Valentina Tassone

Wageningen University & Research | WUR · Faculty of Social Science

Universities have a fundamental role in enabling students to cope with sustainability challenges, such as climate change. They are expected to educate a comprehensive understanding of the complex biophysical, social and political facets of the ongoing climate crisis. This task entails more than transferring factual knowledge through courses. We arg...

Purpose This study aims to bring together the available scattered knowledge about teaching and learning in Living Labs within higher education, and to explore their potential for supporting students’ sustainability-oriented transformative learning. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted, applying a realist approach. A sample...

This study explores the intersection role of students' epistemic beliefs and gender in argumentative essay writing. In total, 148 undergraduate students from a Dutch university followed an argumentation module, filled out the epistemic beliefs survey, and wrote an argumentative essay. Results showed that students' beliefs about the Internet-specifi...

This paper analyses how smallholder farmers are learning for socio-ecological stewardship in a specific case study context in Eastern Uganda. The case under analysis is a watershed management project that uses an integrated farm planning (PIP) approach to strengthen farmers’ stewardship capacities within the Manafwa watershed through interactive an...

Purpose By envisioning the learning environment as an eco-social system, this study aims to map interrelated enablers of students’ sustainability-oriented learning (SoL) in the context of a university course at the interface of science and society. Design/methodology/approach A case-study approach was used to delineate what enables student learnin...

This paper presents a multi-faceted analytical Course Innovation Framework (CIF) that can help institutes of higher education analyze multiple aspects of course innovation. The CIF was constructed by integrating insights from literature, policy documentation and course-innovation practices at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands. T...

This empirical paper addresses the need for more in depth understanding of signs and characteristics of transgressive learning in a context of runaway climate change. In a world characterized by systemic global dysfunction, there is an urgency to foster rapid systemic change which can steer our paths towards meeting the SDG goals. The contention of...

In times of global systemic dysfunction, there is an increasing need to bridge higher education with community-based learning environments so as to generate locally relevant responses towards sustainability challenges. This can be achieved by creating and supporting so-called learning ecologies that blend informal community-based forms of learning...

This paper addresses the call for more action-based narratives of grassroot resistance to runaway climate change. At a time when deep changes in society are needed in order to respond to climate change and related sustainability issues, there are calls for greater connectivity between science and society, and for more inclusive and disruptive forms...

There is an urgent need to address the grand sustainability challenges of our time, and to explore new and more responsible ways of operating, researching, and innovating that enable society to respond to these challenges. The emergent Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) policy agenda can act as a catalyst towards the development of new and m...

Purpose While empowerment for sustainability is considered a major objective within sustainability-oriented educational programs and policies, little is known about the actual process of empowering students for sustainability through higher education. This study aims to explore this field, by introducing the EYE (Educating Yourself in Empowerment)...

The Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education for Sustainable Development gives a systematic and comprehensive overview of existing and upcoming research approaches for higher education for sustainable development. It provides a unique resource for researchers engaged in the field of higher education for sustainable development by connec...

Sustainable tourism development is increasingly put forward as a promising mechanism for poverty alleviation and nature conservation. However, to date, knowledge about theories, roles and the practical contribution of tourism arrangements, policy and plans in relation to poverty alleviation and nature conservation still appears to be under a proces...

In their comment Thorsen, Strange, and Helles (this journal) suggest that the model we use in our paper “Diverging incentives for afforestation from carbon sequestration: an economic analysis of the EU afforestation program in the south of Italy.” Forest Policy and Economics 6, 567–578 includes a misspecification of subsidy payments under Regulatio...

This study analyses the change in faustmannian age considering the social benefits due to carbon sequestration under the Regulation 2080/92, the subsidies provided by the afforestation program and investigates, from the social point of view, the profitability of afforesting agricultural land. The analysis refers to Calabria, a region situated in th...