Bowers’s Eco-justice Pedagogy (2002)
Environmental racism and class discrimination. Students need to learn how different
groups are differently influenced by the contaminated environments, and how the politics of
environmental discrimination works. An eco-justice oriented education needs to teach about the
politics of toxic waste disposal, along with overusing chemicals, which “not only encompasses
minority and working class communities but also crosses national boundaries” to the
undeveloped regions of the world (p.30).
Recovery of the non-commodified aspects of community. According to Bowers,
learning about the non-commoditized traditions of ethnic minorities should be involved in
environmental justice curriculum. Many of these cultural groups have survived economically
and politically repressive environments because of their ability to be less dependent upon the
consumerism that more privileged groups took for granted. There is “a need to use the
educational process to regenerate the skills, knowledge, and relationships that enable individuals,
families, and communities to be more self-reliant and thus to have a smaller ecological impact”
(p.30).
Responsibility to future generations. The intergenerational perspective that contemplates
the justice issues for the sake of unborn generations is necessary for meeting “the increasing
Convention