Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE) - Volume 23 - Issue 1 - Winter 2021 - Territorial Education through Urban Agriculture

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by nayy☆

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of economic systems and the limited resilience of existing development models, prompting renewed debate on education’s role in building sustainable societies. This article examines Territorial Education (TE) as an under-explored research area and situates it within 1990s standardisation reforms and education for sustainability. Using urban agriculture initiatives in Lisbon, it argues that TE’s experiential, skills-oriented learning can strengthen urban sustainability and resilience, beyond purely conceptual approaches.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

The emergence of Territorial Education

TE and the global educational reforms of the 1990s: why does the local territory matters?

Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE), Volume 23, Issue 1, Winter 2021 Territorial Education through Urban Agriculture: Contributing to Building Sustainable Cities in Times of a Pandemic Sandrine Simon Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias de Lisboa The multi-dimensional damages caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have highlighted the fragility of our economic systems and their lack of resilience. People are starting to question globalisation, and debates on alternative modes of development are back and alive. If economic paradigms need reforming, we also need educational systems that will equip people to build more sustainable societies. With this in mind, this article focuses on two crucial components in ‘current issues in comparative education’. One relates to the emergence of a so-far under-explored area of research in education, that of Territorial Education (TE), and places it in the context of both the 1990s educational reforms, intended to create a standardised ‘world class education’, and of ‘education for sustainability’. The second one focuses on the experiential nature that skill-orientated Territorial Education can provide, in contrast to other types of ‘education for sustainability’approaches that are more conceptual. Using Urban Agriculture initiatives in Lisbon as illustrative examples, the article shows that such practical approaches might help to make cities sustainable and resilient in the future. Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic we are experiencing has encouraged people to question globalisation not only from an economic perspective but also with regards to how it has affected our education systems. Authors such as Teodoro (2020), Santos (2006), and Sahlberg (1996) have explained the mechanisms by which the calls for a standardised‘world class education’global reform in the 1990s were mainly targeted at adapting educational institutions to new configuration systems in world organisations. The OECD assumed a central role in this global reform, directly motivated by achievements in the economic sphere, and encouraged competition and standardisation mechanisms. This‘educational reform’was very different from the humanistic approach to ‘Global Citizenship Education’put forward by UNESCO (2014) which “referred to a sense of belonging to a common humanity, and emphasised socio-political, economic and cultural inter-dependency, and interconnectedness between the local, the national and the global” (UNESCO, 2014: 14) . The 1990s educational reforms also contrasted with efforts to develop educational approaches that would help communities to‘put sustainability into practice’. This paper focuses on the types of knowledge and learning processes needed to understand what urban sustainable communities would look like if cities were to reduce their dependency on food produced outside, in a less globalised world. The article focuses on the so-far little explored area of research in Territorial Education (TE) . © 2021, Current Issues in Comparative Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Current Issues in Comparative Education 23(1), 31-47. Simon Part One presents the emergence of TE, first as a reaction against the 1990s educational reforms and then in the context of research on education for sustainability. Part Two uses Urban Agriculture (UA) and project-based educational approaches related to UA in Lisbon as a practical illustration of how TE could be used to make the city more sustainable. It first explores the contribution of UA to the sustainability of a city and its links to food security and food systems. By showing the evolution of policies focused on the greening of Lisbon, Part Two also highlights the development of participatory processes in urban planning that contribute to making TE usable at different levels and with various stakeholders, extending education for sustainability not only to more practical urgent topics (such as feeding a c

FAQs

What is the focus of Territorial Education (TE) in the article?

TE is presented as emphasizing local-level learning and action, especially in the context of the pandemic and renewed concerns about globalisation.

How does the article connect TE to the 1990s educational reforms?

It contrasts TE’s orientation with 1990s standardised “world class education” reforms tied to global organisations and competition/standardisation mechanisms.

Why are Lisbon urban agriculture initiatives used as examples?

They illustrate how skills-oriented, project-based territorial education can build more sustainable and resilient cities through practical approaches linked to food security and food systems.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by nayy☆