Education and transmission of Indigenous and local knowledge

Education and knowledge transmission are often heralded as a route to sustainability via maintenance or change in behaviors and attitudes, but their role in sustainability is even more fundamental, as a precursor to well-functioning societies. Further, education will only serve either role if conceived much more broadly than as imparting information. Rather, education that leads to sustainable development and enduring change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and/or values builds from existing understandings, fosters social learning, and embraces a “whole person” approach. Environmental education can enhance values such as connectedness, care, and kinship. Transmission of Indigenous and local knowledge can serve all the roles above, including maintaining invaluable knowledge and experiences about ecological processes, but it is also a keystone to cultural integrity and the maintenance of collective identity.

Evidence

Education—as the broad transmission of knowledge and capabilities—is widely recognized as essential for stable, well-functioning societies (Sen, 1999; Nussbaum, 2001; Otto & Ziegler, 2010). Thus, education—in and of itself—is a crucial precursor of sustainability (Sachs, 2015).

Though education systems have sometimes served to inculcate particular norms and attitudes (King & McGrath, 2013), some educators and scholars have for centuries recognized and taken steps to deal with the inherent ethical complexities of teaching to develop engaged citizens (e.g., Dewey, 1906; Hug, 2010).

A brief yet crucial point is the demonstrated importance of education for girls and women.

Increased rates and quality of education for girls and women correlate with higher levels of gender equity and lower birth rates, both of which are components of pathways to sustainability (UNICEF, 2003; see also 5.4.1.2; 5.4.1.4).

Beyond the crucial importance of Indigenous and local knowledge for cultural integrity and identity, ensuring the transmission of this knowledge and practices is key to sustainable pathways. Over millennia, IPLCs have developed and integrated invaluable knowledge and experiences about ecological processes, environmental management, production systems, as well as institutions supporting the sustainable use of resources (Turner, 2005; Tuck et al., 2014;

Vickery & Hunt, 2016; Taylor, 2010; Nadasdy, 2007). Many landscapes around the world, and much global agrobiodiversity heritage, depend on the knowledge and cultural memory held by IPLCs and other farmers, hunters, fishers, foragers, herders, pastoralists, etc. Continued transmission of these forms of knowledge in varied and culturally appropriate ways (Cajete,

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1994) maintains alternatives for managing landscapes and seascapes sustainably (5.3.2.3;

5.4.1.5).

Emerging insights from western literatures on education appear to be converging with lessons from Indigenous and local knowledge transmission. As a first example, research demonstrates that the “deficit model” of education and communication, which assumes that people would think and act differently if only they had the right information, is rarely effective at creating lasting attitudinal or behavioral change (Kollmuss and Agyeman, 2002; Dietz and Stern, 2002).

More effective educational approaches—those that are more likely to foster fundamental and long-term change in knowledge, skills, attitudes, and/or values—encompass prior knowledge (e.g., existing understandings), social interaction (e.g., interpersonal relationships and collective learning), and affective as well as cognitive dimensions (e.g., emotional responses to what is learned) (Heimlich and Ardoin, 2008; Wals, 2011). Based on these findings, fields related to environmental education—including nature conservation education and education for sustainable development—have moved away from an “information delivery” model to more integrated models that collaboratively explore the intricate links between environmental and social equity and empower learners as change agents.

Broad education and knowledge transmission literatures have identified that effective

education—including that for sustainability—involves two interrelated components: process and content. The former is crucial, but often overlooked. Process involves the ways education is carried out: the approaches used and how teaching and learning occur. Diverse theories of learning emphasize different aspects of the learning process (Merriam and Bierema, 2013). A few commonalities emerge, and three aspects of learning theory (detailed below) are particularly relevant to issues of sustainability.

The first commonality of learning theory is the importance of recognizing and responding to learners’ context, experience, and existing understandings. A helpful metaphor here follows directly from constructivist learning theory: understanding is constructed from and upon

“blocks” of what is already known (and if existing understandings must be changed, that must be dealt with, not ignored). In sustainability-related education, this concept is paramount; it

coincides with the importance of locally based solutions that account for diverse contexts.

A second commonality is the role that social interaction plays in learning. This focus on social dimensions of learning takes two primary forms: the idea that much learning occurs via observing others (Bandura and Walters, 1977; Rogoff et al., 2003) and the idea that learning occurs collectively, in and by social groups (Wals, 2007; Rogoff, 1994). These social

interactions may be particularly important for the transmission of indigenous and local

knowledge (Berkes & Turner, 2006; Turner et al., 2008). The importance of social interaction for sustainability education manifests in many ways, including the strong role that social norms play in fostering sustainable behavior (Miller and Prentice, 2015) and the substantial success of initiatives that engage social learning for sustainability (Wals, 2007).

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A third commonality addresses the relevance of attending to the “whole person” in learning. The whole person approach emphasizes that education is about both cognitive and affective aspects of the learner—that education must think not only about cognitive development, but must also attend to the crucial role that emotion can play in learning (Podger et al., 2010). This holistic approach has been central to education in IPLCs for millennia. These emotional aspects may be particularly important in sustainability-related education, which can involve strong emotions such as despair and hope (Li and Monroe, 2017; Newman, 1996; Hicks, 2006).

Content is the second pillar of sustainability education. Though content may seem more straightforward than process, decisions about content—what to include and exclude from educational initiatives—are crucial. Content encompasses knowledge, concepts, and skills that are relevant to sustainability. Content that is central to most recent frameworks of environmental and sustainability education includes the following: social justice and the centrality of equity to sustainability; participatory learning and engagement with local communities (both ecological and social); citizenship skills, such as knowledge and empowerment related to collaboration, dialogue, and democratic processes; interconnectedness and systems thinking; and attention to multiple scales (spatial, temporal, and organizational) (Tilbury, 2011).

Possible points of action

Given that a common challenge to sustainable behaviour is that people default to decision-making based only on technological or economic feasibility, sustainability-related education can develop understanding of the complexities of—and synergies between—the issues threatening planetary sustainability, and encourage consideration of complex options and trade-offs. The long time scales over which people’s orientations and priorities become established, coupled with the many social and personal influences on these orientations and priorities, make study of the impact of sustainability-related education difficult. Even so, research suggests that time spent during childhood in outdoor or natural environments with respected adults can be an important motivator for learning about these complex issues and taking sustainability-related action in adulthood (Chawla, 2007). Though results about the relations between connection to nature and behavior are varied, connection to nature, which is often but not always established in childhood, in some cases correlates with increased pro-environmental behavior (Mayer et al., 2009; Gosling and Williams, 2010; Geng et al., 2015).

For IPLCs, the educational system can be the basis for strengthening a political and cultural project that incorporates traditional and novel perspectives on management, use, and

maintenance of existing resources in these communities. Some see an urgent need to recognize the importance and enhance the transmission of Indigenous and local knowledge, both

intergenerationally and among different societal groups, as a complement to mainstream education—including to maintain crucial relationships with nature and values of responsibility and stewardship associated with those (Chan & Satterfield, 2016; Chan et al., 2016). Ideally, these two forms of knowledge can be integrated, but often formal education tends to be favored and in some cases negates the value of local forms of knowledge. Education targeted at IPLCs

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can develop skills required to, for example, serve in government roles or innovate in fields such as production, trade, and management, while maintaining traditions, values and culture. At the same time, incorporating principles and content from indigenous and local knowledge would enrich and improve all education (Cecoin, 2015; McCarter et al., 2014).

Environmental education can lead to a variety of outcomes supportive of sustainability, including knowledge, attitudes, and skills (Stern et al., 2014). It can also enhance values such as of

connectedness, care, and kinship (Britto dos Santos & Gould, 2018). That said, the fields of environmental and sustainability education are home to many discussions of the extent to which education should explicitly encourage particular values or behaviors (Hug, 2010). Though opinions on the proper course of action differ, the most common approach is for environmental education to encourage active and informed citizenship. This citizenship inherently encompasses the ability to understand and assess one’s own values (virtues and principles) and those of the society in which one lives (Tilbury, 2011). It involves awareness of the importance of issues of ethics and values, without prescribing particular values. The goal of this work is to provide tools that allow people to engage in respectful, thoughtful, and informed negotiations toward decisions and actions that lead to a sustainable future (Huckle et al., 2006; Tilbury et al., 2004).