Research group on critical approaches to sustainability, global education, and development (CritED)

The group is to bring together researchers, PhD candidates and master’s degree students with interest in critical approaches to education and development. The group aims to promote research around a wide variety of themes related to global and sustainable education and learning, international development, education in global South, and their intersections. Overall, it seeks to be a supportive and encouraging environment to discuss new ideas, familiarize with new literature, and present drafts for joint discussion. The group supports each member to develop their own research initiative - be it master’s thesis, PhD dissertation or a postdoctoral article – in dialogue with others.

The “critical approaches” refer to a wide variety of theoretical perspectives such as Freire’s legacy of critical pedagogy, Foucauldian analysis of power, postcolonial and decolonial approaches, extractivism, political economy and post-humanistic approaches, to mention a few. The group is open for any approaches that question the taken-for-granted ideas and pays attention to diverse manifestations of power and inequality, but also builds new suggestions and solutions based on critical analysis.

The current themes of the group include: education in emergencies, development policies and practice, development cooperation and learning, education and learning in the global South, critical examination of learning in educational institutions, global and sustainable education and pedagogy, multicultural and antiracism education, indigenous education, and learning for sustainable and just transformations.