This book presents stories told by some of the many people around the world who are searching and struggling for ways of shaping their educational programmes or activities to the challenges of sustainable development. However, the stories are not just narratives - although chapter authors have provided rich descriptions of their educational efforts. Writing the stories, and reflecting on the tensions, issues and problems they encountered also provided the authors with opportunities to leam from their experiences. As Gough (1997) has suggested, we can leam much from
reflecting on the way our personal and professional stories are permeated with our histories and hopes and how our interpretations of these stories influence our thoughts actions.
Reading the stories of others also is a good way to leam about ourselves. The stories of others can serve as mirrors into which we can see our own contexts, hopes, plans and experiences reflected. The situations in a story will not be the same as ours, but identifying the similarities and differences can help us contextualize the stories and take from them the lessons that can enrich our own ways of developing educational responses to the challenges of sustainable development. This book is essentially an anthology of stories from different parts of the world that
document ways in which the international educational community is responding to the challenge of creating a sustainable world. Two chapters in this first section contextualize the stories by providing an overview of the concept of sustainability and highlight the international scope of forma and non-forma educational efforts to promote sustainable development.
The main body of the book is devoted to 15 stories, organized on a regional basis, to illustrate how the challenge of educating for sustainability is being taken up in culturally different settings around the world. This section contains reports of educational initiatives in schools and universities (including teacher education) as well as in projects organized by local community groups, national parks, national governments, and international development assistance agencies. The examples range from stories of community theatre in the south-west Pacific, ecotourism in Nepal and community development in Ontario to those of 'sustainability for real' in Wales, resource development in South Africa and national education planning in Latin America. The final chapter provides an overview of these different stories and analyses the issues that emerge from them by way of providing themes for future reflection, debate and action.
