Arjen Wals
Biographic Data
| ID | 239356 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Arjen Wals |
| GIVEN NAMES | Arjen |
| FAMILY NAME | Wals |
| SIGNATURE | WALS A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wageningen University & Research |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4735-1126 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 57 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 387 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Co-developing professional learning practices in support of a whole school approach to sustainability-oriented education
This multimedia article explores a Norwegian Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme co-developing professional learning practices concerning a Whole School Approach (WSA) to sustainability-oriented education. Eleven teachers from four upper-secondary schools participated as co-developers in a year-long CPD and research combined programme, which also involved multiple school leaders, university-based educators, and researchers. Conven…
Embedding Outdoor Relational Education in Academia: Perceived Barriers and Opportunities at a Dutch University
Calls for innovating environmental and sustainability education—including higher education—have been voiced for many years. New approaches are gaining traction, including the Wild Pedagogies framework and notions of rewilding education. A common denominator of these approaches is an emphasis on learning outdoors, and through a relational epistemological lens. Contributing to these developing approaches, this paper investigates the budding concept…
Wild Pedagogies in Practice: Inspiration for Higher Education
Wild pedagogies (WP) are emerging as critical, relational alternative to current, often unsustainable learning practices. WP aim to offer a way of learning in, with, through and for nature, embracing a post-humanist, relational perspective. So far, WP have mainly been explored theoretically. Increasingly, educators both within and outside of formal education, are inspired and apply WP in their education. Throughout the world, examples of learning…
Sustainable Elite Youth Sports: A Systematic Scoping Review of the Social Dimensions
Sports have been identified as an important contributor to social sustainability, and the benefits for health, well‐being, and social learning in young people are well evidenced. Youth elite sports, however, have been criticized as being unsustainable. Following calls for a more socially sustainable development of youth elite sports, research on the topic has increased. However, studies vary in disciplinary origin, concepts, content, and methodol…
River co-learning arenas: Principles and Practices for Transdisciplinary Knowledge Co-Creation and Multi-Scalar (Inter)action
This paper develops the methodological concept of river co-learning arenas (RCAs) and explores their potential to strengthen innovative grassroots river initiatives, enliven river commons, regenerate river ecologies, and foster greater socio-ecological justice. The integrity of river systems has been threatened in profound ways over the last century. Pollution, damming, canalisation, and water grabbing are some examples of pressures threatening t…
The art of arts-based interventions in transdisciplinary sustainability research
Transdisciplinary, co-creative research deals with complex real-world problems, with complexity being a common denominator of sustainability issues. It is often understood as an interplay of two dimensions, collaboration and creativity, that facilitates the integration of different forms of knowledge and the creation of transformative outcomes. In the end, it aims to find more holistic and systemic solutions to complex real-world problems. Increa…
A SWOT analysis of ChatGPT: Implications for educational practice and research
ChatGPT is an AI tool that has sparked debates about its potential implications for education. We used the SWOT analysis framework to outline ChatGPT’s strengths and weaknesses and to discuss its opportunities for and threats to education. The strengths include using a sophisticated natural language model to generate plausible answers, self-improving capability, and providing personalised and real-time responses. As such, ChatGPT can increase acc…
Characteristics and challenges of teaching and learning in sustainability-oriented Living Labs within higher education: A literature review
Purpose This study aims to bring together the available scattered knowledge about teaching and learning in Living Labs within higher education, and to explore their potential for supporting students’ sustainability-oriented transformative learning. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted, applying a realist approach. A sample of 35 articles was analyzed qualitatively, mapping the data according to the realist constructs “con…
Vocational education for a sustainable future: Unveiling the collaborative learning narratives to make space for learning
In the light of urgent global sustainability challenges, vocational education is searching for new approaches that are more just and future proof.At least a part of the answer seems to lie in so-called collaborative learning arrangements where students together with societal actors explore sustainability-related challenges.The amount of this kind of arrangements in which vocational education participates increases.Empirical studies on what actual…
High school biology students’ use of values in their moral argumentation and decision-making
In this qualitative case study we examined the impact of a specially-designed classroom intervention for a group of 15–16-year-old Dutch biology students’ use of values in contemplating five socioscientific issues in the human-nature context. The students worked in small groups to support various aspects of their morality. An ethical matrix was used as a heuristic to explore different arguments and moral values from different perspectives. The co…
Exploring spiritual values in forest management practices in the Netherlands
While forest-related spiritual values (forest spirituality) have long been incorporated in global forest-related policies and strategies, the significance of spiritual values in forest management practices remains little researched. This study investigates how spiritual values are articulated in forest management practices in the Netherlands. We applied a conceptual framework with 10 spiritual dimensions derived from religious scholarship to qual…
The relationship between student participation and students’ self-perceived action competence for sustainability in a whole school approach
This study examines the relation between student experiences of participation in a whole school approach (WSA) and students' self-perceived action competence.We surveyed 902 students in three Norwegian upper-secondary schools participating in an education for sustainable development (ESD) programme.The questionnaire measured students' experiences in decision-making and influencing within a WSA, containing the components: (1) school and leadership…
Design and evaluation of a sustainable blended study programme in higher education
Introduction Blended learning, i.e., a mix of online and in-class education, can be deployed for enhancing the educational quality and resilience in higher education (HE). It may also contribute to HE’s sustainability objectives by lowering the carbon emissions of students commuting to campus. In this study, pedagogical design principles for sustainable blended learning and teaching are developed and evaluated taking into account these opportunit…
Exploring environmental stewardship among youth from a high-biodiverse region in Colombia
Nature degradation is rooted in the disruption of the human-land connection. Its restoration requires the regeneration of environmental stewardship as a way to live within environmental limits, especially for younger generations. In this study we used the implementation of a year-round, non-formal environmental education program during COVID-19 times to explore environmental stewardship in adolescents between 14- and 18-years old from the Sierra …
Do students have anything to say? Student participation in a whole school approach to sustainability
The article demonstrates how a questionnaire gauging students’ experiences of participation in decision-making at their school can operationalise student participation in a whole school approach (WSA) to education for sustainable development model. Some 902 students in three upper secondary schools participated in the study by giving their answers to Likert-scale items developed to tap into their experience of participation in the decision-making…
A regenerative decolonization perspective on ESD from Latin America
This paper provides a Latin American perspective on ESD, with a focus on transformative and participatory learning in community contexts. With a long history of critical pedagogies, Latin America provides a fertile ground for exploring alternative forms of education as a means to address deep-rooted challenges in western traditional strands of education. We start by providing an overview of pertinent educational currents present in Latin America,…
Riverhood: Political Ecologies of Socionature Commoning and Translocal Struggles for Water Justice
Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering 'unruly waters and humans' have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water justice movements (NWJMs) proliferate: rooted, disruptive, transdisciplinary, multi-scalar coalitions …
‘Sweet Acid’ An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of Students’ Navigating Regenerative Higher Education
Regenerative forms of higher education are emerging, and required, to connect with some of the grand transition challenges of our times. This paper explores the lived experience of 21 students learning to navigate a regenerative form of higher education in the Mission Impact course at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This semester-length course ran for two iterations with the intention of connecting the students with local transitions to…
Creating a sense of community and space for subjectification in an online course on sustainability education during times of physical distancing
Purpose This study aims to demonstrate which course elements were responsible for community building, fostering subjectification and learning for being in an online course on environmental and sustainability education (ESE) during the COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing. Design/methodology/approach The study investigates a graduate-level course on Environmental Education for Sustainable Living that due to COVID-19 had to be taught mainly on…
Cultivating students’ sustainability-oriented learning at the interface of science and society: A configuration of interrelated enablers
Purpose By envisioning the learning environment as an eco-social system, this study aims to map interrelated enablers of students’ sustainability-oriented learning (SoL) in the context of a university course at the interface of science and society. Design/methodology/approach A case-study approach was used to delineate what enables student learning in a university-wide transdisciplinary Master of Science course. A sample of 102 students, universi…
Biology Students’ Morality When Engaged With Moral Dilemmas in the Human-Nature Context
Framed within the Four Component Model (FCM) of morality, this case study investigates the nature of Dutch 15–16 years old biology students’ morality in socioscientific issues in the human-nature context. In doing so, we discuss the morality of 12 students with data collected through individual semi-structured interviews following the implementation of a specially-designed curriculum. During the interviews the students discussed a moral dilemma r…
Exploring sustainable student travel behaviour in The Netherlands: Balancing online and on-campus learning
Purpose Daily commuting trips of higher education (HE) students account for a large proportion of the carbon footprint of a HE institution. Considerations of students underlying their choice of travel mode and their decision to make the trip to campus or to study online are explored as a necessary first step for finding an optimal balance between online and on-campus learning from both a sustainability and an educational perspective. Design/metho…
Education for sustainable development in the ‘Capitalocene’
When the thought of this Special Issue began to take shape 3 years ago, we had no clear idea of how it would develop. We wanted to address what we saw as the inability, or even impossibility, of ou
In search of healthy policy ecologies for education in relation to sustainability: Beyond evidence-based policy and post-truth politics
There is a rational assumption built into some research projects that policy contexts are influenced by the quality of the evidence. This is, at best, only somewhat true some of the time. Through policy ethnographies, two education researchers working in the context of sustainability discuss their experiences with evidence-based policy. Central to both accounts is how critical messages about such issues as race, wellbeing and sustainability can b…
Overcoming socio-ecological vulnerability through community-based social learning: The case of Lomba do Pinheiro in Porto Alegre, Brazil
Community-based initiatives and collective learning practices are key themes in sustainability transition processes. This paper presents the results of a participatory study that investigated a local initiative in the community of Lomba do Pinheiro in south Brazil to examine social learning processes in the context of socio-ecological vulnerability. In this community, a group composed of local residents and members representing the public sector …
Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking Higher Education Pedagogy in Times of Systemic Global Dysfunction
Riverhood: Political Ecologies of Socionature Commoning and Translocal Struggles for Water Justice
Mega-damming, pollution and depletion endanger rivers worldwide. Meanwhile, modernist imaginaries of ordering 'unruly waters and humans' have become cornerstones of hydraulic-bureaucratic and capitalist development. They separate hydro/social worlds, sideline river-commons cultures, and deepen socio-environmental injustices. But myriad new water justice movements (NWJMs) proliferate: rooted, disruptive, transdisciplinary, multi-scalar coalitions …
Between knowing what is right and knowing that is it wrong to tell others what is right: On relativism, uncertainty and democracy in environmental and sustainability education
This contribution provides an 'outside' commentary on several of the articles provided in this special issue on environmental education and education in the context of sustainability in Denmark and Sweden. Although there is no uniform position or shared single outlook expressed in the articles in this special issue, there are some re-current tendencies that may have received less attention elsewhere in the world but clearly are in need of further…
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development: Business as usual in the end
An analysis of the literature supporting the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and a sample of its key products suggests that it failed to acknowledge or challenge neoliberalism as a hegemonic force blocking transitions towards genuine sustainability. The authors argue that the rationale for the Decade was idealistic and that global education for sustainability citizenship provides a more realistic focus for such an initiative. T…
Case studies, make‐your‐case studies, and case stories: A critique of case‐study methodology in sustainability in higher education
Additional informationNotes on contributorsKim E. Walker ** Corresponding author: Kim E. Walker, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK * Corresponding author: Kim E. Walker, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
Reframing the future: The role of reflexivity in governance networks in sustainability transitions
Regional sustainability networks in the Netherlands are rooted in regional culture and have an emphasis on social learning and effective collaboration between multiple actors. The national ‘Duurzaam Door’ (Moving Forward Sustainably) Policy Programme regards these networks as generative governance arrangements where new knowledge, actions and relations can co-evolve together with new insights in governance and learning within sustainability trans…
Sustainability” in higher education: From doublethink and newspeak to critical thinking and meaningful learning
Radical ruralities in practice: Negotiating buen vivir in a Colombian network of sustainability
Co-designing research on transgressive learning in times of climate change
T-labs and climate change narratives: Co-researcher qualities in transgressive action–research
This paper addresses the call for more action-based narratives of grassroot resistance to runaway climate change. At a time when deep changes in society are needed in order to respond to climate change and related sustainability issues, there are calls for greater connectivity between science and society, and for more inclusive and disruptive forms of knowledge creation and engagement. The contention of this paper is that the forces and structure…
Critical case-studies of non-formal and community learning for sustainable development
Learning-based transformations towards sustainability: A relational approach based on Humberto Maturana and Paulo Freire
This article investigates the relevance of the work of the Latin-American thinkers Humberto Maturana and Paulo Freire to learning-based transformations towards sustainability. This analysis was inspired by a case study of a Brazilian urban community seeking to develop pathways towards sustainable living and was informed by a review of their key works. The paper aims to obtain a better conceptualization of learning-based transformations and provid…
Resilience in learning systems: Case studies in university education
In this paper, we address the challenge of translating the concept of resilience into effective educational strategies. Three different cognitive dimensions (ontological, epistemological and axiological) that underpin assumptions held about the nature of nature, the nature of knowing and the nature of human nature are identified. Four case studies from higher education in the USA, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK are presented, which illustrate…
Do students have anything to say? Student participation in a whole school approach to sustainability
The article demonstrates how a questionnaire gauging students’ experiences of participation in decision-making at their school can operationalise student participation in a whole school approach (WSA) to education for sustainable development model. Some 902 students in three upper secondary schools participated in the study by giving their answers to Likert-scale items developed to tap into their experience of participation in the decision-making…
School‐based Research and Development of Environmental Education: A case study
This article provides a case of school‐based research and development of environmental education. In collaboration with an external researcher, four teachers from a secondary agricultural school used an action research model in critically examining their own teaching practice and materials with the intention of developing the environmental dimension of their teaching. Jointly they became engaged in a process of problematising their own teaching p…
Transgressing the hidden curriculum of unsustainability: Towards a relational pedagogy of hope
Should schools teach children about ‘the future of humanity’ and ‘end times’, and, if so, what kind of approach should they follow? These are two questions in one. The first question is an existent
Environmental and sustainability education in the Benelux region
peer reviewed
Developing competence profiles for educators in environmental education organisations in the Netherlands
This qualitative study explores the meanings and possible merits of introducing competence profiles for enhancing professional development in the environmental education sector in the Netherlands. It presents the three most important environmental education jobs and their underlying competencies alongside their core professional challenges, as identified by environmental educators and experts in the Netherlands. The jobs are: education practition…
Your View of Nature is Not Mine: Learning about pluralism in the classroom
This paper describes a multidisciplinary action research project that aimed to develop a theoretical framework and four exemplary teaching modules for elementary and secondary school that promote a pluralistic view on nature. In a 2-year study, researchers from three disciplines (pedagogy, sociology and philosophy) collaborated with curriculum developers and textbook authors. This paper presents the theoretical framework that was developed during…
The relationship between student participation and students’ self-perceived action competence for sustainability in a whole school approach
This study examines the relation between student experiences of participation in a whole school approach (WSA) and students' self-perceived action competence.We surveyed 902 students in three Norwegian upper-secondary schools participating in an education for sustainable development (ESD) programme.The questionnaire measured students' experiences in decision-making and influencing within a WSA, containing the components: (1) school and leadership…
Education for sustainable development in the ‘Capitalocene’
When the thought of this Special Issue began to take shape 3 years ago, we had no clear idea of how it would develop. We wanted to address what we saw as the inability, or even impossibility, of ou
The art of arts-based interventions in transdisciplinary sustainability research
Transdisciplinary, co-creative research deals with complex real-world problems, with complexity being a common denominator of sustainability issues. It is often understood as an interplay of two dimensions, collaboration and creativity, that facilitates the integration of different forms of knowledge and the creation of transformative outcomes. In the end, it aims to find more holistic and systemic solutions to complex real-world problems. Increa…
Analysing the state of student participation in two Eco-Schools using Engeström’s Second Generation Activity Systems Model
This research investigates the state of student participation in the Eco-Schools programme in two selected secondary schools located in Spain and the Netherlands. The focus is on understanding the levers of student participation and of the factors leading to a whole-school approach. Engeström’s Second Generation Activity Systems Model is used as an analytical framework. The study also reflects on the merits and shortcomings of this framework. The…
Towards transformative social learning on the path to 1.5 degrees
Towards creating an inclusive community of researchers: The first three years of the North American Association for Environmental Education research symposium
This article uses a series of interlinked, personal vignettes to discuss the first three years of the North American Association for Environmental Education research symposium, from the perspectives of the key organizers. Seven challenges in the field of environmental education research are identified in a recent historical context, and we illustrate how the symposium sought to address them. The challenges were, that: (i) environmental education …
School‐based Research and Development of Environmental Education: A case study
This article provides a case of school‐based research and development of environmental education. In collaboration with an external researcher, four teachers from a secondary agricultural school used an action research model in critically examining their own teaching practice and materials with the intention of developing the environmental dimension of their teaching. Jointly they became engaged in a process of problematising their own teaching p…
“Sustainability” in higher education: From doublethink and newspeak to critical thinking and meaningful learning
It is higher education’s responsibility to continuously challenge and critique value and knowledge claims that have prescriptive tendencies. Part of this responsibility lies in engaging students in socio‐scientific disputes. The ill‐defined nature of sustainability manifests itself in such disputes when conflicting values, norms, interests, and reality constructions meet. This makes sustainability – its need for contextualization and the debate s…
Your View of Nature is Not Mine: Learning about pluralism in the classroom
This paper describes a multidisciplinary action research project that aimed to develop a theoretical framework and four exemplary teaching modules for elementary and secondary school that promote a pluralistic view on nature. In a 2-year study, researchers from three disciplines (pedagogy, sociology and philosophy) collaborated with curriculum developers and textbook authors. This paper presents the theoretical framework that was developed during…
Sustainability” in higher education: From doublethink and newspeak to critical thinking and meaningful learning
Case studies, make‐your‐case studies, and case stories: A critique of case‐study methodology in sustainability in higher education
Additional informationNotes on contributorsKim E. Walker ** Corresponding author: Kim E. Walker, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK * Corresponding author: Kim E. Walker, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
On the danger of blurring methods, methodologies and ideologies in environmental education research
When deciding what to cook, there are certain questions to be borne in mind including: who the meal is for; what food is available; and what cooking utensils and equipment one has. Other, more indi
Towards creating an inclusive community of researchers: The first three years of the North American Association for Environmental Education research symposium
This article uses a series of interlinked, personal vignettes to discuss the first three years of the North American Association for Environmental Education research symposium, from the perspectives of the key organizers. Seven challenges in the field of environmental education research are identified in a recent historical context, and we illustrate how the symposium sought to address them. The challenges were, that: (i) environmental education …
Competencies for rural development professionals in the era of HIV/Aids
The impact of HIV/AIDS on food security and rural livelihoods is still insufficiently understood. It is evident, however, that rural development professionals need to respond to the changes that have taken place in rural areas due to the pandemic. This article explores competencies that they need in order to deal with the complex HIV/AIDS issues related to their work with farming families. Initially 45 rural development professionals from develop…
Globalization and environmental education: Looking beyond sustainable development
This study contends that environmental education is being significantly altered by globalizing forces, witnessing the effort to convert environmental education into education for sustainable development. This internationally propagated conversion can be challenged from many vantage points. This study identifies anomalies that have arisen as international organizations such as UNESCO have championed this conversion, and discusses issues arising fr…
Resilience in learning systems: Case studies in university education
In this paper, we address the challenge of translating the concept of resilience into effective educational strategies. Three different cognitive dimensions (ontological, epistemological and axiological) that underpin assumptions held about the nature of nature, the nature of knowing and the nature of human nature are identified. Four case studies from higher education in the USA, The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK are presented, which illustrate…
Between knowing what is right and knowing that is it wrong to tell others what is right: On relativism, uncertainty and democracy in environmental and sustainability education
This contribution provides an 'outside' commentary on several of the articles provided in this special issue on environmental education and education in the context of sustainability in Denmark and Sweden. Although there is no uniform position or shared single outlook expressed in the articles in this special issue, there are some re-current tendencies that may have received less attention elsewhere in the world but clearly are in need of further…
Learning Our Way to Sustainability
Should environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) try to change students’ behaviours or should it focus on capacity building and critical thinking? The latter is more likely to lead to a citizenry that can examine new challenges and act wisely. New forms of learning are entering the arena of EE and ESD such as ‘social learning’, learning by mirroring one’s own ideas, views, values and perspectives with those of o…
Developing competence profiles for educators in environmental education organisations in the Netherlands
This qualitative study explores the meanings and possible merits of introducing competence profiles for enhancing professional development in the environmental education sector in the Netherlands. It presents the three most important environmental education jobs and their underlying competencies alongside their core professional challenges, as identified by environmental educators and experts in the Netherlands. The jobs are: education practition…
Learning for sustainability in times of accelerating change
Climate change represents a complex set of challenges, in part because it is marked by risks that are not easily observed and identified - risks that humans have significant difficulty estimating. A large body of research has shown that the construction of human risk perception is a complex, multi-faceted process. Determining viable mitigation and adaptation strategies toward climate change risks therefore necessitates models that appropriately r…
An analysis of the methodological underpinnings of social learning research in natural resource management
Sustainability in higher education in the context of the UN Desd: A review of learning and institutionalization processes
Self-directed lifelong learning in hybrid learning configurations
Present-day students are expected to be lifelong learners throughout their working life. Higher education must therefore prepare students to self-direct their learning beyond formal education, in real-life working settings. This can be achieved in so-called hybrid learning configurations in which working and learning are integrated. In such a learning configuration, learning is typically trans-boundary in nature and embedded in ill-structured, au…
Challenges to responsible forest governance in Ghana and its implications for professional education
The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development: Business as usual in the end
An analysis of the literature supporting the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and a sample of its key products suggests that it failed to acknowledge or challenge neoliberalism as a hegemonic force blocking transitions towards genuine sustainability. The authors argue that the rationale for the Decade was idealistic and that global education for sustainability citizenship provides a more realistic focus for such an initiative. T…
Transformative, transgressive social learning: Rethinking Higher Education Pedagogy in Times of Systemic Global Dysfunction
Co-designing research on transgressive learning in times of climate change
Can we meet the sustainability challenges? The role of education and lifelong learning
Education and lifelong learning are increasingly being mobilised to address the global environmental crisis and accompanying sustainability challenges. This article discusses the many roles of education about and for sustainable development, drawing on evidence and arguments put forward in the 2016 Global Education Monitoring Report, Education for People and Planet . It highlights specific viewpoints, values and ways of thinking that best charact…
Reframing the future: The role of reflexivity in governance networks in sustainability transitions
Regional sustainability networks in the Netherlands are rooted in regional culture and have an emphasis on social learning and effective collaboration between multiple actors. The national ‘Duurzaam Door’ (Moving Forward Sustainably) Policy Programme regards these networks as generative governance arrangements where new knowledge, actions and relations can co-evolve together with new insights in governance and learning within sustainability trans…
Radical ruralities in practice: Negotiating buen vivir in a Colombian network of sustainability
Critical case-studies of non-formal and community learning for sustainable development
Sociology (47 works) · Pedagogy (42 works) · Political science (38 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (31 works) · Psychology (30 works) · Sustainability (26 works) · Environmental education (20 works) · Sustainability in Higher Education (19 works) · Computer Science (17 works) · Mathematics education (16 works)