Book review: Sustainable and Democratic Education: Opening spaces for complexity and the future, by Sarah Chave

Abstract

At a time when sustainable and democratic education is gaining increased attention, Sarah Chave’s book, Sustainable and Democratic Education: Opening spaces for complexity and the future, invites readers to rethink the dominance of Western concepts and worldviews in the educational area. The book aims ‘to contribute both to becoming aware of one’s entrenched worldviews and to finding new ways to be and be together’ in educational settings (2). With this aim in mind, Chave touches on ideas offered by many ancient and modern thinkers, such as Plato, Braidotti, Biesta, Buber, Gilligan, Kant, Macmurray, Parmenides and Rancière, reflecting on how these contributions impact our understanding of sustainable and democratic education. Primarily, however, the author builds her arguments from views offered by Hannah Arendt. Thus, the book is organised in nine chapters: the first three are devoted to philosophical investigations on subjectivity and sustainability; these are followed by five chapters (Chapter 4 to Chapter