Conference on Education for Transformation: Perspectives on Flourishing in the Anthropocene
- When: Wednesday, May 20, 2026 to Friday, May 22, 2026
- Where: University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Conference registration is closed.
- Contact: educationconference2026@uvh.nl
The Department of Education at the University of Humanistic Studies recently published Education for Transformation: Humanistic Perspectives on Flourishing in the Anthropocene (Brill, 2025). To mark this occasion, we invite scholars, educators, policymakers and artists to an international conference on how education can foster human and planetary flourishing.
During the conference we explore how education shapes our sense of place in the world, our relationships with human and more-than-human life and our capacity to face the uncertainties of the Anthropocene. Together, we seek to imagine educational pathways toward more attentive, just, and sustainable futures.
The conference program is structured around three interconnected themes:
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Moral and Citizenship Education for the Anthropocene
Which moral and civic virtues, principles, or ideals are necessary for the (interconnected) flourishing of humans, other sentient beings, nature and the Earth? How can moral and citizenship education prepare learners to act as responsible democratic citizens in an ecologically fragile and interdependent world?
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Addressing Colonial Legacies and Climate Justice in Education
(How) could and/or should education reckon with colonial histories of exploitation and
their links to ecological degradation? How can curricula and pedagogy integrate diverse
epistemologies and knowledge traditions and contribute to climate justice and epistemic justice? -
Transformative Pedagogies: From Theory to Practice to Theory
What kind of pedagogical practices, artistic, embodied, participatory or community-based, can help learners confront complexity, nurture resilience, and cultivate ecological consciousness? How can theory and practice inform one another in addressing the challenges of the Anthropocene?
Keynote lectures
Prof. Kristján Kristjánsson – Morality, Flourishing, and the Environment: Complex Intersections and Educational Implications. Kristján works at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues of the University of Birmingham. In his lecture, he explores how the environment (or what we would be inclined to refer to simply as ‘nature’) can serve as an independent source of moral value, and what that means for the cultivation of virtuous dispositions within forms of moral, character, and citizenship education.
Prof. Francio Guadeloupe – Being Convivial is being Ecological: Acknowledging the work of trans(national) civil societies in educational settings in the European and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Francio works at the University of Amsterdam and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW). In his lecture, he will address climate challenges in the (Dutch)Caribbean from a popular culture and cultural heritage perspective.
Dr. Lynne Wolbert - Mutual flourishing as an ideal aim of education. Lynne Wolbert is a philosopher of education and works as a senior researcher at Lectoraat Jeugd (Research Group Youth) and as a lecturer in the professional master program of the Institute for Ecological Pedagogy, both at the HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, The Netherlands. In her lecture, she will go ‘from practice to theory to practice’, thereby connecting her theoretical work to her practice of educating professional pedagogues (teachers, youth care workers, etc.), to discover if and how one can actually contribute to ‘mutual flourishing’ in higher education.
Prof. Kristján Kristjánsson
Kristján Kristjánsson’s research orientation can best be summed up as that of Aristotle-inspired philosophical scrutiny of theories in educational psychology and values education, with special emphasis on the notions of character and virtuous emotions. He has written extensively on themes in general education, moral education, educational psychology, moral philosophy and political philosophy, and sees himself essentially as a bridge-builder between philosophy and social science. His publications include Aristotelean Character Education (Routledge, 2015) and The Self and its Emotions (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Prof. Francio Guadelupe
Francio Guadeloupe’s principal areas of research have been on the manner in which popular understandings of national belonging, cultural diversity, religious identity, and mass media constructions of truth, continue to be impacted by colonial racisms and global capital. He has pursued these interests in his research and publications on social processes on the bi-national island of Saint Martin & Sint Maarten (St. Martin), Curaçao, Aruba, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Brazil, and the Netherlands. His publications include Chanting Down the New Jerusalem: Calypso, Christianity, and Capitalism in the Caribbean (University of California Press, 2009) and Black man in the Netherlands: An Afro-Antillean Anthropology (University Press of Mississippi, 2022).
Lynne Wolbert, PhD
Lynne Wolbert wrote her PhD (Flourishing, Fragility, and Family Life, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2018) on the concept of human flourishing as an ideal aim of education, and on the back of that a book for the public audience Speelruimte (Ten Have, 2018). Currently she is developing her research line on ‘mutual flourishing’, which looks at education and upbringing from an ecological perspective. For her most recent publication on this topic, see Full article: Mutual flourishing as an ideal aim of education.
Program
Day 1 – Wednesday, 20 May 2026 (UvH)
09:30 – 9:45 | Conference Opening
9:45 – 10:45 | Book Discussion (Plenary)
Discussion of Education for Transformation: Humanistic Perspectives on Flourishing in the Anthropocene (Brill, 2026)
10:45 – 11:15 | Coffee/Tea Break
11:15 – 12:45 | Parallel Sessions (Round 1)
12:45 – 13:30 | Lunch (45 minutes)
13:30 – 14:30 | Keynote I – Prof. Kristján Kristjánsson (University of Birmingham)- Morality, Flourishing, and the Environment: Complex Intersections and Educational Implications
14:30 – 15:00 | Coffee/Poster Session
15:00 – 16:30 | Parallel Sessions (Round 2)
16.45 – 18.15 | Parallel Sessions (Round 3)
18:15 – 19:00 | Welcome Reception
Informal gathering with drinks and snacks in the UvH canteen
Day 2 – Thursday, 21 May 2026 (Cervantes)
09:00 – 10.30 | Parallel Sessions (Round 4)
10:30 – 11:00 | Coffee/Tea Break
11:00 – 12:00 | Keynote II – Prof. Francio Guadeloupe (KNAW-KITLV/ University of Amsterdam) – Being Convivial is being Ecological: Acknowledging the work of trans(national) civil societies in educational settings in the European and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
12:00 – 12:45 | Lunch (45 minutes)
12:45 – 14:15 | Parallel Sessions (Round 5)
14:30 – 15:30 | Keynote III – Prof. Lynne Wolbert (UAS Utrecht)- Mutual flourishing as an ideal aim of education
15:30 – 16:00 | Coffee/Tea Break
16:00 – 17:30 | Parallel Sessions (Round 6)
Day 3 – Friday, 22 May 2026 (UvH)
9.30 – 12:30 | First round of workshops
Participants sign up for either one 3-hour workshop or two 1,5-hour workshops
12:45 – 13:15 | Lunch (30 minutes)
13:15 – 16:15 | Second round of workshops
Participants sign up for either one 3-hour workshop or two 1,5-hour workshops
16:30 – 17:30 | Farewell Reception and conference closure
Time to share reflections on the past three days.