30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
“Smog Shutting Schools?”: Understanding The Impact Of School Closure Due To Extreme Weather Conditions On Teachers Agency In Delhi, India
Tarang Tripathi1, Chandraditya Raj2, Ci Yan Sara Loh3, Christoforos Mamas1, Arnab Dey1
1University of Calfornia, San Diego, United States of America; 2Aawaaz Foundation, India; 3University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, United States of America
Presenting Author: Tripathi, Tarang;
Raj, Chandraditya
Context and Research Question:
Teachers in India are under tremendous pressure to constantly take on the burden of student success. This pressure is multiplied in a densely populated and competitive country such as India. As such, teachers are often directly held responsible for the shortcomings in student academic outcomes.
What is often overlooked is that there are many external factors that limit or restrict teachers' ability and agency to perform their work in a meaningful manner. While many factors such as policy (Datnow, 2012), curriculum (Priestley et al., 2012), and assessments (Poulton, 2020) have been studied in India and globally, one factor has consistently been ignored: weather-related school closures. In particular, extreme weather conditions that recur yearly, and are incrementally worsening.
In Delhi, extreme temperatures (cold and heat) every year leads to schools being closed for multiple days in January and May. Additionally, extreme weather exacerbates existing hazardous smog conditions in Delhi from the month of September through November (Basu, 2019); making in-person schooling untenable for weeks. Hence, in the context of this high-pressure education environment, coupled with weather-related repeated school closure, we ask the following research question: How have weather-related closures at schools impacted teachers' agency to work with students in Delhi, India?
Theoretical Framework:
While the concept of agency and more specifically, teacher agency has been discussed richly over the past decades, there have been a few different ways in which agency has been understood and utilized. While some have theorized that agency is an object that resides inside a person (Giddens, 1986; Bandura 2001), others have argued that it is the structures around the person that impact their agency (Emirbayer and Mische, 1998). However, in the past few decades, the concept of agency as something ecological and to be achieved by interacting with the environment actively has taken prominence (Beista and Tedder, 2007). This paper uses a socio-cultural (Archer, 2000) and ecological approach (Beista and Tedder, 2007; Pantic and Florian, 2015) of agency, to unpack how teachers' agency might be restricted by contextual factors around them. More specifically, we use the ecological model put forward by Beista and Tedder (2007) to examine how the agency of private school teachers in India is impacted and mediated by school closures due to extreme weather conditions.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedDocument Analysis:
To calculate the number of days schools remained shut in Delhi due to extreme weather conditions, we carried out a thorough document analysis. Documents utilized for this source were policy documents, school memos, and local news articles from the area.
Semi-Structured Interview:
We conducted semi-structured interviews with eight school teachers from three private schools in Delhi. The three private schools selected for this study were purposely diverse. School A was a high-income private school. In comparison, Schools B and C were both middle-income to low-income private schools.
Each interview was forty-five minutes long and focused on allowing teachers to highlight their classroom experiences over the past six months. In particular, teachers were asked about the challenges that they faced due to school closures (specifically around closures that were due to extreme weather conditions) and how that impacted their agency to work as teachers.
Analysis:
The interviews were recorded and transcribed for analysis. The analysis was carried out by utilizing a constant comparative method (Glasser, 1965) to surface overarching themes of challenges faced by teachers. Drawing from Charmaz (2008) the transcripts were first open-coded and then compared across interviews. Additionally, the documents were analyzed to display extra days that schools were shut.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThrough our qualitative analysis of the interviews, we saw four major themes emerging pertaining to how school closures due to extreme weather conditions restricted teacher agency:
1. Additional pressure on teachers by administration and parents
Teachers expressed how absences in school days led to mounting pressure on them to finish their courses faster. This pressure was primarily exerted by the heads of departments/administrators and the parents of the students.
2. Lack of access to students during unplanned school closures
Similar to results done by studies in the past (Themane and Theobejane, 2019), teachers spoke about how they felt restricted in their abilities to work with students when they did not have the resources/support to reach out to them. In instances where school closures were announced, teachers generally needed more time to plan on how to keep students engaged.
3. Lack of any systematic, structured planning from top management around these closures
Teachers highlighted that most times, responses to these weather challenges/school closures were made on the spot by the government and/or the school administration leading to haphazard and confusing directions. Similar to other studies in the field (Datnow, 2012) this lack of clarity in policies seemed to lead to a negative impact on teachers’ agency.
4. More adverse impacts for lower-income school teachers
One unfortunate but rather unsurprising finding was the differential impact based on the income levels of the schools. While teachers in school A were inconvenienced by these school closures, in general, they could shift online or plan for alternative classes more easily. Teachers from schools B and C faced a higher level of difficulty when trying to get their students to attend online classes and carve out time for additional classes during school time.
ReferencesArcher, M. S. (2000). Being human: the problem of agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual review of psychology, 52(1), 1-26.
Biesta, G. & Tedder, M. (2007). Agency and learning in the lifecourse: towards an ecological perspective. Studies in the Education of Adults, 39(2), 132149.
Basu, M. (2019). The great smog of Delhi. Lung India: Official Organ of Indian Chest Society, 36(3), 239.
Charmaz, K. (2008). Grounded theory as an emergent method. Handbook of emergent methods, 155, 172.
Datnow, A. (2012). Teacher agency in educational reform: Lessons from social networks research. American journal of education, 119(1), 193-201.
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency?. American journal of sociology, 103(4), 962-1023.
Giddens, A. (1986). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration (Vol. 349). Univ of California Press.
Pantić, N., & Florian, L. (2015). Developing teachers as agents of inclusion and social justice. Education Inquiry, 6(3), 27311.
Poulton, P. (2020). Teacher agency in curriculum reform: The role of assessment in enabling and constraining primary teachers’ agency. Curriculum Perspectives, 40(1), 35-48.
Priestley, M., Edwards, R., Priestley, A., & Miller, K. (2012). Teacher agency in curriculum making: Agents of change and spaces for manoeuvre. Curriculum inquiry, 42(2), 191-214.
Themane, M., & Thobejane, H. R. (2019). Teachers as change agents in making teaching inclusive in some selected rural schools of Limpopo Province, South Africa: Implications for teacher education. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 23(4), 369-383.
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Heat Exposure and Education Outcomes in the Context of Climate Change: A Scoping Review
Francis Vergunst, Caitlin Prentice
University of Oslo, Norway
Presenting Author: Vergunst, Francis
Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. It is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events – such as droughts, wildfires, and heatwaves – and raising average day and nighttime temperatures in many regions across the world (Pereira et al., 2022). Children are more vulnerable to climate change related stressors, both because they are physiologically and neurocognitively immature and because they have a greater number of life years before them to be exposed (Clark et al., 2020). Climate stressors’ detrimental effects on physical health have been well-documented, and a nascent literature addresses effects on children’s mental health (Vergunst & Berry, 2021). The education literature has, however, so far examined climate change and education mainly through a curricular lens – that is, how children are taught about climate change. Much less attention has been paid to how the results of climate change may affect children’s educational access, participation, and outcomes.
Heat is one of the most wide-spread emerging climate related stressors, with higher average temperatures and heatwaves already being observed both in Europe and worldwide. A growing body of literature indicates that heat exposure can negatively affect school access, learning, and education outcomes. For example, higher day-of-test temperatures have been associated with lower exam scores (Graff Zivin et al., 2020; Park et al., 2021) and lower graduation rates (Park, 2020), while higher classroom temperatures are linked with reduced performance on cognitive tests and curricular tasks (Wargocki et al., 2019). Furthermore, heat can undermine children’s education outcomes indirectly – for example, when reduced or lost agricultural yields lead to poverty and malnutrition and disrupt school attendance and learning (Teevrat, 2017). In other words, gains in education could be eroded worldwide as hotter temperatures become more common with advancing climate change.
The existing literature on heat and education outcomes is located across a breadth of disciplines, ranging from economics to psychology to international development. It consequently employs diverse methodologies, assumptions, and definitions that can make overall findings difficult to appraise (Ring et al., 2011). The aim of the present review is to synthesise the extant literature using scoping review methods. Since increasing global temperatures are now certain under all future climate change scenarios (IPCC, 2021), establishing a link between heat exposure and education outcomes could have immediate policy implications – adding further urgency to the case for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and bolstering support for adaptive strategies to protect vulnerable populations.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe choice of scoping review methods was based on the current breadth and heterogeneity of published literature which precluded conducting a systematic review. The Arksey & O’Malley (2005) framework for scoping reviews was applied by following five distinct stages (1) identifying the question, (2) conducting the search (3) selecting the studies, (4) charting/evaluating the data, and (5) reporting the results. The research question for the review was: What are the key considerations of studies on heat exposure and education outcomes in youth populations?
The review included empirical studies, reviews, and gray literature that addressed outcomes for school-aged children (primary, middle, or secondary school) younger than 19 years. Education outcomes included exam scores, school grades, school attendance and completion rates, and measures of cognitive task performance. Heat exposure was conceptualized as ambient outdoor and indoor temperatures, higher average temperatures (e.g. monthly, annual), and heatwave events.
Only studies published in English were included. The databases searched were PsychINFO, PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar. The search terms were (“heat*” OR “hot*” OR “temperature”) and (“education” OR “test” OR “exam” OR “graduat*” OR “attend*”). Titles and abstracts were reviewed for relevance by both authors and duplicates were removed. Both authors reviewed the full-texts for the final included articles. Using the methods proposed by Arksey and O’Malley (2005), information was extracted in the following domains: (a) descriptors (e.g., year, title, study type, region), (b) the main study findings, and (c) a thematic synthesis. The final review protocol will be registered in OSF (https://osf.io/7undg/).
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary search results indicate that increased heat exposure is already affecting education outcomes for children in many regions across the globe. This occurs via both direct and indirect mechanisms. Direct effects of heat include negative impacts on human physiology, including reduced concentration levels, fatigue, and lowered frustration thresholds. Increased heat, especially severe heatwaves, can disrupt access to school, shorten school days, and interrupt lessons. Indirect effects of heat on education include disruption of caregiver economic activity and food production, potentially leading to malnutrition and reduced ability to afford school-related fees in low-income contexts. The effects of heat exposure on global education equity also emerged as in important theme. For example, the regions in which children still receive the fewest number of years of education – primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East – are disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Additionally, girls living in these regions still receive fewer years of education than boys do, on average, and will be disproportionately affected by heat-related disruptions to education.
Our findings have implications for children’s school experiences, education outcomes, and later economic and democratic participation. They also bear on the key issue of mitigating climate change and its effects, since educational attainment is the single strongest predictor of climate change awareness worldwide (Lee et al., 2015). Furthermore, education specifically related to climate change can meaningfully reduce individual greenhouse gas emissions (Cordero et al., 2020). Taken together, the results of this review suggest that increasing global temperatures, driven by climate change, could undermine education outcomes worldwide, and thus harm our collective capacity both adapt to its effects and to mitigate the root causes of climate change.
ReferencesArksey, H., & O’Malley, L. (2005). Scoping studies: towards a methodological framework. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 8(1), 19–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000119616
Clark, H., Coll-Seck, A. M., Banerjee, A., Peterson, S… Costello, A. (2020). A future for the world’s children? A WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission. Lancet (London, England), 395(10224), 605–658. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)32540-1
Cordero, E. C., Centeno, D., & Todd, A. M. (2020). The role of climate change education on individual lifetime carbon emissions. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0206266. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206266
Graff Zivin, J., Song, Y., Tang, Q., & Zhang, P. (2020). Temperature and high-stakes cognitive performance: Evidence from the national college entrance examination in China. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 104, 102365. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JEEM.2020.102365
Lee, T. M., Markowitz, E. M., Howe, P. D., Ko, C.-Y., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature Climate Change, 5(11), 1014–1020. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2728
Park, R. J. (2020). Hot Temperature and High Stakes Performance. Journal of Human Resources. https://doi.org/10.3368/jhr.57.2.0618-9535R3
Park, R. J., Behrer, A. P., & Goodman, J. (2021). Learning is inhibited by heat exposure, both internationally and within the United States. Nature Human Behaviour, 5(1), 19–27. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00959-9
Pereira, J., Revi, A., Rose, S., Sanchez-Rodriguez, R., Lisa Schipper Sweden, E. F., Schmidt, D. U., Schoeman, D., Shaw, R., Singh, C., Solecki, W., & Stringer, L. (2022). IPCC Report Summary for Policymakers. United Nations. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009325844.001
Ring N., N. A., Ritchie, K., Mandava, L., & Jepson, R. (2011). A guide to synthesising qualitative research for researchers undertaking health technology assessments and systematic reviews. NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/3205#.Y9lrsS2ZPGI
Vergunst, F., & Berry, H. L. (2021). Climate Change and Children’s Mental Health: A Developmental Perspective. Clinical Psychological Science, 216770262110407. https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026211040787
Wargocki, P., Porras-Salazar, J. A., & Contreras-Espinoza, S. (2019). The relationship between classroom temperature and children’s performance in school. Building and Environment, 157, 197–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.BUILDENV.2019.04.046
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Renewable Energy Technology in a Sustainable Perspective and Deliberative Communication?
Øyvind Mathisen
NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Scie, Norway
Presenting Author: Mathisen, Øyvind
RQ1: How can working with technology mediate elements of deliberative communication while working on an inquiry project related to renewable energy technology?
RQ2: How can working with renewable technology strengthen a whole school approach (WSA) into making the school more sustainable?
The aim of deliberative communication is to reach a joint consensus or at least agree to disagree in a classroom context. There are five distinct elements of deliberative communication in the school (Englund, 2006). The participants:
- are given space and time to present and challenge different views via argumentation;
- listen to, tolerate and respect each other’s argumentation;
- reach a shared will-formation, such as a joint consensus, or are aware of different views, or at least agree to disagree;
- do not accept everything as the “truth”, even if uttered by a teacher/authority; and
- essentially fulfil elements a–d without teacher control.
The elements (a–c) makes up the core elements of deliberative communication (Englund, 2006). Element (d) is about schools being an integrated part of the public sphere and therefore makes up an arena where different views and values will be challenged by fellow students and teachers (Englund, 2015). Element (e) is relevant due to group projects/plenary discussions, and this is a communicative process where meaning is established among equals without teacher control (Englund, 2015). To achieve the elements (a-e) may require handling a specific theme to assess (Englund, 2006), such as renewable energy-technology.
According to Mitcham’s Thinking through technology (1994), one can conceptualise technology in four dimensions (These four dimensions are all present when dealing with technology):
A) Objects in technology can be such as tools, machines, other types of physical artefacts or technological processes (De Vries, 2016). Technological objects have a “social side”, they have a purpose (Mitcham, 1994), they are to be used for something by someone. Moreover, this applicability is also an important aspect in the design or redesign of technological objects (De Vries, 2016).
B) Knowledge: Declarative- (factual), procedural- (“know how”), conceptual- (“know that”) and metacognitive knowledge are different knowledge types that are co-depended on each other and can develop symbiotically when handling technology (Barak, 2013).
C) Activities in technology can be such as maintaining, operating, working, manufacturing, designing, inventing, and crafting (Mitcham, 1994, p. 210). Activities relies on procedural and conceptual knowledge in the processes of creating technological objects, using, judging and assessing artefacts during student collaborations (Pirttimaa, Husu, & Metsärinne, 2017). .
D) Volition is connected to choices, intentions, ambitions, motives and will (Mitcham, 1994, p. 247). Volition therefore demands reflections and considerations regarding the design, the use of technology and its effect on society.
We have used Englund’s five elements (a–e) in combination with four dimensions of how to conceptualize technology (A–D) to investigate how they might interact. Levinson (2010) argues that handling technoscientific issues can take place through the process of deliberative discussions (Levinson, 2010, p. 82).
Research indicates that successful implementation of education for sustainability (EFS) involves altering the school culture into a more sustainable everyday practice (Gan & Alkaher, 2021). Thus, dialogues can play a central part of a school culture or ethos (Mathie & Wals, 2022) the culture can be developed by having the students participating in democratic discussions concerning sustainability issues, for instance examine the energy consumption at their school (Mathar, 2015). Enabling democratic discussions on sustainability issues, may strengthen the students’ oral practices which can be viewed as an important characteristic of school culture, and we suggest that this can take place through the conduct of deliberative communication while working with renewable energy-technology supporting WSA in fostering sustainable schools.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe findings that are reported here stems from a design-based research (DBR) project. One of the main objectives and advantages of DBR is to initiate changes and improvements of existing educational practices (Wang & Hannafin, 2005, p. 6). This particular inquiry project was initiated by the first author in a close collaboration with teachers. It was part of a physics course where students aged 17 took part (ISCED 3). Juuti and Lavonen (2006) state that one of the characteristics that make up DBR “is to develop an artefact to help teachers and pupils to act … more intelligible.” (Juuti & Lavonen, 2006, p. 59). In our case, these artefacts are mainly booklets concerning renewable energy technology. The booklets structured the students’ work with the renewable energy technology.
Our main data sources were video observations of one group of two students over 4 lessons, and additionally, a plenary discussion where 12 students participated. Student dialogues from all lessons and the plenary discussion were fully transcribed. The research design had a naturalistic approach to deliberative communication. This means that the students were not informed about the concept of deliberative communication or what it entailed before or during the inquiry project.
Our analytical framework is based on Englund’s view of deliberative communication (elements a–e) and Mitcham’s dimensions of technology (A–D). The data analysis is based on content analysis (Krippendorff, 2018) and involved both interpretations and measurements of frequency of dialogue excerpts. The unit of analysis could vary between 3-25 student utterances. Initially, we used the programme NVivo deductively, defining deliberative communication and technology-related discussions as categories; each element and dimension was given a unique code. During coding, we had to inductively expand the number of categories and codes due to non-deliberative communication and non-technology-related discussions because this gives an indication of the proportion of deliberative communication. The codes within the same category are mutually exclusive, but the same excerpt could often be placed in both categories depending on the interpretation. Elements of Englund’s deliberative communication was initially satisfied throughout the project because the student dialogues primarily took place in groups without teacher control. The framework states that a deliberative dialogue should comprise all five elements (a–e). In practice we search mostly for elements a–c and discovered that student dialogues often tended to become rather unsophisticated in terms of quite simplistic argumentation and often a lack of substantial counterarguments.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe research results indicate that there were a vast number of technology-related discussions not containing elements of deliberative communication. However, the empirical evidence suggests that the students engaged in deliberative communication while working with technology in group settings (lessons 1–4) but to a limited degree. The plenary discussion generated the highest degree of deliberative communication while discussing technology-related issues. However, in both the group settings and plenary discussion, technology as volition was almost totally absent.
The NVivo results show that the student dialogues contained elements of deliberative communication (a–e) in all four lessons and in the plenary discussion. The four dimensions of technology (knowledge, object, activity and volition) were also represented in each lesson. Lesson (1a) was dominated by knowledge, lessons (1b) and 2 were dominated by activities, lessons 3 and 4 were dominated by objects, and the plenary discussion was dominated by both objects and (talk of) activities.
The results indicate that working with renewable energy technology can, to varying degrees, mediate the elements of deliberative communication both in group settings and plenary discussions. The plenary discussion contained the highest level of deliberative communication throughout the project, here as dominated by elements a (participants present argumentation) and c (participants reach a joint consensus). Elements a and c occurred most frequently when the students deliberated on issues concerning objects and actions related to technology.
Deliberative communication initiated by inquiry projects that focus on ‘green transitions’ may support a WSA by fostering schools for sustainability. This can be related to the scrutiny of the schools’ energy system, which enables the students to critically investigate sustainable resources and renewable technologies (Mathar, 2015). For instance, the students’ energy awareness concerning the school’s ability to reduce its energy consumption can be activated and stimulated while deliberating on technology from a sustainable perspective.
ReferencesBarak, M. (2013). Teaching engineering and technology: cognitive, knowledge and problem-solving taxonomies. Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology, 11(3), 316-333.
De Vries, M. J. (2016). Teaching about technology: An introduction to the philosophy of technology for non-philosophers. Switzerland Springer.
Englund, T. (2006). Deliberative communication: A pragmatist proposal. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 38(5), 503-520.
Englund, T. (2015). Toward a deliberative curriculum? Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2015(1), 48-56.
Gan, D., & Alkaher, I. (2021). School staff perceptions on education for sustainability and sense of community as reflected in an elementary school culture in Israel. Environmental Education Research, 27(6), 821-847.
Juuti, K., & Lavonen, J. (2006). Design-based research in science education: One step towards methodology. Nordic studies in science education, 2(2), 54-68.
Krippendorff, K. (2018). Content analysis: An introduction to its methodology (Fourth ed.). USA: Sage publications.
Levinson, R. (2010). Science education and democratic participation: An uneasy congruence? Studies in Science Education, 46(1), 69-119.
Mathar, R. (2015). A whole school approach to sustainable development: Elements of education for sustainable development and students’ competencies for sustainable development. In R. Jucker & R. Mathar (Eds.), Schooling for Sustainable Development in Europe (pp. 15-30): Springer.
Mathie, R., & Wals, A. (2022). Whole school approaches to sustainability: Exemplary practices from around the world (9464471514). Retrieved from https://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/fulltext/566782
Mitcham, C. (1994). Thinking through technology: The path between engineering and philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Pirttimaa, M., Husu, J., & Metsärinne, M. (2017). Uncovering procedural knowledge in craft, design, and technology education: A case of hands-on activities in electronics. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 27(2), 215-231.
Wang, F., & Hannafin, M. J. (2005). Design-based research and technology-enhanced learning environments. Educational technology research and development, 53(4), 5-23.
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