Routledge recently published Critical Realism, Environmental Learning and Social Ecological Change, edited by Dr Leigh Price and Prof Heila Lotz-Sisitka.

This book introduces a decade of mainly southern African critical realist environmental education research and thinking on the question: “How can we facilitate learning processes that will lead to the flourishing of the Earth’s people and ecosystems in more socially just ways?” The environmental education research topics represented in this book are wide-ranging. However, they all exhibit the common theme of social justice and wanting to create change towards a better future. Offering contributions from a small but growing community of researchers working with critical realism in the global South, this book will be of interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the areas of environmental education, sustainability, development and the philosophy of critical realism in general.

Several chapters may be of particular interest to green skills researchers and planners, including Rhodes University PhD student Presha Ramsarup’s chapter entitled: Absenting the absence of parallel learning pathways for intermediate skills: The ‘missing middle’ in the environmental sector in South Africa.  The chapter situates the discussion within the South African policy discourse of meaningful learning pathways and shares findings from Presha’s recently completed study of two priority scarce skills occupations in the environmental sector, the Environmental Scientist and the Environmental Technician. It identifies systemic disjunctures and illustrates how environmental learning pathways in and for sustainable development emerge.