The challenges that we face when considering issues of global poverty and unsustainable development are complex and far reaching. Such issues are fuelled by a myriad of interdependent and cross cutting decisions that individuals and nations make on a daily basis, as such they are relevant to all walks of life and all academic and professional disciplines. If we are to encourage our students to consider and respond this reality, then Development Education must be embedded across all disciplines in formal education. If this is achieved then we can hope to collectively move towards action for a more just and sustainable society and world.
As educators working to raise awareness of global inequality and unsustainable practices, we often begin within the confines of our own discipline before moving to the inter-disciplinary model advocated in literature on teaching global perspectives (UNESCO, 2002; UNESCO, 2005; McKeown and Hopkins in Tilbury, 2002). To do this however we must reflect on our discipline and understand how it is lived and learned. A subject discipline can be described as a social construct. It does not exist in the real world, rather it is a means by which we categorise and view the world. Each discipline differs in terms of how it is lived, what is valued, and what are appropriate ways of acting, thinking and feeling.
If those involved in disciplines are to work together, then they must understand the construct of their own discipline as well as that of their collaborators. To integrate Development Education into that discipline implies that appropriate messages and questions that are distinctively DE are blended with the existing content, process and philosophy of the subject discipline. If the pedagogical approaches chosen are consistent with the nature and delivery of that discipline, students won’t see the global perspective as additional, rather they will experience it as an integral part of the subject.