Teaching and Learning in Ecosocial Work

Catherine Forde is senior lecturer in youth and community work at University College Cork. She delivers twin modules on environment and sustainability on qualifying social work and youth and community work degree programmes at the School of Applied Social Studies, UCC. Catherine's main research/publication interests are in the areas of community development; ecosocial work and environmental education; state-civil society relations; and children and young people's participation. She has published widely on these themes and is co-author of the book Social Work and Community Development: A Critical Practice Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). She is co-editor of the themed section Community Development in Social Work Education: Themes for a Changing World (Community Development Journal, October 2021). She is a Co-I on the Horizon Europe project Intersectional Spaces of Participation: Inclusive, Resilient, Embedded (INSPIRE) (2024-2027) and co-PI of a research project (2023) for the Feminist Communities for Climate Change initiative of the National Women's Council of Ireland/Community Work Ireland. She serves on the editorial board of the journal Ethics and Social Welfare. 

Satu Ranta-Tyrkkö, PhD Title of Docent, is a university lecturer in the faculty of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her teaching and research focus on the interfaces and confluences of social work and environmental issues, including her postdoctoral research (2014-2017) on the consequences of the mining industry for disadvantaged groups in Northern Finland and Eastern India, and the Climate Handbook for Social Work (in Finnish) together the Talentia Union of Professional Social Workers. Her interests also include the diversity of social work as both locally embedded, and transnationally and globally manifest profession, discipline, and social movement, and interfaces of social work with arts (especially theatre) and arts-based practice. Satu has also published on ethical and postcolonial issues in social work. Overall, she has a macrolevel ecosocial and community-based orientation to social work.

Pieter Lievens is a lecturer in the Bachelor of Social Work of KdG University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Belgium and he is connected to the Thomas More University of Applied Sciences in Flanders since 2003. He was educated as a sociologist and specialized in European Social Policy Analysis. He has done research in the fields of women in vulnerable labor positions, participation of lower classes in local organizations, satisfaction among users of labour counselling services and older people's care. He was a consultant for municipalities on local social policy planning. He has expertise in the design of e-learning environments. He has coordinated Intensive Programmes in Social Work and is involved in many international projects. He has been teaching international perspectives in social work and ecosocial work since 2005. Global challenges are his main expertise. Between 2010 and 2013 Pieter was chairman of the learning network 'Orientation of Social Work towards sustainable development'. Pieter has been teaching sustainability, ecology, ecosocial work and international perspectives and global change for more than 15 years. He is currently engaged in futures thinking, deep history of planet earth, collective governance of commons and other activities related to ecosocial work.

Komalsingh Rambaree (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Gävle, Sweden. He started his career in the year 1990, as a social worker working with youth and adolescents in Mauritius. He has also worked on various sustainable development projects for international organizations such as the European Union, World Bank , and the United Nations. He graduated with a PhD in Social W

This book aims to popularise ecosocial work and facilitate teaching and learning of ecosocial work in educational institutions which offer social work or related programmes. It is the first book to focus specifically on teaching and learning in ecosocial work and one of the first to specifically incorporate student perspectives on and initiatives in ecosocial work teaching, learning and practice.

Ecosocial work is a timely and evolving framework to learn about and practice social work from the premise that humans are part of, and dependent on, the web of life on Earth. While this understanding should guide human activities in the first place, current massive planetary scale anthropogenic socio-environmental problems, such as the climate crisis, rapid acidification of oceans, biodiversity loss and species extinction, prove the opposite. Moreover, along with many other professional and academic fields, social work and the social professions stem largely from the same anthropocentric and modernist world view as the current environmental problems. Social work thus needs to reconfigure its relationship to other than human beings and the planetary limits of existence. This calls for nothing less than in-depth renewal of social work and related professions, and ultimately an ecosocial/ecological paradigm change in which education plays a pivotal role.

The book brings together chapters and case studies on the concepts, contexts, methods, and experiences of teaching and learning in ecosocial work. It is an account of work in progress and discusses and depicts the current terrain of ecosocial work in principle and in practice. It provides ideas and approaches on what kinds of new thinking and skills ecosocial work requires from current and future social workers and on how these can be taught, practiced, and learned in promoting economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Written by academics, students and practitioners living and working in different parts of the world, the book offers interdisciplinary perspectives from social work, social policy, community development and sociology. Chapters consider the following themes, amongst others: how to navigate the conceptual jungle defining human-bio-physical environment relations; why and how to re-envision the social work curriculum to include teaching and learning on ecosocial work; how to ally social work with greener social policies; challenges facing social work education and practice in responding to environmental crisis; the importance of Indigenous knowledge in ecosocial work; and approaches to integrating social work education with innovative practices seeking to champion sustainability, climate awareness and justice.

Introduction.- Part I Concepts in Ecosocial Work Teaching and Learning.- Chapter 1 Ecosocial Work and Transformational Teaching and Learning.- Chapter 2 How to Approach the Materiality of the Ecosocial Transition in Social Work Education.- Chapter 3 Teaching Crises.- Part II Practices in Ecosocial Work Teaching and Learning.- Chapter 4 Re-envisioning Social Work Curricula.- Chapter 5 Eco-Activism and Greening the Social Professions Curriculum.- Chapter 6 Linking the Human Rights and Ecosocial Paradigms in Social Work Education.- Chapter 7 Eco-Diversity at the Margins.- Chapter 8 Social Work and Environmental Sustainability Toolkit.- Chapter 9 Teaching for Ecosocial Work.- Chapter 10 Re-thinking Transnational Social Work Pedagogy for Climate Change, Migration, and Crisis Preparedness.- Part III Connecting Teaching, Learning and Practice in Ecosocial Work.- Chapter 11 Becoming Environmental Writers!.- Chapter 12 Building Pathways for Ecocentric Practices.- Chapter 13 The Mushroom House.