Article

Socially-critical Environmental Education in Primary Classrooms

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Abstract

The effectiveness of Education for Sustainable Development depends on the ability of schools and teachers to embrace pedagogies that reduce the gap between the rhetoric of education for the environment and the reality of classroom practices. This book responds to the need to better understand the nature of the relationships between agency and structure that contribute to the development of educational rhetoric-reality gaps in order to inform processes that most effectively facilitate pedagogical change. This book explores the issues of pedagogical change through the experiences of Australian primary school teachers faced with the challenge of implementing an environmental education program in which young students were positioned as active participants in the social processes from which environmentally sustainable practices could be developed. These teachers were required to adopt pedagogies that often represented the antithesis of their well-established teacher-directed approaches. Through the use of Anthony Giddens’ Theory of Structuration this book provides unique perspectives of the teacher mediated manner in which certain elements of structure and agency interrelate to enable and constrain classroom practices—essential understandings for school principals and educational policy developers who aim to effectively implement pedagogical change. This book also demonstrates that the Theory of Structuration provides a valuable ontological research framework, and provides social researchers with practical guidance for how to relate this theory to specific research issues.

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... In it, not all school members dare to take a critical stance, which hinders the action of teachers. In this context, a teacher seeking to educate from a socio-critical perspective will be forced to challenge current political values and educational objectivesoriented towards nature exploitation, economy and consumerismshifting to objectives aligned with sustainable development (Edwards, 2016). ...
Book
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This volume seeks to broaden current ideas about the role of critical thinking (CT) in biology and environmental education considering educational challenges in the post-truth era. The chapters are distributed into three sections, perspectives of a theoretical character (part I), empirical research about CT in the context of biology and health education (part II), and empirical research on CT in the context of environmental and sustainability education (part III). The volume includes studies reporting students’ engagement in the practice of critical thinking, and displays how CT can be integrated in biology and environmental education and why biology and environmental issues are privileged contexts for the development of CT. The chapters examine a range of dimensions of CT, such as skills, dispositions, emotions, agency, open-mindedness, or personal epistemologies. In addition, they explore topics such as climate change, sustainable diets, genetically modified food, vaccination, acceptance of evolution, homeopathy, and gene cloning. Concluding remarks regarding the connections between the chapters and future directions for the integration of critical thinking in biology and environmental education are presented in a final chapter.
... In it, not all school members dare to take a critical stance, which hinders the action of teachers. In this context, a teacher seeking to educate from a socio-critical perspective will be forced to challenge current political values and educational objectivesoriented towards nature exploitation, economy and consumerismshifting to objectives aligned with sustainable development (Edwards, 2016). ...
Chapter
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This chapter aims to connect the main ideas and challenges that emerge across the volume and to provide some reflections about future directions for the integration of CT in biology and environmental education. In the approach suggested in this volume, CT is oriented to action. CT for action in biology and environmental education implies, among other issues, to engage students in making reasonable decisions and developing appropriate behaviors regarding controversial issues. Taking into consideration the studies presented in this volume and the educational challenges of post-truth era, some key ideas regarding how to support teachers in engaging students in CT development in biology and enviromental contexts are discussed.
... In it, not all school members dare to take a critical stance, which hinders the action of teachers. In this context, a teacher seeking to educate from a socio-critical perspective will be forced to challenge current political values and educational objectivesoriented towards nature exploitation, economy and consumerismshifting to objectives aligned with sustainable development (Edwards, 2016). ...
Chapter
Environmental degradations have been recurrent in South America for centuries. Today, this areas are the result of the neo-extractivism expansion logic, and they affect both nature and political, economic, social and cultural relationships, modifying the life and customs of inhabitants. In this context, science education, carried out from a critical perspective, emerges as a potential resistance practice. This chapter analyzes, from a critical and eco-feminist perspective, three experiences of teachers in the Aconcagua Valley, in Chile. Connections between the territory and attention to socio-environmental conflicts were identified in all three cases, both in and out of the classroom, which includes the discussion of economic, social and cultural factors. The professional trajectories and the form of resistance of teachers, reveal the importance of formative and collaborative spaces for teaching in contexts on environmental degradation.
... In it, not all school members dare to take a critical stance, which hinders the action of teachers. In this context, a teacher seeking to educate from a socio-critical perspective will be forced to challenge current political values and educational objectivesoriented towards nature exploitation, economy and consumerismshifting to objectives aligned with sustainable development (Edwards, 2016). ...
Chapter
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This chapter proposes an approach to critical thinking (CT) oriented to action, towards educating critical citizens. The goals are to support the development of their capacity to distinguish truth from post-truth, science from pseudoscience, to face uncertainty, and to make decisions grounded in evidence and values. We propose a revised characterization of the components of CT: a) the use of epistemic criteria in evidence evaluation; b) the disposition to seek reasons and to evaluate the reliability of sources; c) the capacity to develop independent opinions and to challenge socially established ideas; and d) the capacity to criticize inequitable discourses and structures, and to engage in critical action. The proposal is framed in a view of CT as a dialogic practice rather than skills. The focus is on two components related to criticality and to citizenship education, the need for peer group approval, and the difficulties experienced for challenging socially established ideas. The chapter makes the case for biology education and environmental education as privileged learning environments to develop critical thinking, which is particularly timed for current crises and post-truth challenges.
... An explanation for that discrepancy between theory and practice is maybe due to the worries of educators not to pre-maturely introduce children (especially the younger ones) to political discourses and complex socio-ecological disputes (Gruenewald, 2003). At the same time, most researchers agree that we should give children the opportunity to negotiate their social, cultural and political surroundings, using age-appropriate pedagogies which respect the developmental readiness of children (Edwards, 2016;Gruenewald, 2003). Eco-animations can be the age-appropriate tool for introducing elementary school children in discourses of sustainability, i.e. discourses through which people understand their world, as part of a broader set of participatory activities (Kemmis & Mutton, 2012). ...
Article
This study investigates changes in children’s environmental conceptions through their experience with the eco-animation WALL-E. The study uses an analytical framework informed by Social Representations Theory, accompanied with a word association approach to collect data. A total of 84 children (35 nine-year olds and 49 twelve-year olds) participated in the study. The animation reinforced both the idea of a polluted planet and the idea of the planet as an agent of life. The 9-year old participants expressed a more relational view of humans and nature than the 12-year olds. The process of anchoring new information to preexisting conceptual frameworks and the environmental views promoted through education are discussed as possible explanations of the ways participants interpret and assimilate environmental messages communicated by eco-animations.
... If contestation is avoided then divergent views about environmental issues will also be avoided, and the debate will be narrowed to one that no longer reflects the nature of the issue. (779) Accordingly, the learning process should include a possibility for students to learn through decision-making, participation and action (Fien 1993;Edwards 2015) and to experience processes of environmental politics by participating in a variety of real and simulated processes of environmental decision-making at a variety of levels (Tilbury 1995). However, the social-critical orientation of ESD 'extends beyond a simple awareness of local community problems and undertakes initiatives towards a re-creative competence' (Sterling 1999, 69). ...
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By means of a narrative research synthesis, the aim of this article is to explore how the political dimension can or should be staged as a teaching and learning content in education for sustainable development (ESD). The study is limited to research literature dealing with the political dimension in relation to the phenomenon of conflict. Three approaches to the topic are identified: a socially critical approach (SCA), a social learning approach (SLA) and a radical democratic approach (RDA). Notably, SCA and SLA are already established in the research field, whereas RDA is a result of our synthesis. The scope of the synthesis is limited to these three approaches. We follow up the narrative research synthesis by comparing the three approaches to discern how the political dimension emerges as an educational content by using conflict as part of the teaching and learning activities. The main results are that all three approaches tend to downplay the political and produce political sameness. The article ends by suggesting possible directions for further research that would fruitfully translate the idea of the political dimension into educational settings and enrich the political dimension as a concept in ESD in both practice and research.
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