Diego Posada Gonzalez
Assigned Curriculum:
Brief personal and professional presentation and research interests:
I'm a PhD candidate and Research Assistant at MECCE (The Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Change Communication and Education Project). My research explores the potential of education as a positive transformative socio-political agent in light of the socio-ecological crises we are facing. I focus on land-based learning, decolonial knowledges and ecopedagogies from an international comparative perspective. I've been working in the educational field for 12 years in NGOs and schools based in Uruguay, Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, Denmark and Italy.
Abstract PhD project:
The relationship between human development
and environmental impact is complex. People with high educational achievements
living in the Global North are more likely to have a larger carbon footprint,
which is harmful to local and global ecosystems. This is often due to an
overall higher consumption of goods, food and water waste, as well as high CO2
emissions as a result of regular use of cars and aeroplanes (Wals and Benavot,
2017). Conversely, access to environmental
education and knowledge about climate change and ecology has promoted
behavioural change towards recycling, reducing waste and energy use and
selecting less carbon-intensive methods of transport if possible. This implies
that some types of education prove to be effective in increasing care for the
environment at the local and global levels.
Education for Sustainability -or Transformative Education for Sustainability- (Laininen, 2019) can be both instrumental and emancipatory. It can help to create citizens who are aware of environmental issues and provide them with tools to act. It investigates ways of living in a more sustainable manner with the environment and with the rest of society. This type of education tends to promote learning by doing, collaboration, participation and transformation in nature. In some cases, it involves questioning not only how we live but also production and consumption systems, local eco-social problems and how they relate to global issues, as well as carrying out action and awareness campaigns. One of the main objectives of this type of education is to promote more just and environmentally and socially sustainable societies.
Methodology and Research questions
This research has the following central questions:
- How can we educate our youth aged between 11-15 towards more sustainable lifestyles?
- What are the main characteristics of projects that focus on transformative education towards sustainability in three school projects that claim to focus on EfS? How can we evaluate and monitor them?
- What policies and practices have been adopted by the educational community? How have the different actors across the educational community interpreted the schools’ policies and practices?
- What is the relationship between the context in which the project is immersed and its EfS proposal?
- How connected to students feel to nature? How is that fostered by each educational project and community? To what extent is there a connection between students’ connection to nature and their sustainability beliefs and attitudes?
These questions will be answered through a comparative study of EfS projects in Italy, Argentina and Uruguay. The activities that will be carried out in each educational centre are observations, questionnaires, interviews and workshops.
3 key words identifying the PhD project: land-based learning - sustainability education - multiple case studies
Supervisor: Alessio Surian
Participation as a speaker or co-speaker at national and international conferences/seminars extra training offered:
- ECER 2023, Glasgow. Transformative Learning in Higher Education: Case Study and Systematic Literature Review, August 22nd-25th.
- ECER 2023, Glasgow. The Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) Project’s Interactive Data Platform, August 22nd-25th.
- ERC (ECER) 2023, Glasgow. Education for Sustainability: a cross-cultural study, August 21-22nd, 2023
- ANGEL 2023, Paris. Asian and European Teachers Attitudes and Beliefs Concerning Global Citizenship Education and Climate Change Education, UNESCO (Paris), June 19-20th, 2023
- UNFCCC SB58, Bonn. ACE Academy workshop facilitation, June 7-8th 2023.
- Comune di Rimini, presentazione del ANGEL Digest 2022. May 14th, 2023.
- ECER 2022, Yerevan. September 2nd, 2022. Presentation: Evaluation Methods for Education for Sustainability: a Systematic Literature Review.
- ECER 2022 – Early Career Researchers, Yerevan – September 1st, 2022. Presentation: Climate change education at first sustainable public school: a case study
- EARLI JURE 2022, Porto. July 14th, 2022. University of Porto. Poster presentation: Climate change education at first sustainable public school: a case study
- World PhD climate change conference, Hamburg, March 9th 2022, University of Hamburg. Title of presentation: Climate Change Education in Italy and Uruguay
Publications:
Cosamalon Chavez, B., Posada, D., and Benavot, A. (2023). ‘Climate Change Communication Efforts and Results in Latin America and the Caribbean’ chapter in “Handbook: SDGs in the Americas and Caribbean Region” edited by Prof. Walter Leal Filho and published by Springer. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-91188-1_78-1
ANGEL (2023). Global Education Digest 2022. London: Development Education Research Centre, IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. Co-author for chapter for Spanish language: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161623/1/Digest%202022%20%281%29.pdf
“Uruguay - Sustainable School Buildings and Grounds as a WSA entry point” contribution in Mathie, R. G. and Wals, A.E.J. (2022) Whole School Approaches to Sustainability: Exemplary Practices from around the world. Wageningen: Education & Learning Sciences/Wageningen University. 62 pages. https://doi.org/10.18174/566782