Suchergebnisse

The increasing awareness of the human impact on the environment is having a profound effect on the concept and content of citizenship - one of the fundamental institutions that structures human relations. In what is the first introduction of its kind, this book provides an accessible, stimulating and multidimensional overview of the many ways in which concern for the environment - driven primarily by the preoccupation with sustainability - is reshaping our understanding of citizenship. Environment and Citizenship is structured into three parts. Part I introduces the reader to the concept and theories of citizenship and explores the impact that environmental concerns is having on contemporary formulations of citizenship, both traditional (e.g. national, liberal and republican) and emerging (e.g. cosmopolitan, ecological and ecofeminist). Part II explores the practical manifestations of environmental citizenship, with each chapter focusing on a particular actor: citizens, governments, and corporations. These chapters include references to examples and case studies from a wide range of countries, broadly categorized as belonging to the Global North and the Global South. Part III explores the making of green citizens and outlines the dominant articulations of environmental citizenship that emerge from formal education, news media and popular culture. The book concludes with a general reflection on the present and future of environmental citizenship. The book contains a variety of illustrations, boxed case-studies, links to online resources and suggestions for further reading. This original and engaging text is essential reading for students and scholars of environmental politics, sustainability studies and development studies, as well as for environmental activists, policy practitioners and environmental educators. More broadly, this book will appeal to anyone interested in and concerned with issues of sustainability, social justice and citizenship in the twenty-first century.

This paper reflects on the current emphasis placed by government and universities on graduate skills, in the face of considerable uncertainties about what these might involve and how they might be developed. One of the key areas of graduate skill development which tertiary students are meant to experience during their university degrees is their transformation into critical thinkers. In this context, the paper reports on the findings of a survey carried out earlier this year amongst students of first-year Politics courses, at the University of Adelaide. The survey is part of a larger project on the development of graduate skills in general and critical thinking in particular in the Discipline of Politics. The findings indicate that students understand the value and the meaning(s) of critical thinking, at least to the same degree that academics do. Indeed, first year Politics students at the University of Adelaide seem to understand critical thinking more than many or most academics might think. In addition, our findings suggest that the courses surveyed in this project are doing an effective job of transforming students within Politics into critical thinkers, at least in the view of the students themselves.