30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Action Readiness and Motivational Theories of Emotion in Education for Sustainable Development
Marie Grice1, Olof Franck2
1Uddevalla Upper-Secondary School, Sweden; 2University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Presenting Author: Grice, Marie
While several students are engaged in the sustainability movement, when it comes to everyday choices of food, transportation and personal purchases, it is reported by several authors that major sustainability challenges such as climate change instil feelings of fear, confusion and hopelessness, especially among young people. Despite the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and the Global Action Program under the auspices of the United Nations, there remains a call for curricula and teachers to reflect and respond to such a focus in formal education. International environmental agreements such as the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and the Sustainable Development Goals highlight the expectations on education for sustainable development (ESD) to develop students’ competences so that they will be motivated to act on sustainability challenges in a competent, ethically sensitive, and critically reflective manner.
Action in ESD needs to be informed by both the knowledge there is about a sustainability challenge and the knowledge we do not yet have access to. The wickedness of sustainability problems seems to resist traditional scientific means of problem definition and problem solving. When approaching the complexity of a sustainability challenge by addressing for example ecological, economic, and social aspects, there are not only epistemic but also multiple ethical conflicts that arise. Any attempt to understand the complexity of these issues means that a door is opened towards uncertainty. Thus, scientific knowledge alone does not seem to be sufficient to make change come around or to make people want to act on sustainability issues. Therefore, an alternative strand of thought is used in this paper, that of uncertainties. Rather than focussing on what we already know about how to deal with various sustainability challenges in education, it might be relevant to focus on inconsistencies and the incompleteness of knowledge in order to render actionable knowledge and progressive decision-making. Attention to the role of uncertainty, wickedness, and complexity in the epistemology of sustainability is suggested to have an important function in education in general and in ESD in particular.
While the knowledge required to make various personal decisions which will impact their carbon footprints the global sustainability injustices require students to develop their ethical sensitivity and awareness, their competence not to avoid taking action. The notion of action can presumably refer to various changes due to internal or external drivers. Rather than introducing a roadmap to a sustainable future, action readiness invites the authorship of the students to substantiate ESD-action. To further probe the element of action as well as inaction, this paper addresses the motivational role of emotions. Emotions are investigated as an impetus for action, displaying various degrees in strength and urgency. Such emotions may be guided by students developing” green virtues”. Two virtue ethicists that can inform what right and competent actions may be, are Ernest Sosa and Linda Zagzebski. Sosa addresses the performance-related concept of competence as accurate (true), adroit (competently produced) and apt (accurate because adroit). Zagzebski presents a theory of moral exemplars, who are identified by their actions. By the emotion of admiration of the actions of the moral exemplars, we may be motivated not to avoid taking action.
Ultimately the interest of the study is to influence and contribute to educational (ESD) practice, methodology and theory but specifically the study aims to answer two questions:
What constitutive elements of the concept of action readiness may influence action to a greater or lesser extent in education for sustainable development (ESD)?
How can a motivational theory of emotions be understood in relation to the notion of action and action readiness in ESD?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis study applies a phronetic trail in the analysis by approaching epistemological and ethical issues related to the notion of action. Two different virtue ethicists are invited. They are mirrored by each other, and thereby questions arise regarding each theory, while concepts fundamental to understanding the notion of action in ESD are explored. Based on an analysis of current scientific literature, this paper examines the re-emerging concept of epistemically initiated, ethically and emotionally motivated action. To act responsively, ethically, and competently against unsustainable processes in the present seems to be doable, but envisaging a future society, a good society of which students will not be a material part, requires something new in education. How students act will have implications for an envisaged future other, which seems to require developed moral imagination.
In a second cycle of philosophical reflection and explication the framework of Nancy Tuana’s concept of moral literacy is used as a heuristic tool in the interpretation. Three major components of the framework are moral sensitivity, ethical reasoning skills and moral imagination, the latter of which seems to blend affective and rational processes. This framework has a pedagogical strand, which makes it interesting to introduce to the research field of ESD. In the remainder of the paper theoretical elaborations of dimensions of uncertainty in ESD arenas provide a basis for analysing the concept of action and understanding the motivational theories of emotions.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsBy outlining constitutive elements of the concept of action readiness through the motivational theory of emotion, new development of perspectives of various sustainability competences is expected, not least strategic and normative ones that together with sustainability pedagogy anchored in transformative and emancipative epistemology could help students and their teachers orient themselves and advance teaching methods in sustainability education. By exploring the motivational role of emotions in ESD, a broader understanding of actionable knowledge may be brought into play. This could provide guidance to educational practice and initiate empirical studies to explore the reasons students may harbour which make them content not to take action despite existent knowledge and good intentions. The result of the study is expected to be a development of perspectives of action and inaction in ESD. The concept of action readiness will be further explored, anchored in transformative and emancipatory “green” epistemology.
The analysis will suggest pedagogical perspectives of how dimensions of uncertainty can be approached and evaluate the motivational theories of emotions in terms of coming to know and taking action, individually and collectively. The trail of moral theory can not only explain what moral beliefs and actions are, but can also offer guidance as to how teachers as well as students may relate to and structure the complex epistemic and ethical contexts of sustainability.
ReferencesAnnas, J. (2014). Why Virtue Ethics Does Not Have a Problem with Right Action. In M. Timmon (Ed.) Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 4 Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brook, C., Pedler, M., Abbott, C., & Burgoyne, J. (2016). On stopping doing those things that are not getting us to where we want to be: Unlearning, wicked problems and critical action learning. Human Relations, 69(2), 369-389.
Burns, H. (2015). Transformative sustainability pedagogy: Learning from ecological systems and indigenous wisdom. Journal of Transformative Education, 13(3), 259-276.
Dewulf, A., & Biesbroek, R. (2018). Nine lives of uncertainty in decision-making: Strategies for dealing with uncertainty in environmental governance. Policy and Society, 37(4), 441-458.
Doan, M. (2014). Climate Change and Complacency. Hypatia, 29(3), 634-650.
Edstrand, E. (2016). Making the invisible visible: How students make use of carbon footprint calculator in environmental education. Learning, Media and Technology, 41(2), 416-436.
Grice, M. & Franck, O. (2017). Conceptions of ethical competence in relation to action readiness in Education for Sustainable Development. Reflective Practice. 18(2).
Jonnaert, P., Masciotra, D., Barrette, J., Morel, D., & Mane, Y. (2007). From Competence in the Curriculum to Competence in Action. PROSPECTS, 37(2), 187-203.
Jordan, M., Kleinsasser, R., & Roe, M. (2014). Wicked problems: Inescapable wickedity. Journal of Education for Teaching, 40(4), 415-430.
Kollmuss, A., & Agyeman, J. (2002). Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior? Environmental Education Research, 8(3), 239-260.
Kopnina, H. (2020). Education for the future? Critical evaluation of education for sustainable development goals. The Journal of Environmental Education, 51(4), 280-291.
Osbeck, C., Franck, O., Lilja, A. & Sporre, K. (2018). “Possible competences to be aimed at in Ethics Education – Ethical competences highlighted in educational research journals”, Journal of Beliefs and Values, 39(2), 195-208.
Sosa, E. (2011). Knowing full well (Soochow University lectures in philosophy). Princeton, N.J. Woodstock: Princeton University Press.
Sporre, K., Lotz-Sisitka, H., & Osbeck, C. (2022). Taking the moral authorship of children and youth seriously in times of the Anthropocene. Ethics and Education, 17(1), 101-116.
Tuana, N. (2007). Conceptualizing moral literacy. Journal of Educational Administration, 45(4), 364-378.
Wamsler, C., Osberg, G., Osika, W., Herndersson, H., & Mundaca, L. (2021). Linking internal and external transformation for sustainability and climate action: Towards a new research and policy agenda. Global Environmental Change, 71, 102373.
Zagzebski, L. (2013). Moral exemplars in theory and practice. Theory and Research in Education, 11(2), 193-206.
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Care in Environmental and Sustainability Education: A Scoping Review
Charlotte Ponzelar1, Katrien Van Poeck1,2, Leif Östman1, Stefan Bengtsson1
1Uppsala Universitet, Sweden; 2Ghent University, Belgium
Presenting Author: Ponzelar, Charlotte
The word care or its semantic variations is omnipresent in everyday speech about climate change and societal issues that e.g. ‘matter’ and need to be ‘taken care of’. There is an increasing amount of academic literature debating care in relation to education and sustainability with a variety of theoretical frameworks. To date, however, there is no comprehensive examination of how care surfaces in the current ESE literature, which is aimed to be explored in this paper in form of a literature review.
Identifying various conceptualizations and manifestations is vital to go beyond an everyday understanding of ’care’. More specifically this paper explores literature on care in the research field of ESE and employs an additional focus on implications for higher education; an educational context in which care is not often attended to (Anderson et al. 2020). This review of literature elaborates on (1) the conceptualization of care and (2) the theoretical frameworks that are appealed to in ESE literature with a focus on the educational practice of teaching and learning (Didaktik) in higher education. Thus, besides providing an overview of the different conceptualizations of care in ESE research, the analysis results in an identification of motivations for care and its practical implications, including conditions for care and a reflection on its implied or observable consequences and manifestations. Furthermore, the paper does also contribute with an overview of how care is framed in ESE research by contrasting the theoretical frameworks that are commonly drawn upon.
Exploring the literature reveals that mainly two bodies of research are dealing, in one way or another, with care. The first one concerns research and writings about emotions towards climate change and sustainability-related issues coming from a place of care for the world. During the last decade we have seen numerous publications with a range of psychological interpretations and discussions of its consequences (see e.g. Verlie 2019, Ojala et al. 2021, Todd 2020, Wray 2022). Some scholars discuss how provoking specific feelings might result in higher awareness and more sustainable lifestyle choices (e.g. Kals & Maes 2002, Rakib et al. 2022). In contrast, other scholars argue that those - as ‘negative’ interpreted - feelings such as of worry and unease, prohibit the individual from getting engaged and leaving them in despair and depression (Wray 2022). Which is where the second body of literature intersects, concerning the ethical dimension of ESE that are brought about through care or result in discussions on care as a moral responsibility. Dealing with the ethical dimension of sustainability is a long-standing research interest and has been the topic of a symposium on ethics of the Environmental and Sustainability Research Network (ESER) and associated mini-collection of the contributions (Öhman 2016).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe literature data for review includes peer reviewed literature that has been published up until February 2023 and was selected in three steps. The review began with a reviewing of content (title, keywords, abstracts) to find relevant articles in a selection of eight ESE journals (JEE, Environ. Educ. Res., SAJEE, CJEE, AJEE, Appl. Environ. Educ., JESD, Int. J. Sustain. High. Educ.). The aim of this first step was to find relevant literature on care in ESE that presented a variety of conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks in the field of research. This step was followed by a keyword search in the EBSCO database including ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), using the following search terms: “care in higher education” NOT “health care” NOT “medical care” NOT “foster care” AND “emotions”. The goal of this search was to widen the investigative lens and identify conceptions and theoretical frameworks in broader educational research literature on care outside of ESE, however, narrowed by the context of higher education and inclusion of emotional dimensions in education. After initial selection, based on title and keywords, the articles’ abstracts were reviewed with a broad view on (1) care in ESE and was complemented by literature on (2) care in higher education in order to include as many conceptualizations and signifiers as possible for the synthesis in the review process. This selection process resulted in 47 documents for qualitative content analysis and was followed by the third and final step for article selection: the reviewing of references and citations in Google scholar following the forward and backward snowballing technique (Wohlin 2014).
The above-mentioned research foci of conceptualizations of care and its underlying theoretical frameworks for further analysis, were iteratively developed during the process of this scoping review (Gutierrez-Bucheli et al. 2022). The method for analysis was an inductive qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2015). The coding of data resulted in findings of repetitions, overlaps and tensions in conceptualizations of care and its underlying theoretical frameworks. These were further analyzed by contrasting its described (1) manifestations, (2) motives, (3) conditions, (4) consequences and (5) practices of care. The whole process was accompanied and followed by discussions in the research team about identified themes in the surfacing of care in ESE and higher education.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsOur review allowed to map different ways care is conceptualized in ESE research and points to theoretical frameworks, found in higher education research literature outside of ESE that might be valuable to take into considerations for future research. The rough description below of four partly intersecting themes found in the literature, are to be seen as preliminary findings.
The debate about evoking emotions and feelings towards sustainability and climate related issues is a major theme in the literature about the practice of caring. In this strand of literature, authors argue for creating safe teaching and learning environments, where the learning community and the creation of relationships are of high value.
Another theme in ESE research is related to pedagogical motivations to evoke feelings. This strand discusses different teaching methods with care for or about the natural environment as a learning goal. Examples of teaching methods discussed in this literature strand are place-based education based on the belief that encouraging an emotional attachment to a place will lead people to care (Gruenewald, cited in Goralnik, 2012), experiential learning, artistic explorations or education situated outside of the classroom and immersed in nature (e.g. Trott 2020, Wals & Benavot 2017, Livingston & Gachago 2020), etc.
Literature on care in higher education practices was considered to complement the discussion on conceptualizations of care not limited by a particular sustainability discourse. This resulted in two additional themes found in the literature. One theme discusses university students as mature adults and debates whether a caring practice would result in patronizing or infantilization, while the institution acknowledges its responsibility in enabling best conditions for academic success. Finally, the implementation of frameworks derived from care ethics (e.g. Noddings 1984, Tronto 1993) is discussed as a means to resist the neoliberal structures of the modern university.
ReferencesAnderson, V., Rabello, R., Wass, R., Golding, C., Rangi, A., Eteuati, E., Bristowe, Z., & Waller, A. (2020). Good teaching as care in higher education. Higher Education.
Goralnik, L., Millenbah, K. F., Nelson, M. P., & Thorp, L. (2012). An environmental pedagogy of care: Emotion, relationships, and experience in higher education ethics learning. Journal of Experiential Education, 35(3), 412-428.
Gutierrez-Bucheli, L., Reid, A., & Kidman, G. (2022). Scoping reviews: Their development and application in environmental and sustainability education research. Environmental Education Research, 28(5), 645-673.
Kals, E., & Maes, J. (2002). Sustainable development and emotions. Psychology of sustainable development, 97-122.
Livingston, C., & Gachago, D. (2020). The elephant in the room: Tensions between normative research and an ethics of care for digital storytelling in higher education. Reading & Writing-Journal of the Reading Association of South Africa, 11(1), 1-8.
Mayring, P. (2015). Qualitative content analysis: Theoretical background and procedures. Approaches to qualitative research in mathematics education: Examples of methodology and methods, 365-380.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A relational approach to ethics and moral education. Univ of California Press.
Ojala, M., Cunsolo, A., Ogunbode, C. A., & Middleton, J. (2021). Anxiety, worry, and grief in a time of environmental and climate crisis: A narrative review. Annual review of environment and resources, 46, 35-58.
Öhman, J. (2016). New ethical challenges within environmental and sustainability education, Environmental Education Research, 22:6, 765-770.
Rakib, M.A.N.; Chang, H.J.; Jones, R.P. Effective Sustainability Messages Triggering Consumer Emotion and Action: An Application of the Social Cognitive Theory and the Dual-Process Model. Sustainability 2022, 14.
Todd, S. (2020). Creating aesthetic encounters of the world, or teaching in the presence of climate sorrow. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54(4), 1110-1125.
Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. Routledge.
Trott, C. D. (2020). Children’s constructive climate change engagement: Empowering awareness, agency, and action. Environmental Education Research, 26(4), 532-554.
Verlie, B. (2019). Bearing worlds: Learning to live-with climate change. Environmental Education Research, 25(5), 751-766.
Wals, A. E., & Benavot, A. (2017). Can we meet the sustainability challenges? The role of education and lifelong learning. European Journal of Education, 52(4), 404-413.
Wohlin, C. (2014). Guidelines for snowballing in systematic literature studies and a replication in software engineering. In Proceedings of the 18th international conference on evaluation and assessment in software engineering (pp. 1-10).
Wray, B. (2022). Generation dread: finding purpose in an age of climate crisis. Knopf Canada.
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
“I Definitely Do Not Feel Comfortable”: Teachers' Experiences of and Attitudes towards Climate Change and Sustainability Education
Nicola Walshe
UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Walshe, Nicola
Climate change and sustainability education can be understood as broad, pluralistic approaches to education that aim to generate understanding of the wide-ranging, interconnected, environmental and social issues that are defining our time, and that support people’s capabilities for acting in response to those issues. Climate change education in particular is a ‘hyper-complex’ concept (Laessoe et al., 2009) as it brings two independently complex concepts of ‘education’ and ‘climate change’ together. Greer and Glackin set out six qualities of a meaningful educational response to climate change (2021), arguing that quality climate change education should: offer and be open to alternatives; accept and embrace complexity; develop ecological worldviews; re-orient towards justice; incorporate multiple types of knowledge and skills to tackle complex problems; and finally it should recognise and support students as agents of change, repositioning students from recipients of information, and future inheritors of climate change related problems, to action-oriented approaches that recognise them as participants in society’s response to climate change and collaborators in society’s transformation.
The need to enhance the quality and quantity of climate change and sustainability education has been widely advocated and discussed in the research literature; for example, Jickling and Blenkinsop (2020) argue that education must be at the heart of the large-scale change project that transforms people and cultures to more ecologically and socially sustainable ways of being. This is supported by a plethora of recent polling data from schools in the UK, which has identified an appetite amongst students and teachers to enhance the provision of climate change and sustainability education in schools. For example, polls undertaken by Teach the Future (2019, 2020) found 75% of teachers did not feel they have had adequate training and 92% suggested that more should be done to address climate change in schools. Research echoes these concerns; for example, Howard-Jones et al. (2021) explored teachers’ views on an action-oriented climate change curriculum, finding less than half (40%) considered they had the resources they needed to answer students’ questions about climate change, and arguing the need for an action-based curriculum which includes issues of global social justice, at all school phases.
In 2022 the Department for Education (DfE) launched the Sustainability and climate change strategy for the education and children’s services system which sets out the UK Government’s commitment to providing climate change and sustainability education for children and young people in England which “Makes a difference to children and young people all over the world” (DfE, 2022). While this is a laudable aim, research suggests teachers do not currently feel equipped to provide the climate change and sustainability education required by the strategy. With this in mind, we conducted a survey with teachers in England to deepen understanding of their practice related to climate change and sustainability, to find out how confident, prepared and supported they feel to incorporate climate change and sustainability in their teaching, and to investigate their related professional development experiences and needs.
The survey was guided by the following broad research questions:
- How do teachers conceptualize climate change and sustainability education, and how does this correlate with the scholarly views on what quality climate change and sustainability education should be?
- What are teachers’ practices and experiences of climate change and sustainability education teaching? What factors influence these?
- What professional development opportunities for climate change and sustainability education do teachers in England experience?
- What are the implications for practice in relation to teacher professional development around climate change and sustainability education?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe primary method used to answer these questions was a questionnaire. Key principles guiding the administration and layout of the questionnaire was that it would be easy to complete, attractive and uncomplicated, widely accessible, personally relevant, and (ideally) would involve some learning for the respondents. The development of the questionnaire was an iterative process that involved research team discussion, literature review, item drafting, peer review and piloting, and concurrent development of analysis methods. The questionnaire was peer reviewed by teacher education researchers with expertise across primary and secondary education. We conducted two formal pilots; the first conducted with trainee teachers (n=50), and the second with practicing teachers (n=12) to ensure coherence and useability.
The final questionnaire comprised 35 questions organized in four sections: i) teachers views on climate change and sustainability; ii) teachers experience at incorporating climate change and sustainability in their teaching, iii) teachers professional development experiences and needs; iv) demographic information. Questions included a combination of matrix, multiple choice questions and free text or open-ended questions. The final questionnaire was administered using Qualtrics software and took approximately 20 minutes to complete by either mobile or desktop. The questionnaire was open to teachers of all phases and disciplines in England for nine weeks. We used non-probability, convenience sampling; the questionnaire was promoted across a range of networks, including through teaching unions, subject associations, the Department for Education newsletter and social media channels. Incentives were offered in the form of two randomly drawn cash prizes (£100 each) for participating schools to purchase climate change and sustainability teaching resources.
This project followed BERA ethical guidelines (2018) and was awarded ethical approval by the University Ethics Committee.
Data analysis was undertaken for quantitative data using descriptive and inferential statistics. All qualitative data were transcribed and coded using thematic content analysis.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWe received 1098 responses which, following removal of duplicates, ineligible responses and empty or incomplete records, was reduced to 870 responses. Teachers varied considerably in the number of years they had spent teaching; the majority (30.3%) had spent 1-5 years teaching, whilst 24.5% had more than 20 years of experience. Teachers were able to convey their current areas of teaching, which could encompass multiple subjects across multiple educational stages. By subject, the most frequently reported subjects were geography (41.3% of those who answered the array of questions), science (37.2%), and Personal, Social, and Health Education (PSHE) including in tutor and/or form time (35.2%). By educational phases, the majority (67.7%) taught in secondary schools (age 11-19), while 33.9% taught primary-aged children (ages 4-11). In relation to the teaching of climate change and sustainability education in school, preliminary results suggest teachers expressed a desire for more sustainability actions being taken in school to reinforce student learning, more mentions of climate change and sustainability content in the National Curriculum within their particular subject area, more opportunities to collaborate with other staff to develop cross-curricula teaching materials, and more support from external organisations in developing teaching resources and strategies. However, the majority had not undertaken any professional development around climate change and sustainability education, including in their initial teacher education. As such, questionnaire data suggests a need for improved professional development opportunities for teachers of all disciplines and all phases, and at all stages of their career (initial teacher education through to senior leadership).
ReferencesDfE (2022) Sustainability and climate change: a strategy for the education and children’s services systems. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainability-and-climate-change-strategy (Accessed 31 January, 2023).
Greer, K. and Glackin, M. (2021) ‘What ‘counts’ as climate education? Perspectives from policy influencers’. School Science Review, 383, p.16.
Howard-Jones, P., Sands, D., Dillon, J. and Fenton-Jones, F. (2021) ‘The views of teachers in England on an action-oriented climate change curriculum’, Environmental Education Research, 27(11), pp.1660-1680.
Jickling, B. and Blenkinsop, S. (2020) ‘Wilding Teacher Education: Responding to the Cries of Nature’. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 23(1), pp. 121-138.
Teach the Future (2019) Climate Change Education: Teachers’ Views. Available at: https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/6008334066c47be740656954/602d3c3c704f2324e80a72b5_20191125_UKSCN%20Oxfam%20teachers%20and%20climate%20change%20survey.pdf (Accessed 31 January, 2023).
Teach the Future (2020) Teacher Training on Climate Education 2020. Available at: https://www.sos-uk.org/research/teacher-training-and-climate-education (Accessed 31 January, 2023).
Læssøe, J., Schnack, K., Breiting, S. and Rolls, S. Climate Change and Sustainable Development: The Response from Education CROSS-NATIONAL REPORT (Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, Denmark). Available at: http://dpu.dk/RPEHE and http://edusud.dk 2009 (Accessed 31 January 2023).
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