Socially Acute Agri-environmental Questions and Changes in Society: Educational Transition for Societal Transition Via the Agro-Ecological Transition

Abstract

The debates on the evolution and impact of agriculture on health, on the natural or socioeconomic environment lead us to consider agri-environment issues as socially acute questions (SAQs). The agro-ecological transition towards a more sustainable system, supported by the political authorities, faces a lock-in socio-technical system. Maintaining a teaching of intensive agriculture contributes to this socio-technical lock in. The teaching of socially acute questions can contribute to unlocking to move towards agro-ecological transition, firstly, through innovative educational engineering and participatory learning which constitute niches for innovation and secondly, by entering teaching in a socio-technical landscape within late modernity. Late modernity obliges to distance from the idea of progress or rationality and to consider the political and economic dimensions, uncertainties and risks and the values in agri-environmental issues.

Keywords

• SAQ
• Agro-ecological transition
• Socio-technical regime
• Innovation
• Late modernity