Universities and Sustainability
A Review From a Discursive Perspective
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47456/regec.2317-5087.2024.13.3.43792.266.292Keywords:
discurso organizacional, revisão de literatura, sustentabilidade, universidadesAbstract
This literature review aims to examine the academic knowledge about the relationships that shape the discourses of higher education institutions in relation to sustainability. We searched for papers published in journals between 2010 and 2023 in internationally recognized databases, which specifically investigated communication and organizational discourse related to the proposed theme, in institutions of this type. After an initial selection of 383 articles, a total of 65 were analyzed. Through codification and an analysis that sought intentions, silences and directions, several thematic groups and two predominant discourses emerged: one linked to positivist/functionalist epistemological currents and the other related to decolonial studies and the relevance of power relations. With the results obtained, it is expected to broaden the readers’ perspective in relation to the discursive activity performed by this type of organization, regarding a relevant and widely addressed theme inside and outside its limits.
Downloads
References
Abdulghaffar, N. A., & Williams, I. D. (2021). Development of sustainable waste management in higher education institutions. AIMS Environmental Science, 8(3), 238-54.
Abelha, M., Fernandes, S., Mesquita, D., Seabra, F., & Ferreira-Oliveira, A. T. (2020). Graduate employability and competence development in higher education: a systematic literature review using PRISMA. Sustainability, 12(15), 5900.
Adhikari, D. R., & Shah, B. B. (2021). The state of the art in the incorporation of sustainable development goals in Nepalese universities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 22(6), 1373-401.
Al-Jayyousi, O., Tok, E., Saniff, S. M., Wan Hasan, W. N., Janahi, N. A., & Yesuf, A. J. (2022). Re-thinking sustainable development within Islamic worldviews: a systematic literature review. Sustainability, 14(12), 7300.
Aleixo, A. M., Leal, S., & Azeiteiro, U. M. M. (2018). Conceptualization of sustainable higher education institutions, roles, barriers, and challenges for sustainability: an exploratory study in Portugal. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 1664-73.
Ali, S., Xu, H., & Ahmad, N. (2021). Reviewing the strategies for climate change and sustainability after the US defiance of the Paris Agreement: an AHP-GMCRbased conflict resolution approach. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 23(8), 11881-912.
Aminpour, P., Gray, S., Richardson, R., Singer, A., Castro-Diaz, L., Schaefer, M., Ramlan, M. A., & Chikowore, N. R. (2020). Perspectives of scholars on the nature of sustainability: a survey study. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(1), 34-53.
Antunes, J., Nascimento, V. S., & Queiroz, Z. F. (2020). Como os estudantes percebem a sustentabilidade na educação superior? Um estudo qualiquantitativo sobre a Universidade Federal do Cariri, CE. Revista Eletrônica do Mestrado em Educação Ambiental, 37(3), 138-61.
Arcimaviciene, L. (2015). EU universities’ mission statements: what is popularized by metaphors. Sage Open, 5(2), 1-12.
Argento, D., Einarson, D., Mårtensson, L., Persson, C., Wendin, K., & Westergren, A. (2020). Integrating sustainability in higher education: a swedish case. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(6), 1131-50.
Atar, C., & Shukran, A. (2019). Higher education in Turkey: responding to sustainable development agenda. Intellectual Discourse, 27(2), 335-52. https://eric. ed.gov/?id=ED613522
Augustine, G., & King, B. G. (2019). Worthy of debate: discursive coherence and agreement in the formation of the field of sustainability in higher education. Socio-Economic Review, 17(1), 135-65.
Backman, M., Pitt, H., Marsden, T., Mehmood, A., & Mathijs, E. (2019). Experiential approaches to sustainability education: towards learning landscapes. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20(1), 139-56.
Baldo, M., & Baldarelli, M. G. (2017). Educating for sustainability: perspectives and critical notes on accounting scholars’ role in higher education. Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, 64(4), 411-22.
Barton, J. R., & Gutiérrez-Antinopai, F. (2020). Towards a visual typology of sustainability and sustainable development. Sustainability, 12(19), 7935. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su12197935
Beecroft, R. (2018). Embedding higher education into a real-world lab: a processoriented analysis of six transdisciplinary project courses. Sustainability, 10(10), 3798.
Bien, C., & Sassen, R. (2020). Sensemaking of a sustainability transition by higher education institution leaders. Journal of Cleaner Production, 256(1), 120-299.
Bourdieu, P. (1989). O poder simbólico. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
Bova, D. M. (2022). A vocabulary for sustainability. Sustainable Environment, 8(1), 2113-542.
Brogden, L., Bernie, D., Boston, M., Forster, A. M., Galbrun, L., Hepburn, L.-A., Lawanson, T., & Morkel, J. (2022). A learning design framework for community resilience: international and transdisciplinary perspectives on a boundary object. International Journal of Educational Research Open, 3(1), 100-200.
Busquets, P., Segalas, J., Gomera, A., Antúnez, M., Ruiz-Morales, J., Albareda-Tiana, S., & Miñano, R. (2021). Sustainability education in the Spanish higher education system: faculty practice, concerns and needs. Sustainability, 13(15), 83-9.
Cachelin, A., Rose, J., & Paisley, K. (2015). Disrupting neoliberal discourse in critical sustainability education: a qualitative analysis of intentional language framing. Environmental Education Research, 21(8), 1127-42.
Castor, T. (2022). The umbrella of discourse analysis and its role in CCO. In J. Basque, N. Bencherki, & T. R. Kuhn (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of the communicative constitution of organization (pp. 197-212). London: Routledge.
Chagnon-Lessard, N., Gosselin, L., Barnabe, S., Bello-Ochende, T., Fendt, S., Goers, S., Silva, L., Schweiger, B., Simmons, R., Vandersickel, A., & Zhang, P. (2021). Smart campuses: extensive review of the last decade of research and current challenges. IEEE Access, 9(1), 124200-34.
Chang, C.-H., & Kidman, G. (2018). The future of education for sustainable development: where next after a decade of discourse? International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 27(4), 281-2.
Činčera, J., Mikusiński, G., Binka, B., Calafate, L., Calheiros, C., Cardoso, A., Hedblom, M., Jones, M., Koutsouris, A., Vasconcelos, C., & Iwińska, K. (2019). Managing diversity: the challenges of inter-university cooperation in sustainability education. Sustainability, 11(20), 5610.
Conde, F. (2009). Análisis sociológico del sistema de discursos. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.
Corazza, L., Cottafava, D., & Torchia, D. (2022). Education for sustainable development: a critical reflexive discourse on a transformative learning activity for business students. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 1-21.
Corazza, L., & Saluto, P. (2021). Universities and multistakeholder engagement for sustainable development: a research and technology perspective. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 68(4), 1173-8.
Cuesta-Claros, A., Malekpour, S., Raven, R., & Kestin, T. (2022). Understanding the roles of universities for sustainable development transformations: a framing analysis of university models. Sustainable Development, 30(4), 525-38.
Demele, U., Nölting, B., Crewett, W., & Georgiev, G. (2021). Sustainability transfer as a concept for universities in regional transformation: a case study. Sustainability, 13(9), 49-56.
Driscoll, C., Price, S., McKee, M., & Nicholls, J. (2017). An assessment of sustainability integration and communication in Canadian MBA programs. Journal of Academic Ethics, 15(2), 93-114.
Du Preez, P., Le Grange, L., Maistry, S., & Simmonds, S. (2022). On sustainability and higher education: towards an affirmative ethics. Perspectives in Education, 40(3), 118-31.
Fairhurst, G. T., & Putnam, L. L. (2019). An integrative methodology for organizational oppositions: aligning grounded theory and discourse analysis. Organizational Research Methods, 22(4), 917-40.
Feng, L. (2012). Teacher and student responses to interdisciplinary aspects of sustainability education: what do we really know? Environmental Education Research, 18(1), 31-43.
Ferguson, T., & Roofe, C. (2020). SDG 4 in higher education: challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(5), 969-75.
Fernández-Vázquez, J. S. (2021). Measuring environmental website communications in Latin American universities: multimodal and ecolinguistic benchmarking. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 22(3), 599-614.
Ferrero-Ferrero, I., Fernandez-Izquierdo, M., Muñoz-Torres, M., & Bellés-Colomer, L. (2017). Stakeholder engagement in sustainability reporting in higher education: an analysis of key internal stakeholders’ expectations. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 19(3), 1-39.
Findler, F., Schönherr, N., Lozano, R., Reider, D., & Martinuzzi, A. (2019). The impacts of higher education institutions on sustainable development. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20(1), 23-38.
Fischer, M., Foord, D., Frecè, J., Hillebrand, K., Kissling-Näf, I., Meili, R., Peskova, M., Risi, D., Schmidpeter, R., & Stucki, T. (2023). Why sustainability? In M. Fischer, D. Foord, J. Frecè, K. Hillebrand, I. Kissling-Näf, R. Meili, M. Peskova, D. Risi, R. Schmidpeter, & T. Stucki (Eds.), Sustainable business: managing the challenges of the 21st century (pp. 1-15). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
Foucault, M. (2008). A arqueologia do saber (7. ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária.
Giesenbauer, B., & Tegeler, M. K. (2020). The transformation of higher education institutions towards sustainability from a systemic perspective. In W. Leal Filho, A. L. Salvia, R. W. Pretorius, L. L. Brandili, E. Manolas, F. Alves, U. Azeiteiro, J. Rogers, C. Shiel, & A. D. Paco (Eds.), Universities as living labs for sustainable development: supporting the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (pp. 637-50). Cham: Springer.
Gomera, A., Antúnez, M., & Villamandos, F. (2020). Universities that learn to tackle the challenges of sustainability: case study of the University of Córdoba. Sustainability, 12(16), 66-14.
Hassan, A., Adhikariparajuli, M., Fletcher, M., & Elamer, A. (2019). Integrated reporting in UK higher education institutions. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, 10(5), 844-76.
Healy, N., & Debski, J. (2017). Fossil fuel divestment: implications for the future of sustainability discourse and action within higher education. Local Environment, 22(6), 699-724.
Hernández-Diaz, P. M., Polanco, J.-A., Escobar-Sierra, M., & Leal Filho, W. (2021). Holistic integration of sustainability at universities: evidences from Colombia. Journal of Cleaner Production, 305, 127-45.
Howlett, C., Ferreira, J.-A., & Blomfield, J. (2016). Teaching sustainable development in higher education: building critical, reflective thinkers through an interdisciplinary approach. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 17(3), 305-21.
Jaskolski, M., & Udoh, I. (2022). Building cross-cultural sustainability discourses in higher education: a virtual exchange program between Egypt and the United States. The International Journal of Sustainability in Economic, Social and Cultural Context, 18(1), 43-63.
Johnston, L. (2016). Cultivating an academy we can live with: the humanities and education for sustainability. Religions, 7(10), 120.
Kapitulčinová, D., AtKisson, A., Perdue, J., & Will, M. (2018). Towards integrated sustainability in higher education: mapping the use of the accelerator toolset in all dimensions of university practice. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172(1), 4367-82. Khelghat-Doost, H., Sanusi, Z. A., Jegatesen , G., & Fariddudin, T. F. F. D. T. (2011).
Universities of the Islamic world: catalysts for global sustainability transformation, a discourse analysis. The International Journal of Research and Review, 7(2), 33-50. https://idosi.org/wjihc/wjihc1(4)11/1.pdf
Koch, N. (2018). Green laboratories: university campuses as sustainability “exemplars” in the Arabian Peninsula. Society & Natural Resources, 31(5), 525-40.
Kohl, K., Hopkins, C., Barth, M., Michelsen, G., Dlouhá, J., Razak, D. A., Abidin Bin Sanusi, Z., & Toman, I. (2022). A whole-institution approach towards sustainability: a crucial aspect of higher education’s individual and collective engagement with the SDGs and beyond. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(2), 218-36.
Kopnina, H., & Meijers, F. (2014). Education for sustainable development (ESD): exploring theoretical and practical challenges. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 15(2), 188-207.
Kosta, K. (2017). Sustainability research as presented in UK university sustainability policies. In Leal Filho, W. (Ed.), Sustainable development research at universities in the United Kingdom: approaches, methods and projects (pp. 263-77). Cham: Springer.
Kouritzin, S. G., Nakagawa, S., Kolomic, E., & Ellis, T. F. (2021). Neoliberal sleight of hand in a university strategic plan: weaponized sustainability, strategic absences, and magic time. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 67(2), 236-55.
Kräusche, K., & Pilz, S. (2017). Integrated sustainability reporting at HNE Eberswalde: a practice report. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 19(2), 1-22.
Kuhn, T. R., & Putnam, L. L. (2014). Discourse and communication. In Adler, P., Du Gay, P., Morgan, G., & Reed, M. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of sociology, social theory, and organization studies (pp. 414-46). New York: Oxford University Press.
Le Grange, L. (2020). Sustainability higher education in the context of Bearn’s University of Beauty. Sustainability, 12(24), 105-33.
Leal Filho, W., Amaro, N., Avila, L. V., Brandli, L., Damke, L. I., Vasconcelos, C. R. P., Hernandez-Diaz, P. M., Frankenberger, F., Fritzen, B., Velazquez, L., & Salvia, A. (2021). Mapping sustainability initiatives in higher education institutions in Latin America. Journal of Cleaner Production, 315, Article 128093.
Leal Filho, W., Coronado-Marín, A., Salvia, A. L., Silva, F. F., Wolf, F., LeVasseur, T., Kirrane, M. J., Doni, F., Paço, A., Blicharska, M., Schmitz, M., Grahl, A. T., &
Moggi, S. (2022). International trends and practices on sustainability reporting in higher education institutions. Sustainability, 14(19), 122-38.
Leal Filho, W., Vargas, V. R., Salvia, A. L., Brandli, L. L., Pallant, E., Klavins, M., Ray, S., Moggi, S., Maruna, M., Conticelli, E., Ayanore, M. A., Radovic, V., Gupta, B., Sen, S., Paço, A., Michalopoulou, E., Saikim, F. H., Koh, H. L., Frankenberger, F., Vaccari, M. (2019). The role of higher education institutions in sustainability initiatives at the local level. Journal of Cleaner Production, 233(1), 1004-15.
López, O. S. (2013). Creating a sustainable university and community through a common experience. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 14(3), 291-309.
Lozano, R., Bautista-Puig, N., & Barreiro-Gen, M. (2022). Developing a sustainability competences paradigm in higher education or a white elephant? Sustainable Development, 30(5), 870-83.
Luque González, A., Coronado Martín, J. Á., Vaca-Tapia, A. C., & Rivas, F. (2021). How sustainability is defined: an analysis of 100 theoretical approximations. Mathematics, 9(11), 1308.
Marouli, C., & Duroy, Q. (2019). Reflections on the transformative power of environmental education in contemporary societies: experience from two college courses in Greece and the USA. Sustainability, 11(22), 64-5.
Matos, A., Cabo, P., Ribeiro, M., & Fernandes, A. (2015). As instituições de ensino superior perante a problemática ambiental. EduSer, 7(2), 13-40.
Melles, G. (2019). Views on education for sustainable development (ESD) among lecturers in UK MSc taught courses. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 20(1), 115-38.
Mello Massimino, D., & Pamplona, D. A. (2015). “Saberes” de Morin na educação jurídica: caminhos à educação para o desenvolvimento sustentável. Opción, 31(3), 446-69. https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=31045567023
Michel, J. O. (2020). Mapping out students’ opportunity to learn about sustainability across the higher education curriculum. Innovative Higher Education, 45(5), 355-71.
Moggi, S. (2019). Social and environmental reports at universities: a Habermasian view on their evolution. Accounting Forum, 43(3), 283-326.
Mulà, I., Tilbury, D., Ryan, A., Mader, M., Dlouhá, J., Mader, C., Benayas, J., Dlouhý, J., & Alba, D. (2017). Catalysing change in higher education for sustainable development. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 18(5), 798-820.
Nicotera, A. M. (2020). Organizing the study of organizational communication. In Nicotera, A. M. (Ed.), Origins and traditions of organizational communication: a comprehensive introduction to the field (pp. 3-21). London: Routledge.
Nikolic, V., Vukic, T., Maletaski, T., & Andevski, M. (2020). Students’ attitudes towards sustainable development in Serbia. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(4), 733-55.
Norton, L. S., Sarrica, M., Lombardi, R., & Peruzzi, G. (2022). Discourses on sustainability in a network of Argentine universities: exploring representations, cultural roots and transformative processes. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(7), 1504-19.
Noyola-Cherpitel, R., Medellín-Milán, P., & Nieto-Caraveo, L. M. (2016). Discourses and identity: an educational sociology approach to campus sustainability assessment. In Leal Filho, W. & Zint, M. (Eds.), The contribution of social sciences to sustainable development at universities (pp. 73-88). Cham: Springer.
Ostenson, J., Clegg, J., & Wiggins, B. (2017). Industrialized higher education and its sustainable alternatives. The Review of Higher Education, 40(4), 509-32.
Öztürk, M. (2017). Edges of sustainability through numbers, themes and discourse: a critical analysis of theses and dissertations in Turkish higher education institutions. International Journal of Comparative Education and Development, 19(1), 35-47.
Poza-Vilches, F., García-González, E., Solís-Espallargas, C., Velasco-Martínez, L.-C., López-Alcarria, A., Estrada-Vidal, L. I., Jiménez-Fontana, R., Rodríguez-Marín, F., Puig-Gutiérrez, M., Tójar Hurtado, J. C., & Gutiérrez-Pérez, J. (2021). Greening of the syllabus in faculties of education sciences through Sustainable Development Goals: the case of public Andalusian universities (Spain). International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 23(5), 1019-44.
Putnam, L. L. (2022). Foreword: the emerging paradigm of communication constitutes organization (CCO). In Basque, J., Bencherki N., & Kuhn, T. R. (Eds.), The
Routledge handbook of the communicative constitution of organization (pp. xxvixliv). London: Routledge.
Ramaswamy, M., Marciniuk, D. D., Csonka, V., Colò, L., & Saso, L. (2021). Reimagining internationalization in higher education through the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for the betterment of society. Journal of Studies in International Education, 25(4), 388-406.
Ripper Kos, J., Filartiga Gebara, M., Pompêo, C. A., & Pavan, L. H. (2017). Proyecto regenerativo del campus: aprendiendo a través de las dinámicas de la naturaleza y la universidad. Arquitecturas del Sur, 35(52), 30-41.
Rodrigues, C., & Payne, P. G. (2017). Environmentalization of the physical education curriculum in Brazilian universities: culturally comparative lessons from critical outdoor education in Australia. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 17(1), 18-37.
Rodrik, D. (2021). Why does globalization fuel populism? Economics, culture, and the rise of right-wing populism. Annual Review of Economics, 13, 133-70.
Ruiz-Mallén, I., & Heras, M. (2020). What sustainability? Higher education institutions’ pathways to reach the Agenda 2030 goals. Sustainability, 12(4), 1290.
Sheehy, B., & Farneti, F. (2021). Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, sustainable development and corporate sustainability: what is the difference, and does it matter? Sustainability, 13(11), 59-65.
Shephard, K., & Brown, K. (2017). How democratic is higher education for sustainable development? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 38(5), 755-67.
Singer-Brodowski, M., Förster, R., Eschenbacher, S., Biberhofer, P., & Getzin, S. (2022). Facing crises of unsustainability: creating and holding safe enough spaces for transformative learning in higher education for sustainable development. Frontiers in Education, 7(1), 7874-90.
Stein, S., Andreotti, V. D. O., & Suša, R. (2019). ‘Beyond 2015’, within the modern/ colonial global imaginary? Global development and higher education. Critical Studies in Education, 60(3), 281-301.
Svensson, A., & Wahlström, M. (2023). Climate change or what? Prognostic framing by Fridays for Future protesters. Social Movement Studies, 22(1), 1-22.
Sylvestre, P., McNeil, R., & Wright, T. (2013). From Talloires to Turin: a critical discourse analysis of declarations for sustainability in higher education. Sustainability, 5(4), 1356-71.
Tran, T., Thanh, H. T., Van Le, D., Phuong, T. T. T., & Lan, P. N. (2022). Does government financial support decrease the inefficiency of public universities? A decomposition approach. Finance Research Letters, 47, 102-651.
Vásquez, C., Bencherki, N., Cooren, F., & Sergi, V. (2018). From ‘matters of concern’ to ‘matters of authority’: studying the performativity of strategy from a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) approach. Long Range Planning, 51(3), 417-35. , C. R. (2017). Defining sustainability in higher education: a rhetorical analysis. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 18(7), 1076-89.
Wu, Y.-C. J., & Shen, J.-P. (2016). Higher education for sustainable development: a systematic review. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 17(5), 633-51.
Yemini, M. (2021). Internationalisation by demarcating the role of higher education in Sustainable Development Goals: the case of Israel. European Journal of Education, 56(2), 235-47.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Os direitos autorais dos originais aprovados serão automaticamente transferidos à Revista, como condição para sua publicação, e para encaminhamentos junto às bases de dados de indexação de periódicos científicos.
Esta cessão passará a valer a partir da submissão do manuscrito, em formulário apropriado, disponível no Sistema Eletrônico de Editoração da Revista.
A revista se reservará o direito de efetuar, nos originais, alterações de ordem normativa, ortográfica e gramatical, com vistas a manter o padrão culto da língua e a credibilidade do veículo. Respeitará, no entanto, o estilo de escrever dos(as) autores(as).
Alterações, correções ou sugestões de ordem conceitual serão encaminhadas aos(às) autores(as), quando necessário. Nesses casos, os artigos, depois de adequados, deverão ser submetidos a nova apreciação.
As provas finais serão encaminhadas aos(às) autores(as).
Os trabalhos publicados passarão a ser de propriedade da Revista, ficando sua re-impressão (total ou parcial) sujeita à autorização expressa da Revista. Em todas as citações posteriores, deverá ser consignada a fonte original de publicação: Revista Gestão & Conexões.
A Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo e/ou quaisquer das instâncias editoriais envolvidas com o periódico não se responsabilizarão pelas opiniões, idéias e conceitos emitidos nos textos. As opiniões emitidas pelos(as) autores(as) dos artigos serão de sua exclusiva responsabilidade.
Em todo e qualquer tipo de estudo que envolva situações de relato de caso clínico é fundamental o envio de cópia do Termo de Consentimento Livre e Esclarecido assinado(s) pelo(s) paciente(s).
