Presenter: Various
When: 20 September 2023
Duration: 75 minutes
Cost: Free
Context
In recent years, the importance of adult learning education focused on climate justice has gained momentum in Australia and the world. In Australia, we have seen the impact of climate disruption with more frequent catastrophic weather events such as floods and fires contributing to the displacement of people from housing and local communities and the subsequent effects on the environment and non-human species. In 2021, the Australian Journal of Adult Learning (AJAL) engaged prominent researchers in this area, Associate Professor Hilary Whitehouse and Professor Bob Stevenson to edit a special edition focusing on climate justice education and how adult learning education is currently responding to the call for action on climate change. As they noted in their editorial … “In her recent book Humanity’s Moment, Australian scientist Joëlle Gergis (2022), a lead author of the 2022 Sixth IPCC Report, documents the overwhelming scientific evidence of a rapidly worsening ecological crisis” (Whitehouse and Stevenson, 2022). The special edition of AJAL highlights research and scholarship from Australia and a South African-led international collaboration responding to the impact of climate change, from issues related to popular education and social movement activism on climate change to affective dimensions of grappling with the social trauma of the climate crisis and the need for an emergent curriculum on climate justice education for educators and activists. The special edition includes practice-based papers on teaching climate justice in the classroom and working with discomfort and emotions using pedagogies that engage students and teachers in dialogue on climate justice.
Purpose
The seminar aims to bring adult educators together to engage on matters of climate justice education and to hear about current scholarship and practices from the authors of the special edition.
Keynote
Shirley Walters is Professor Emerita of adult and continuing education at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
She is an African ecofeminist popular educator, activist and scholar. She was founding director of the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education (CACE) and Division for Lifelong Learning (DLL) at UWC over 35 years. She has been active within justice oriented civil society organisations and movements for over 40 years both locally and globally. She is President of the international network, PIMA, which has climate justice education as a critical focus area.