Critical Environmental Education: The Urgency of Critical Consciousnesses, Intersubjective Communication, and Deliberative Democracy of Environmental Citizenship

This article reviews critical pedagogy challenges, opportunities, and limitations in paying attention to environmental issues and crises. Pre-disaster efforts in preventing and overcoming environmental damage and crime can be pursued through environmental education at all levels, from primary education to higher education. There is a need to revisit the foundation and orientation of environmental education with a willingness to critically read the development framework, which is often full of paradoxes and ambivalence. Educators can facilitate and limit and inhibit by neutralizing the socio-political dimension of environmental issues. Current practice has invited to care for the environment but has not fostered critical environmental citizenship through strengthening intersubjective communication and deliberative democracy. Through critical pedagogy, students' voices as a language of opportunity, hope, and possibility can be built on trust, dialogue, and empowerment towards a better socio-ecological transformation. The involvement of students as active and critical environmental citizens needs to be supported through an open and democratic educational atmosphere.