Practice makes pedagogy John Dewey and skills based sustainability education
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to ground contemporary sustainability education in John Dewey's democratic pedagogy. Specifically, the authors argue that Dewey's thought anticipates, and theoretically informs, the sustainability skill set required of contemporary citizens in a complex and changing world. Design/methodology/approach For illustrative purposes, the authors consider how these skills are at work in current approaches to the adaptive co management of ecosystems, and they argue that these same skills are at work across professional and cultural contexts, toward the achievement of sustainable societies. In turn, the authors situate Dewey's relevance to contemporary sustainability education in his writing on interdependence, fallibilism and experimentalism. Findings Dewey's writings provide both a historical antecedent and still valid moral and practical justification for sustainability education's emphasis on integrated and adaptive learning. Practical implications Grounding sustaina.