Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Education)

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Browsing by Subject "Decolonisation of environmental knowledge"

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    Curriculum responsiveness in higher education: a case study of the undergraduate environmental science curriculum at a south african university
    (University of the Western Cape, 2024) Lwandle, Ntokozo
    Current studies have focused on excessive disciplinary diversity in Environmental Science at the undergraduate level, graduate employability, and the lack of inclusion of socially and culturally diverse knowledge. The dominant pro-market theoretical framing of environmental problems has resulted in a limited view on the crux of these problems. While this is the case with Environmental Science, other academic disciplines have been subjected to much deeper and more nuanced scholarly discourses, that have primarily questioned the biases inherent in Western scientific knowledge and epistemologies while overlooking the validity and benefits of other knowledge systems, such as traditional knowledge. Drawing on critical approaches to understanding curriculum, this study questions the nature of the undergraduate Environmental Science curriculum with regard to Indigenous environmental knowledge and the extent to which Western science ideas and pro-market theoretical framings shape the understanding of environmental problems. I argue that the rarely questioned Western science dominance in Environmental Science, which has been largely unchallenged by scholars in this field, has contributed to an approach that fails to meaningfully address the anthropogenic global environmental crisis collectively known as the Global Environmental Crisis. To illustrate this, I analyse the module naming and topics selection that made up South Africa's longest-standing undergraduate Environmental Science major, offered by the University of Cape Town. The findings indicate that, in the South African context, the curriculum remains entrapped in Eurocentric and North American perspectives on the Natural Environment, its interlinked systems, their functions, human- nature relationships, environmental change, and the framing of global environmental problems such as climate change, sustainable development, and environmental analysis. In this thesis, I present arguments that the current hegemony of Eurocentric and North American environmental ideas–shaped by the interests and agendas of international development agencies and reinforced by lecturers as carriers of knowledge influenced the structure and content of this curriculum. I discuss the implications of this hegemony on the occupational attributes of environmental science professionals, national environmental policies and programmes, and environmental justice advocacy. Finally, I present recommendations for incorporating local African Indigenous environmental ideas, values and ethics into the curriculum to foster a more inclusive and contextually relevant Environmental Science curriculum.