Resources

RESOURCES


RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Tazim Jamal, Justin Taillon & Dianne Dredge
School/Work Place : Texas A&M University, USA (Tazim Jamal, Justin Taillon), Southern Cross University, Australia (Dianne Dredge)
Contact : tjamal@tamu.edu
Year : 2010

There have been increasing calls to move away from the traditional disciplinary structures and research, teaching and learning approaches that have tended to ‘tunnel’ student learning and reinforce particular worldviews towards new forms of post-disciplinary social science (e.g. Tribe 1997; Gretzel, Jamal, Stronza & Nepal 2008). These calls have been underpinned by a need to adopt more creative and flexible approaches to investigating problems, and a more tolerant approach to the forms of knowledge that different groups can contribute to problem solving. Tourism, as a multi-sectoral and transdisciplinary phenomenon, has struggled to carve out its scholarly territory and produce a coherent body of work that might achieve disciplinary status (Etchner & Jamal, 1997; Tribe, 1997; 2004). Indeed, Coles, Hall and Duval (2006) argue that the search for disciplinary status should not be the focus of discussions but that tourism, as part of a much larger social, economic, environmental and political system, requires deeper transdisciplinary understandings; i.e. disciplinary status is not as important. An important contribution of these debates is to highlight the challenges to teachers and students of tourism who seek to unpack sustainability issues that transcend disciplinary and sectoral boundaries, and to fashion a curriculum that delivers such rich learning opportunities.

In the field of tourism, curricula and teaching and learning approaches are continuing to evolve (see, for instance, McIntosh, 1983; Van Weenen and Shafer, 1983; Jovicic, 1988; Tribe, 1997; Leiper, 2000). Indeed, the political, economic, social, cultural and environmental dimensions of tourism, and the different ways that tourism can be conceptualized (i.e. as an activity, an experience, an industry, a political problem, a cultural dilemma, a resource challenge, a social justice issue and so on) make sustainable tourism a multi-faceted, dialectical concept and a challenging topic of instruction and study (Gunn 1998). In the growing body of tourism pedagogy, the value of learning experiences built around investigations of complex empirical problems embedded in rich contexts is increasingly recognized (Francis & Cowan, 2008). Here, the importance of encouraging students to understand, appreciate and apply the concept of sustainability within a tourism context presents educators with a range of institutional, pedagogical, resource and other challenges that are only just beginning to be unpacked (Jamal, 2005; Jurowski, 2002).

Consideration about what to teach has often overshadowed how to teach (Stergiou, Airey & Riley, 2008; Tribe, 2002). Whilst we see the two concerns as inextricably related, our aim in this paper is to give consideration to the practice of teaching and learning, and how the two concerns might be balanced within a holistic teaching approach wherein students are encouraged to develop and apply knowledge and the human qualities and dispositions required to work collaboratively within complex tourism settings. In this paper, a collaborative community-based approach to teaching sustainable tourism is outlined and discussed in terms of the contributions it made to transdisciplinary student learning. A discussion of student experiences demonstrates that the approach provided a useful vehicle for student learning. Importantly, the paper also contributes to the scholarship of sustainable tourism education by reflecting instructor experiences gained in class and through academic-student-community collaboration.


List of Articles
No. Subject Views Datesort
13 Think Tank V Tourism Education for Cambodia: A Case Study of its Fi... file 7030 Oct 13, 2013

This paper details the development, delivery and outcomes of a Masters course in Tourism Development that was delivered by the Royal University of Phnom Penh, with the assistance and support of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and t...

Author: Ravi Ravinder 

Year: 2005 

12 Think Tank VII The New World of Travel 2.0: Application of Social Sof... file 7749 Oct 13, 2013

"Web 2.0" is a term used to refer to the emerging new wave of innovation on the Internet. Some see it as a second high-tech wave, marking the recovery from the technology and Internet "bust" at the end of the 1990s (O'Reilly 2005). Character...

Author: Alan A. Lew 

Year: 2007 

11 Think Tank VIII Integrating Sustainability into Tourism Education and ... file 4802 Oct 13, 2013

The focus of this paper is to provide an overview of the current sustainability content in Irish tourism programmes and the identification of key trends in this regard. It is based on extensive research of secondary and tertiary education s...

Author: Jane Stacey, Sheila Flanagan, Kevin Griffin & Anna Tottle 

Year: 2008 

10 Think Tank IX The Role of Values in Sustainable Tourism Education file 4135 Oct 13, 2013

This presentation discusses the role of values in the context of sustainable tourism education. However, it does not seek to engage in the debate about the definition of Sustainable Tourism nor the differences between this concept and Sustai...

Author: Christian Schott 

Year: 2009 

9 Think Tank IX Cross-Cultural Interaction, Capacity Building and Sust... file 10671 Oct 13, 2013

This paper reports on findings which are part of a broader research conducted under the Learning and Teaching Fellowship Award 2007/08, aimed at the assessment of innovative blended learning techniques and applied learning in alternative st...

Author: Marina Novelli 

Year: 2009 

» Think Tank X Sustainable Tourism Pedagogy and Student Community Col... file 16673 Oct 13, 2013

There have been increasing calls to move away from the traditional disciplinary structures and research, teaching and learning approaches that have tended to ‘tunnel’ student learning and reinforce particular worldviews towards new forms of ...

Author: Tazim Jamal, Justin Taillon & Dianne Dredge 

Year: 2010 

7 OPA award The Managing Local Tourism Master Class: Communicating... file 5606 Oct 13, 2013

The aim of this paper is to describe an action-based research project entitled the Management Local Tourism Master Class (MLTMC) and to discuss the merits of this extension tool in building sustainable tourism management practices across loc...

Author: Dianne Dredge, Emma-Jane Ford & Michelle Whitford 

Year: 2010 

OPA: 2010 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

6 Think Tank X The Managing Local Tourism Master Class: Communicating... file 7587 Oct 13, 2013

The aim of this paper is to describe an action-based research project entitled the Management Local Tourism Master Class (MLTMC) and to discuss the merits of this extension tool in building sustainable tourism management practices across loc...

Author: Dianne Dredge, Emma-Jane Ford & Michelle Whitford 

Year: 2010 

OPA: 2010 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

5 Think Tank X Sustainability: What Matters to Students, Educators, a... file 5417 Oct 13, 2013

As climate change gains global attention from events like the summit in Copenhagen held during December of 2009, the need for sustainable tourism is more important than ever; with comprehensive education in sustainability concepts and practi...

Author: Cynthia S. Deale & Nelson Barber 

Year: 2010 

4 Think Tank XI Visualising Sustainability: Reflections on Applied Stu... file 5863 Oct 14, 2013

As Sontag (1979) stated, we live in an image-based world within which we are continuously bombarded with visuals in countless formats and guises. However, despite such image saturation, academic engagement whether through teaching or resear...

Author: Caroline Scarles 

Year: 2011 

3 Think Tank XI Sustainable Tourism Course Structure and Associated St... file 14366 Oct 14, 2013

The author has developed and delivered Sustainable Tourism (S.T.) related courses at Institutions of Higher Education in Paris, London, Helsinki, and Parnu, Estonia over the last 10 years. The focus of the presentation would be the S.T. con...

Author: James Holleran 

Year: 2011 

2 Think Tank XI Identifying Critical Issues in Designing Educational T... file 3570 Oct 14, 2013

Education is seen as an important way to contribute to development. The World Bank finances educational projects with large amounts of money every year because it is convinced that improving education can help alleviate poverty by raising i...

Author: Kerstin Freudenthaler & Anja Hergesell 

Year: 2011 

1 Think Tank XI Use of Cases in an Ethical Teaching Resource for Touri... file 2718 Oct 14, 2013

Ethical problems are an integral part of all professions and academic disciplines (Clarkeburn, 2002). However, it is recognised that the increasing application of technology by students in research is not always matched by consideration of ...

Author: Carl Cater 

Year: 2011 

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