Unsettling Environmental Management: Reflections from Two Environmental Studies Graduates in Singapore

Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

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16

Foreign Countries; College Graduates; Bachelors Degrees; Environmental Education; Student Attitudes; Autobiographies; Ethnography; Neoliberalism; Politics of Education; Epistemology; Educational Change; Resistance to Change; Relevance (Education); Discourse Analysis

10.1080/13504622.2016.1146661

1350-4622

Environmental and sustainability programmes in higher education have gained traction over the last several decades. More-than-disciplinary epistemologies and innovative pedagogies promise transformational learning to grapple with contemporary environmental challenges. Environmental programmes thus have implicit messages of social change. Evaluation, thus far, have tended to be methodologically partial, and neglects the student voice. In this paper, we present our co/autoethnography as two graduates of the Bachelor of Environmental Studies programme from the National University of Singapore. We critically reflect on our experiences in a capstone Environmental Studies module. Highlighting orthodoxies around discourses of "behaviour," the valorising of quantitative knowledges, and the "tyranny of relevance," we argue these neoliberal scripts limits the programme's potential as an agent of social change. In concluding, we make the case for a more critical environmental education.

As Provided

98

2017

EJ1163044