Whole School Approaches to Sustainable Communities Across Time, and Place: A Post-qualitative Case Study of Cape Breton University, Canada
Abstract
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have an ethical duty to care for the communities in which they are embedded. Universities are catalysts for the development of the economic, social, cultural, and living systems in a relationship of interdependence and reciprocity. In this chapter, a case study is presented exploring how a small Canadian post secondary institution, Cape Breton University, is situated in a story that continues to emerge with a renewed sense of societal change and reconciliation connected to deep- rooted historical currents and Indigenous knowledge. The study uses a post qualitative approach to critically inquire into challenges inherent in perspectives that align with a life code of value as the institution responds to the call to care for the sustainable well-being of Cape Breton Island communities. The chapter concludes by exploring how transgressive education may align with a multi-level perspectives (MLP) analysis of HEI approaches for the post-sustainability era.
Key words: sustainable development, Cape Breton University, post-qualitative case study, life-code of values, transgressive education, Indigenous knowledge, multi-level perspectives
Patrick Howard is professor of Education at Cape Breton University. A common theme of his work is how teaching and learning can deepen the human-nonhuman interrelationship to provide a vital, dynamic vision of education based on life values. Dr. Howard is an associate editor of the open-source journal Phenomenology & Practice. His most recent edited book is Phenomenology and Education Theory in Conversation: Back to Education Itself (2020).
Contact: patrick_howard@cbu.ca
References
Ayers, T. (2020),‘Cape Breton population grows after 20 years of decline’, Available online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/cape-breton-population-grows-after-more-than-20-years-of-decline-1.5480357%20 (accessed 15 February 2023).
Battiste, M. (2016).
Battiste, M. (1998), ‘Enabling the autumn seed: Toward a decolonized approach to aboriginal knowledge, language, and education’, Canadian Journal of Native Education, 22 (1): 16-27.
Bowen, H. (2018), The Individual and the Social Value of American Education, New York: Routledge.
Brundtland, G.H. (1987), Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Geneva: UN-Document A/42/427.
Cape Breton University (2023), ‘Population Growth a Key Outcome of CBU’s COVID-19 Recovery Plan’, Available online: https://www.cbu.ca/newsroom/releases (accessed 02 March 2023).
Cape Breton University (2023), ‘Province of Nova Scotia Invests $58.9 Million for CBU Med Campus’, Available online: https://www.cbu.ca/newsroom/articles/province-of-nova-scotia-invests-58-9-million-for-cbu-med-campus/ (accessed 02 March 2023).
Cape Breton University (2023), ‘CBU Continues to take action on housing’, Available online: https://www.cbu.ca/newsroom/features/cbu-continues-to-take-action-on-housing/ (accessed 27 February 2023).
CBC (2023), ‘Waitlist for doctors nears 13,00 in Nova Scotia’, Available online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ (accessed 07 March 2023).
Corcoran, P.G., K. E. Walker., E. J. Wals (2004). ‘Case studies: make-your-case-studies, and case stories. A critique of case-study methodology in sustainability in higher education’, Environmental Education Research, 10: 7-12.
Findler, F., R. Lozano, A. Martinuzzi, D. Reider, N. Schonherr, (2019). ‘The impacts of higher education institutions on sustainable development: A review and conceptualization’, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20 (1): 23-38.
Geels, F. (2010), ‘Ontologies, socio-technical transitions to sustainability and multi-level perspective’, Research Policy, 39: 495-510.
Geels, F. (2011), ‘The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms’. Environmental Innovation and Social transitions, 1: 24-40.
Government of Canada. (2023). ‘Implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.’ Available online: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/declaration/index.html#:~:text=Next%20Steps-,The%20United%20Nations%20Declaration%20on%20the%20Rights%20of%20Indigenous%20Peoples,Assent%20and%20came%20into%20force. (accessed online 30 January 2023)
Haiven, L. (2009), ‘Cultural production and social cohesion amid the Decline of coal and steel: The case of Cape Breton Island’, In R. O'Brien, (ed), Solidarity First: Canadian Workers and Social Cohesion ,106-127, University of British Columbia.
Halboom, B., S. Elliott, S. Eyles, & H. Muggah (2006), ‘The risk society at work in the Sydney Tar Ponds’, The Canadian Geographer, 50 2 : 7-241.
Kyburz-Graber, R. (2016),’ Case study research on higher education for sustainable development: Epistemological foundation and quality challenges’. In M. Barthe, G. Michelsen, M. Rieckmann & I. Thomas (eds). Routledge Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development, 126-141, New York: Routledge.
Lotz, J. & M. Welton (1997), Father Jimmy: Life and Times of Jimmy Tompkins. Wreck Cove, Cape Breton Island: Breton Books.
Lotz-Sistika, H., AJ Wals, D. Kronlid, & D. McGarry (2015), ‘Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking higher education pedagogy in times of systemic global dysfunction’, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 16: 73-80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.07.018
MacLean, R. (2003), ‘MacKINNON, COLIN FRANCIS’, in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, Available online: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mackinnon_colin_francis_10E.html (accessed 17th March 2023)
Mathie, R. G. and AJ Wals (2022), Whole School Approaches to Sustainability: Exemplary Practices from around the world’, Wageningen: Education & Learning Sciences/Wageningen University. https://doi.org/10.18174/572267.
McMurtry, J. (1998), Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an Ethical System, Toronto: Garamond Press
McMurtry, J. (2002), Value Wars: The Global Market Versus the Life Economy, Sterling, VA: Pluto Press.
Neimanis, A., C. Åsberg, & J. Hedrén (2015), “Four problems, four directions for environmental humanities: Toward critical posthumanities for the Anthropocene’, Ethics & the Environment, 20 1: 79.
Parnaby, A. (2013), “The Big Picture: The Antigonish Movement of Eastern Nova Scotia by Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta (Review). Canadian Historical Review 94 2: 329-332.
Pottie, E. (2023), ‘Donkin Mine Safety Violations’, Available online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/donkin-mine-safety-violations-1.6718524 (accessed 5 February 2023).
Shea, J. (2009), ‘Mine Water Management of Flooded Coal Mines in the Sydney Coal Fields, Nova Scotia, Canada’, Abstracts of the International Mine Water Conference, 19th – 23rd October, 2009. Available online: https://wnen.info/docs/imwa_2009_shea.pdf, (accessed 10 February 2023)
Sterling, S. (2004), Higher Education, Sustainability, and the Role of Systemic Thinking. In P. Corcoran & AJ Wals (eds), Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability: Problematics, Promise and Practice. Kluwer.
Somerville, M. (2010), ‘A Place Pedagogy for ‘Global Contemporaneity’. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 42 3:326-344.
St. Pierre, E. (2011), ‘Post-qualitative research. The critique and the coming after’. In N. K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (611 – 625), New York: SAGE.
Tartan Downs (2022). Tartan Downs Housing and Community Project. Available online: https://tartandownsproject.com/ (accessed 01 March 2023)
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (2022), Final Report. Available online: https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525#chp2 (accessed 27 February 2023)
Ulmer, J.B. (2017), ‘Posthumanism as Research Methodology: Inquiry in the Anthropocene’. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30 9: 832-848. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2017.1336806
Unama’ki College (2023), ‘Our History’, Available online: https://www.cbu.ca/indigenous-affairs/unamaki-college/our-history/ (accessed 5 March 2023)
UNIR (2020), Netukulimk, Available online: https://www.uinr.ca/programs/netukulimk/ (accessed 5 March 2023)
UNESCO (2018), Issues and Trends in Education for Sustainable Development. Available online: https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/file/69206/download?token=r_65VVK_ (accessed 18 March 2023) https://europa.eu/capacity4dev/file/69206/download?token=r_65VVK_
UNESCO Bras d’Or Lake Biosphere (n.d), Available online: www.blbra.ca, (accessed 15 March 2023)
United Nations (2015), The Millennium Development Goals Report. Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat, New York. Available online: https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf (accessed 18 March 2023)
Van Manen, M. (2002), ‘Care-as-worry, or “Don’t Worry Be Happy’, Qualitative Health Research,12: 262-278.
Walker, T. & D. MacAskill (2015), ‘Completed Remediation at the Sydney Tar Ponds: A Time for Reflection of a Marine Environmental Effects Monitoring Program in Sydney Harbour.’ Canadian Reclamation, 15. 12-16.
Wals, A.J. (2021), The Power of Transgressive Learning. Available online: https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/pedagogy-transition (accessed 17 March 2023)
Washington. H. (2015), Is Sustainability the Same as Sustainable Development? In H. Kopnina & E. Shoreman-Ouimet (eds.) Sustainability Key Issue, 359- 376, New York: Routledge.
Wright, A., C. Gabel, M. Ballantyne, S. Jack & O. Wahoush (2019), ‘ Using Two-Eyed Seeing in Research With Indigenous People: An Integrative Review’, International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18, https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919869695