Call for Abstracts

Bridging Ecological and Social Justice in Education

We are pleased to announce a call for abstracts for a 2025 fully open access, edited book

publication with the working title: Bridging Social and Ecological Justice in Education.

Submission Guidelines

Interested authors are invited to submit a 500-word abstract to Carrie Karsgaard

(Carrie_Karsgaard@cbu.ca) and Patrick Howard (Patrick_Howard@cbu.ca) by July 15,

2024. We encourage submissions from authors who identify as belonging to structurally

marginalized groups and/or are in the Global South.

Contributing authors for successful abstracts will be contacted by August 25, 2024. Final

papers of 5500 to 7000 words are due on January 15, 2025.

Overview of Edited Collection

Breaking Silos

Despite the important focus of social justice education on power dynamics, intercultural

conviviality, and action for social change, an overwhelming focus on the social may

disregard the ecological components of our social and educational systems. What are the

ecological consequences of social injustices such as racism, displacement, warfare, or

prison? How are education systems, as social institutions, complicit in ecological

injustice? How might such systems be transformed? Such questions are particularly

important considering education’s “digital turn,” and the neglect of the socio-ecological

and climate implications of digital technologies (Emejulu & McGregor, 2019; Estrada &

Lehuedé, 2022; O’Brien & Fingerhut, 2023).

On the other hand, environmental issues can be more deeply considered through the lens

of social justice. What, for instance, is the social angle of fracking, mineral extraction, or

climate change? As education seeks to address climate crisis, ecological degradation, and

food insecurity, how can education better attend to the social components of

environmental issues? How can we understand relational ontologies (Thayer- Bacon,

2017) through education that promotes the “nested – I” (Bollier & Hefrich, 2019), spanning

the falsely constructed social-ecological divide by way of pluralistic participation and

intra-acting (Barad, 2007) in larger life flows? Particularly considering the pervasive

whiteness, class privilege, and coloniality of environmentalism (Cronon, 1996; DeLuca &

Demo, 2001; Gilio-Whitaker, 2019; Gómez-Pompa & Kaus, 1992), any environmental

education that looks to be truly sustainable, inclusive, and momentous will be thoroughly

incomplete without social justice.

While social and ecological issues are mutually embedded, dominant education systems

often fail to make connections across research traditions, disciplines, and departmental

divisions to holistically address these issues. Characterized at times by historical

divisions, separate funding structures, and hierarchical divides, educational sites must

engage in significant bridging work to bring together the social and ecological, whether in

teaching or research.

In response to these tensions, the proposed book will explore the intersectionality of

socio-ecological issues education and the bridging efforts necessary to address these

issues holistically.

If you have any questions regarding this call, please contact,

Carrie Karsgaard (Carrie_Karsgaard@cbu.ca) and

Patrick Howard

(patrick_howard@cbu.ca)