Sustainable Development in a Globalizing World: A Few Cautions

This article takes the view that in a globalizing context the concept of ‘sustainable development’ should not be assumed uncritically. Further, tensions arise when education is constructed as an instrument for the implementation of this concept, as manifest in the term ‘education for sustainable development’. With critical concern about sustainable development and the tensions arising out of an agenda of educational determinism, this article presents a series of cautions about education for sustainable development. While much good work is being done by educators who work under the label ‘sustainable development’, I argue in the end that education should provide the capacity to transcend this particular conception – to reach outside and beyond sustainable development.