diverse perspectives. Misiaszek analyses the ways environmental pedagogies can use aspects of critical global citizenship education to better understand how environmental issues are contextually experienced and understood by societies locally and globally through issues of globalization, colonialism, socio-economics, gender, race, ethnicities, nationalities, indigenous issues, and spiritualties.

The chapters in this book highlight the possibilities and complexities of putting decolonial theory to work in higher education in Northern and Southern contexts across the globe. This book looks at decolonial work as praxis involving transformation at a range of levels from theoretical development, national policy, institutional policy and culture, academic discipline, programme, course, classroom, student and the self. Our authors argue that praxis in their contexts includes working at institutional level to undo the historical power of ‘coloniality’ in universities in the metropoles, introducing Indigenous knowledges into curricula and undoing the effects of ‘coloniality’ in embodiment, temporality and whiteness. We, as editors, argue for the need for transformation of the self as well as structures, and highlight qualities such as reflexivity on our own entanglements with coloniality, and why they occur, in this undoing. The approach offered in this book emphasises the connection between significant personal change as a pre-condition and an epistemological process to connect critical decolonial theory and our teaching practice. The book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Teaching in Higher Education.

Building on Paulo Freire’s educational theory and critical pedagogy movements, this book provides a short and accessible introduction to ecopedagogy – Freirean environmental teaching and environmentalism overall. Ecopedagogy offers a political and educational vision that strives for a critical, culturally relevant forms of knowledge centred on sustainability for securing the future of our planet, ending all forms of oppression, and ensuring peace globally. Using examples from around the globe, Misiaszek shows how different populations (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity) are affected in unbalanced ways by ongoing environmental destruction and argues that these systematic socio-environmental inequalities are ignored in much of environmental teaching. He argues through reinventing Freire’s work that environmental justice is inseparable to social justice and should be seen as part of wider debates around, for example, globalization, development, citizenship, racism, feminism, neo/colonialization, and linguistics. The book calls for global and local approaches to understanding socio-environmental issues beyond anthropocentric models (beyond humans) and epistemologies of the North (e.g., Western knowledges). Written for anyone with an interest in environmentalism this book offers news ways of thinking and teaching about environmental crises we are living through.

To stop the downward spiral of intensifying environmental violence that inevitably leads to social violence we, as humans, need to better understand what is at stake and to determine how to make changes at the root levels. Ecopedagogy is centered on understanding the struggles of and connections between human acts of environmental and social violence. Greg W. Misiaszek argues that ecopedagogies grounded in critical, Freirean pedagogies construct learning that leads to human actions geared towards increased social and environmental justice and planetary sustainability. Throughout the book he discusses the need for teaching, reading, and researching through problematizing the causes of socio-environmental violence, including oppressive processes of globalization and constructs of “development”, “economics”, and “citizenship”, to name a few, that emerge from socio-historical oppressions (e.g., colonialization, racism, patriarchy, neoliberalism, xenophobia, epistemicide) and dominance over the rest of nature. Misiaszek concludes with ecopedagogies’ challenges within the current post-truth era and possibilities of reimagining UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).