Benjamin Jörissen - Cultural Sustainability and Arts Education: International Perspectives on the Aesthetics of Transformation

This proposed yearbook series stems from the research trajectory of the newly formed UNESCO UNITWIN international network for Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development. The UNITWIN is essentially an Arts Education Research Think Tank that hopes to gather and leverage on research from UNITWIN members states (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand) and beyond.

Sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). According to Hawkes (2001), sustainable development requires balanced progress in four interdependent dimensions: Social, Economic, Environmental, and Cultural.

UNESCOs proposal to Education for Sustainable development (ESD) includes key development into teaching and learning that includes issues like climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, poverty reduction, and sustainable consumption. It requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviours and take action for sustainable development. ESD consequently promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way.

The UNITWIN peer-reviewed edited Yearbook will stem from the annual meeting of the UNESCO UNITWIN network, gathering scholarly views from the UNITWIN member states and invited international expert perspectives on original research and critical commentaries based on the thematic focus for the year.

Projected research themes that will feature in upcoming yearbooks include the arts, arts education and: i) identity; ii) heritage and tradition; iii) transformation and temporality; iv) cultural changes in the digital world; v) peace/community building leading to social transformation; vi) informal/non-formal educational connections; vii) leadership and facilitation; viii) interdisciplinarity in the collaborative and multi-sectorial; ix) creativity; x) education for all; and xi) sustainable environment.

The Yearbook series serves to inform governmental agencies, international arts education organizations, arts educators and researchers, and all interested scholars, students and stakeholders on the immense possibilities of the arts and arts education towards education for sustainable development in and through the arts. Empirical research and exemplary practices in arts and arts education presented through sound theoretical and methodological frames/approaches with policy implications on a national, regional and/or global level that focuses on and cuts across the four key dimensions of sustainable development, namely social, economic, environmental, and cultural, are the key thrust to all contributions to the series.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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This yearbook could not have been done without the dedicated contributions of our colleagues from the UNITWIN Network Arts Education Research for Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development, which continues the global polylogue that started with the International Network for Research in Arts Education (INREA) a decade ago. We also owe a big thank to our team members at the UNESCO Chair in Arts and Culture in Education, Leopold Klepacki and Nathan Moore, who took care of and have been involved in the editing process. On this occasion, we also like to thank our students from the Masters Degree Study Course Aesthetic and Cultural Education at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg, who most helpfully contributed to the organization of our conference, and one of whom, we are proud to say, produced his first publication in this international volume.