| Autor: |
Aaron Thierry, Laura Horn, Pauline von Hellermann, Charlie J. Gardner |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2023 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
Frontiers in Education, Vol 8 (2023) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
2504-284X |
| DOI: |
10.3389/feduc.2023.1237076 |
| Popis: |
Despite thousands of higher education institutions (HEIs) having issued Climate Emergency declarations, most academics continue to operate according to ‘business-as-usual’. However, such passivity increases the risk of climate impacts so severe as to threaten the persistence of organized society, and thus HEIs themselves. This paper explores why a maladaptive cognitive-practice gap persists and asks what steps could be taken by members of HEIs to activate the academy. Drawing on insights from climate psychology and sociology, we argue that a process of ‘socially organized denial’ currently exists within universities, leading academics to experience a state of ‘double reality’ that inhibits feelings of accountability and agency, and this is self-reenforcing through the production of ‘pluralistic ignorance.’ We further argue that these processes serve to uphold the cultural hegemony of ‘business-as-usual’ and that this is worsened by the increasing neo-liberalization of modern universities. Escaping these dynamics will require deliberate efforts to break taboos, through frank conversations about what responding to a climate emergency means for universities’ – and individual academics’ – core values and goals. |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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