Learning and Change
7.1 Introduction
7.1.3 Learning as a meta-narrative for transformation
Christians realise the richness of environmental teaching in the Bible, as well as the importance of environmental sustainability. For example, in June 1994, almost 500 Christian leaders signed the declaration named: ‘On the care of creation: Evangelical Declaration on the Environment’, thus expressing the importance of environmental care to their faith (Gottlieb 2009). This is a two and a half page document that expresses ecological concerns, strong pro-ecological values and intentions for action.
A growing number of South African churches are joining the environmental movement and organisations have been established to support this. Examples include the Johannesburg Anglican Environmental Initiative (JAEI), which has established five eco-congregations in Johannesburg, SAFCEI (Southern African Faith Communities Environment Institute), A Rocha, and the Evangelical Environmental Network. A Rocha, a Christian conservation organisation working for the protection of fragile ecosystems in co-operation with local people, began in South Africa in 2004 (Goddard 2008). SAFCEI is working on setting up eco-congregations across South Africa and is currently developing an eco-congregation handbook. This reflects and supports the growing South African eco-theological movement.
The chapter moves on to discuss the importance of learning, if schools and churches are to play a transformative role for increased social-ecological resilience.
that are currently being faced. Wals and van der Leij (2007: 17) connected the importance of “powerful learning processes” to changing unsustainable “assumptions, behaviors and values”. In the UN decade for Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) vision UNESCO suggested that “we must learn constantly – about ourselves, our potential, our limitations, our relationships, our society, our environment, our world” if we are to achieve the critical goal of increasing the quality of life for all while also respecting the earth. Individuals and organisations across all sectors are therefore encouraged to engage in critical reflection and learning (Bawden et al. 2007) that is innovative, far-reaching, social and transformative (Wals 2007b) and that facilitates adaptation to complex, fast-changing social-ecological systems (Holling & Gunderson; Biggs et al. 2012).
Authors (e.g. Reed et al. 2010) point to the importance of effective social learning processes for challenging ecologically damaging practices. This reflects the recognition that multiple perspectives, values and interests are needed when tackling social-ecological problems (Lotz-Sisitka 2012). Social learning discourse lacks a common theoretical perspective and accepted definition, pointing to its multifaceted use by a variety of both natural and social disciplines and theoretical spaces (Reed et al. 2010). Reed et al. (2010: 6) provided a comprehensive definition that is adopted in this thesis: “Social learning may be defined as a change in understanding that goes beyond the individual to become situated within wider social units or communities of practice through social interactions between actors within social networks”. Glasser (2007) argued that most learning is social due to humans being inherently social. He made the useful distinction, particularly relevant for my thesis, between passive social learning that has the potential to entrench the status quo and active social learning that can challenge the status quo through reflexive processes. Passive learning is the most common form of social learning and is based on absorbing the prior learning of others, without direct engagement. It is based on trust, accepting the information uncritically and generally involves adopting “the values and assumptions that are encoded in the transferred knowledge” (Glasser 2007: 50). Passive social learning has limited effect in transforming social structures and can help perpetuate modern unsustainable behaviours and hegemonic normalising ideologies (Glasser 2007).
In contrast, active social learning is “inherently dialogical” where two or more living beings engage in conscious interaction (Glasser 2007: 51). It encourages critical reflection of existing knowledge and the development and application of new knowledge and therefore has the potential to bring about positive change of the status quo (Glasser 2007). This relates to the work of Wals (2007b) who uses the metaphor
refer to an individual’s particular way of perceiving and interacting with the world that is informed by hidden assumptions. By consciously engaging with diverse others with the intention to learn, individuals can become aware of their frames through exposure to the framings of others (Wals 2007b). Effective social learning occurs when people have challenged their own frames and constructed different ones together (Wals 2007b).
Bandura (1977) developed a social learning theory that had four aspects:
• Attention: the model behaviour must grab the learner’s notice.
• Retention: the learner must be able to learn the observed behaviour.
• Reproduction: the learner must be able to replicate the observed behaviour.
• Motivation: there must be a consequence that increases the likelihood of the learner reproducing what they have learned.
Glasser (2007) examined the possibility of ecoculturally sustainable behaviours becoming more normative through processes of social learning. He employed Bandura’s framework to show why these behaviours are infrequently adopted through passive learning processes: attention is diminished as they are seen as less appealing than normative behaviour; retention is unlikely as they are frequently unfamiliar; they are more difficult to reproduce because they are often more complex to enact; and motivation is reduced as they are often more expensive, less fashionable, more inconvenient and time consuming. Two additional factors are advertising campaigns that show people enjoying the results of unsustainable behaviours with no sign of the negative effects, and that these effects are often located far from the perpetrator, both in time and space (Bauman 1994; Glasser 2007). This points to the importance of more aggressive active learning social processes to offset the detrimental effects of passive learning on social-ecological resilience.
This introductory section has provided context to the focus of the chapter and explored the role that schools and churches can play in transforming social-ecological systems.
The remaining structure of the chapter is as follows:
• An overview of the methodological framework with a detailed examination of the process of data analysis.
• Data representation including a description of community learning and change and an examination of the emergent patterns of identifying, forms of knowledge and types of agency amongst school participants.
• A theoretical discussion, based on four analytical statements that emerge from the data.
• The conclusion.