Journal Resume: ‘The Emergence of a Global Innovation in Education: Diffusing Education for Sustainable Development through Social Networks’

Name: Anis Septianingsih

Class: 4E

NPM: 1910631060066

Journal: ‘The Emergence of a Global Innovation in Education: Diffusing Education for Sustainable Development through Social Networks’ by Nina Kolleck

A Resume

This journal called ‘The Emergence of a Global Innovation in Education: Diffusing Education for Sustainable Development through Social Networks’ written by Nina Kolleck describes how in recent decades, countries around the world have increasingly been confronted with international organizations’ expectations that new innovations be adopted in educational systems. As a consequence, global social innovations such as “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD) have been implemented in different educational systems worldwide. Numerous networks have taken shape that pursues the goal of comprehensively embedding the social innovation of ESD in different education sectors such as higher education, and schools of various countries.

Through the context of the United Nations (UN) Decade, ESD has evolved into a globally promoted concept. With the growing relevance of ESD, scholars have increasingly started to analyze the diffusion and transfer of this global educational innovation. However, many scholars have so far mainly studied the implementation of ESD in schools or curricula. At the same time, we still know little about the factual implementation at the national and regional levels. This is surprising because the way ESD is implemented and diffused within UN member countries as well as the role different actors play influences how the concept is understood and realized. The transfer of new educational concepts, in turn, is shaped by the structure of social relations and the interaction of individual actors involved in innovation processes.

Furthermore, in the academic literature it is discussed that social innovations such as ESD are only successful when they are diffused through social relationships and adapted by actors embedded in networks. The chances that a social innovation will be successful increase when it is supported not only by separate individuals but rather by actors interlinked through networks that are built on trustful relationships. In this sense, it is neither exclusively (individual or collective) actors – such as people or organizations – nor only structures that are responsible for the success of social innovations.

Based on the observation that social innovations are implemented through social networks and interactions between those parties involved in innovation processes, this article has implemented Social Network Theory (SNT) and techniques of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to study how ESD is implemented through social relations.

While it is frequently argued that the implementation of the approach takes place through cross-sectorial collaboration, the current study demonstrates a lack of collaboration between people of different activity fields. The concentration of strong sectorial relationships illustrates that the municipal ESD networks tend to group closure, which indicated that individuals who collaborate more with their close neighbors than with persons beyond their own municipality.

Altogether, through successful initiatives, social developments and a strengthening of social networks, the UN Decade of ESD has, over the last decade, led to a wide-ranging implementation and worldwide diffusion of the social innovation ESD. Nevertheless, at the end of the decade and with the beginning of the follow-up world program for action – which envisages a continuation of the UN Decade of ESD in other contexts – both science and practice face big challenges. This is because the anchoring of the concept is still limited to individual, tight-knit working groups. The transfer as well as the trans-national diffusion of the concept has only been achieved to a limited extent. Whereas in recent years, national and international educational and development policy have increasingly referred to ESD, there remains a serious void between political decisions as well as educational plans and the practical implementation of ESD.

The reason why I chose this journal was because we should know and be aware of the emergence of a global innovation in education, and this journal also could be useful for scholars and practitioners in the field of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and social innovation diffusion.

After reading this journal, I can now understand how important the role of social interactions and aspects of power and influence is in implementing social innovations such as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and hopefully people who read this article can too.