Higher Education
Z. Sadoughi
Abstract
The interdependence resulting from globalization and the common crisis individuals face make the cooperation among scholars and researchers of different disciplines inevitable. Since promoting the culture of peace has become a significant concern for researchers, managing the current complicated situation ...
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The interdependence resulting from globalization and the common crisis individuals face make the cooperation among scholars and researchers of different disciplines inevitable. Since promoting the culture of peace has become a significant concern for researchers, managing the current complicated situation needs a peaceful environment. Today, a wide range of studies emphasize the importance of peace believing it can bring calmness, security, stability as well as sustainability. Considering knowledge and awareness as primary concepts in shaping insights, attitudes, and peaceful behavior, the current paper has tried to study the role of a university in promoting the culture of peace. Through a qualitative method and semi-structured interviews with experts in the education domain, a hypothesis was discussed: "the university is an active actor in promoting the culture of peace through its functions (education, research, and social responsibility) and playing a crucial role in diplomacy institution." Based on theoretical and field studies findings, a sustainable university model was found to be an effective one for peace promotion, a university that institutionalizes sustainability in educational, research, and social services.
S.A. Asghari
Abstract
The crisis of environment degradation is one of factors that have raised the problem of how to make development sustainable while considering limitations. Trying to solve this problem itself, however, raises another problem: out of the two fields of economics and ecology which one should determine the ...
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The crisis of environment degradation is one of factors that have raised the problem of how to make development sustainable while considering limitations. Trying to solve this problem itself, however, raises another problem: out of the two fields of economics and ecology which one should determine the policy-making for sustainable development. At last, thinking about this led me to the question whether sustainability constrains development, and if yes how. The aim of the research reflected in this paper was to find the answers to these problems and questions in the course of explaining the context of their emergence. The method was to analyze, explain, and infer implications of the theories and comparing them: firstly, the concepts or criteria of sustainability in some important expert fields of knowledge were analyzed and explained so that the status of the ecological concept of sustainability in the mainstream sustainable development becomes clear; secondly, I turned to drawing the implications of important theories in ecology –climax theory, ecosystem theory, permissive ecology theory– for sustainability criterion, and comparing them; finally the recent economic theories of sustainability were analyzed and explained and their consequences for sustainability were inferred. Through all these stages I sought to answer the question whether sustainability constrains development, if yes how, and different criteria were compared in this regard. This study made it clear that (1) in the context of sustainable development, two fields of knowledge have been the most decisive fields in determining the criterion of sustainability: ecology and economics; (2) the sustainability that resulted from ecosystem theory constrains development; (3) but permissive ecology theory cannot regard nature as a norm or criterion for development; (4) permissive ecology’s diluted concept of sustainability leaves development primarily unconstrained; (5) in sustainable development sustainability now has become mainly an economic concept; (6) while strong sustainability has considerable capacity for constraining development, weak sustainability is lacking in this regard.
Mohammad Reza Dehshiri
Abstract
The present article endeavours to examine, through a descriptive and analytical methodology, the approach taken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regarding interdisciplinary studies in the field of Higher Education. The research explains the programmes and policies ...
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The present article endeavours to examine, through a descriptive and analytical methodology, the approach taken by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), regarding interdisciplinary studies in the field of Higher Education. The research explains the programmes and policies of this organization in the area of Higher Education and discusses the process of the evolution of interdisciplinary towards transdisciplinarity in the surveys and researches conducted by the organization. After reflecting on the reasons for its tendency towards transdisciplinary studies, the research analyses the criteria of the passage from structural interdisciplinarity to behavioural transdisciplinarity. The article concludes that OECD has adopted the passage from structural interdisciplinarity towards behavioural transdisciplinarity as a basis for policymaking and educational and research orientation in the field of Higher Education. This approach tends to promote the capabilities, innovations, skills and creativity of students and to increase their objective understanding of social and professional conditions and necessities, so that the context for their successful and constructive presence in technical markets, as well as their effective responsiveness to the needs of their society, is provided for