Rogative Learning in Education for Sustainable Development: Environment, Human Rights and Democracy

Abstract: The question underlying the investigation in this paper is how within a context of education for sustainable development it is possible to learn about the environment, human rights and democracy and at the same time practice what human rights and democracy stands for. A point of departure which allows more than one way of achieving the desired goal is called rogative learning (or question-based-learning). The rogative learning process is scrutinized from various perspectives, mainly philosophical and educational, in order to see how well it fulfils what is required in education for sustainable development. The advantages of this approach "“ that it springs from the interests of students and encourages deliberation "“ and the disadvantages and shortcomings "“ that it constantly puts the educator to test when it comes to knowledge and the many ways of carrying out an inquiry "“ are discussed for further investigation.