Educating for Human, Community, and Ecological Flourishing
Enabling Posthuman Bildung-Capabilities through Pedagogies of Inquiry
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publishing:11th Nov '26
£155.00
This title is due to be published on 11th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
In a world of escalating social and ecological challenges, how can universities promote human, community, and ecological flourishing? This book sketches an answer to this question, calling for the institutional implementation of transformative ‘pedagogies of inquiry’.
The author offers an innovative posthuman reframing of Bildung and the modernist capabilities approach, introducing the concept of ‘Bildung‑capabilities’. Through critical inquiry into timely and complex social and ecological issues—acknowledging diverse knowledge traditions and engaging in open dialogue across disciplinary and cultural perspectives—students come to appreciate the intersectionality of human, community, and ecological flourishing. This deep transformative inquiry enables the development of nine vital capabilities for navigating global challenges: building alliances; valuing relationships with the more than human; openness to different and contradictory viewpoints, including on nature and humans in nature; comfort with change and uncertainty; agency and stamina in doing the hard work of change towards undoing explicit, implicit, assumed and institutional injustices; ecological awareness and ‘biocentric wonder’; hope; a multi/transdisciplinary, pluriversal stance; and imagining alternatives to technological infringement of life and desires. Together, it is argued that these capabilities constitute a ‘capability (of flourishing), of all.’
Combining cutting-edge theory with practical insights, this book features eleven case studies written by instructors across a wide range of academic disciplines to demonstrate how inquiry-based approaches foster these ‘Bildung‑capabilities’ in practice, equipping students to address interconnected contemporary challenges.
Essential reading for educators, students, and researchers interested in transformative pedagogy, sustainability education, and higher education reform.
In times of climate crisis and ever-widening global wealth inequalities, Carolin Kreber asks: How might we educate for alternative futures and at the same time support higher education students in finding purpose and agency? In this fascinating and challenging book, she takes up the question by mobilizing and skillfully combining diverse theoretical approaches, notably Bildung and the capability approach, to make an argument for a political and activist-facing ecopedagogy in higher education. This is an impressively accomplished, book both theoretically and empirically, which will be widely read by everyone concerned with how higher education ought to enable the secure flourishing of all, and care for each other and for the Earth.
Melanie Walker, Distinguished Professor and South African Research Chair in Higher Education and Human Development, University of the Free State, South Africa
With this impressive volume, Carolin Kreber has done us huge service. That traditional idea of Bildung is given fresh interpretation by being connected with contemporary debates around posthumanism, capabilities, and human flourishing. The result: an imaginative idea of ‘Bildung-capabilities’, which is cashed out with telling case studies from across the world. This is a volume that will surely be mined for years to come.
Ronald Barnett, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College London.
Given the reality of the global justice crises, social and ecological, I am convinced that part of the response will involve opening the space for humans, particularly the modern western version, to be differently. And I am sure that will require putting education at the centre of the transformation. With this book Carolin Kreber gathers Bildung – with its historical starting point of educating in order to be human differently – and lifts it elegantly into today’s world. This is a well-theorized radical book anchored with real world practices. Add in the important and accessible ‘nine vital capabilities’ and there is an inspiring sense of possibility as well. As Kreber makes clear in these rich and timely examples, we have options in and for higher education, so … how about we exercise them?
Sean Blenkinsop, Professor of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada
ISBN: 9781041125525
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 670g
260 pages