30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
A Qualitive Study on Sustainability Awareness and Competencies of Young People in Rural Areas - Empowerment through New Educational Settings
Hannah Hoff, Ann-Kristin Mueller, Traugott Haas, Marco Rieckmann
University of Vechta, Germany
Presenting Author: Hoff, Hannah;
Mueller, Ann-Kristin
Young people play a major role in the (future) implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in a successful sustainable transformation on a global but also on a regional scale. Thus, it is time to offer effective support and attractive learning opportunities for the young generation, so that they can gain the necessary competencies and are empowered to actively take part in the transformation process.
However, the question remains how these learning settings can be designed so that all young people are addressed, motivated, and well equipped for working on solutions for future challenges. To develop adequate learning interventions, we need to know more about the awareness of sustainability and the sustainability competencies of young people. In Germany, there are several well established surveys which collect data about the everyday life, attitudes and opinions of young people on a regular basis [1-5]. This is a good starting point, nevertheless, we assume that there are relevant differences between different regions which we should be aware of while developing new learning interventions. The existing data from the German studies does not allow to have a closer look only on the data set of a specific area, i.e. in our study the northwest part of Lower Saxony with rural regions. Furthermore, we put a focus on the diversity of young people concerning their social background, their interests, and their needs in order to address all social groups and to give them the chance to participate and contribute to the transformation process. In many existing studies, there is a pre-bias towards groups with a higher affinity to sustainability since these persons are probably more open to participate in interviews on this topic, for instance. Consequently, we conduct focus group discussions with a diversity of groups of young persons from different contexts to learn more about their awareness of sustainability and their sustainability competencies.
This lays the basis for the development of learning interventions which are grounded on the concepts of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) [6] and learning workshops [“Lernwerkstaetten”], a concept that emerged in the German speaking countries in the 1990s [7]. Thus, the new formats rely on action-oriented and transformative pedagogy with a focus on the learners, reflection loops, participation, and explorative and interconnected learning as main pedagogical principles [8 and 9]. In addition, the design of the learning environment plays a major role to implement these pedagogical claims. Here, the concept of learning workshops gives a valuable frame especially on how an environment is designed so that it guarantees diverse ways of learning, an atmosphere of astonishment, irritation, exploration, invention, and inspiration [10].
The combination of existing experiences with these concepts and the newly gained data from the focus groups allow us to develop new approaches tackling the challenge of actually empowering young people to actively take part in the sustainable transformation.
In order to reflect on cross-regional aspects but also to identify regional specifics, the exchange on a European level can be very helpful. Even though, we start on a regional level with addressing groups of young people, our findings and the newly developed concepts can be part of an international discourse about how to empower young people for the globally needed sustainable transformation. However, for this discourse, the groundwork of actually understanding the addressed groups is important; with our study, we aim at contributing to this.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe essential data is collected by conducting focus group discussions [11] with groups from different contexts. The participants are between 14 and 25 years old and interviewed groups normally consist of 5-8 people. In order to meet the young people in an environment in which they feel comfortable, we work with groups where the young persons actively and on a voluntary level decided to take part in and in which they know each other quite well. The group contexts range from Fridays For Future activists and nature/environment protection groups, groups from church, sport teams, to groups from youth cafés. With this, we aim to include young people from all different educational backgrounds as well as from a diverse range of social milieus.
The focus group discussions will cover the following aspects: Recent issues on a global and local scale, relevance of the different SDGs, assessment of the personal sustainability competencies, engagement for sustainability, and learning habits and needs. The focus group discussions are audio recorded and the transcripts are analysed via the qualitative content analysis [12].
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsWith this study, we gain insights into the awareness of sustainability and the sustainability competencies of different groups of young people living in the northwest part of Lower-Saxony in Germany. Consequently, we better understand how we can effectively reach out to young people and how ESD learning environments should look like to successfully engage young people in these learning processes. It reveals important findings on a textual as well as on a pedagogical level, which are a relevant basis for the development of new learning interventions. The spatial focus of the study is on the area of northwest Lower Saxony in Germany – however, the results can serve as an example for rural areas and it will be very interesting to compare the existing awareness of sustainability and the sustainability competencies of young people from this area with the findings from other European rural areas. In addition, identifying and reflecting on similarities or main differences compared to urban areas may also help to gain a better understanding how to provide effective learning opportunities for the young generation in the context of the local and global sustainable transformation. Thus, the international perspective can be supportive for the actual development of the new learning interventions.
References[1] Albert, Hurrelmann, and Quenzel (2019). 18. Shell Jugendstudie 2019: Eine Generation meldet sich zu Wort. Publ. by Deutsche Shell Holding GmbH
[2] Calmbach et al. (2020). Wie ticken Jugendliche? 2020 – Lebenswelten von Jugendlichen im Alter von 14 bis 17 Jahren in Deutschland. A study of the SINUS institute on behalf of (among others) the German Federal Agency for Civic Eduaction
[3] Grund and Brock (2018). Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in Lehr-Lernsettings. Quantitative Studie des nationalen Monitorings. Befragung junger Menschen. Executive Summary. Berlin.
[4] Kress (2021). Greenpeace Nachhaltigkeitsbarometer 2021 – Wir sind bereit und wollen endlich eine nachhaltige Zukunft!, Executive Summary. Publ. by Greenpeace e.V.
[5] Thio and Göll (2011). Einblick in die Jugendkultur: Das Thema Nachhaltigkeit bei der jungen Generation anschlussfähig machen. Publ. by Federal Environment Agency
[6] United Nations (2005). UNECE strategy for education for sustainable development. High-Level meeting of Environment and Education Ministries. Vilnius.
[7] Kottmann, B. (2020). Lernwerkstätten. In: Bollweg, P., Buchna, J., Coelen, T., Otto, HU. (eds) Handbuch Ganztagsbildung. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. pp. 997-1008.
[8] Rieckmann, M. (2018): Chapter 2 - Learning to transform the world: key competencies in ESD. In: Leicht, A. / Heiss, J. / Byun, W. J. (eds.): Issues and trends in Education for Sustainable Development. UNESCO, Paris, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0026/002614/261445E.pdf, pp. 39-59.
[9] Lozano, R., Barreiro-Gen, M. (2022). Connections Between Sustainable Development Competences and Pedagogical Approaches. In: Vare, P., Lausselet, N., Rieckmann, M. (eds) Competences in Education for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham.
[10] Gabriel et al. (2009). Positionspapier zu Qualitätsmerkmalen von Lernwerkstätten und Lernwerkstattarbeit. Publ. by the Association of the European „Learning workshops“ [Verband europäischer Lernwerkstätten e.V.]
[11] Kitzinger (1995). Introducing focus groups. In: BMJ; 311: 299-302.
[12] Kuckartz (2019). Qualitative Text Analysis: A Systematic Approach. In: Kaiser, G., Presmeg, N. (eds) Compendium for Early Career Researchers in Mathematics Education. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. pp. 181-197.
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Using Auto-photography, Photo Elicitation and Grounded Visual Pattern Analysis to Explore Visual Representations of Sustainability in University Environments
Jennie Winter, Debby Cotton, Joe Allison, Rachel Mullee
Plymouth Marjon University, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Winter, Jennie
This paper takes a novel approach to sustainability research using photo-elicitation and auto-photography to explore student and staff perceptions of sustainability on campus, and analysing a sample of images of sustainability from university web-sites. The research investigates both intended and unintended messages, and their potential impact on the university community and web-site visitors. Whilst the psychology of environmental communication has been explored at the individual level, little has been done at the institutional and organizational level (Hansen and Machin, 2013). This research aims to bridge that gap by looking at communication (intended or otherwise) about sustainability enshrined in university campuses and marketing. Visual research presents an opportunity to gain rich insights into people’s understandings of sustainability, offering an innovative approach to exploring the hidden curriculum of sustainability. In a world rich with visual stimuli, where imagery is fundamental to our construction and comprehension of ourselves, of nature, and of others, the ways in which sustainability is perceived can be strongly influenced by visual cues and images. We hope to draw out recommendations for raising the profile of sustainability activities on campus.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis project builds on earlier work (e.g. Winter & Cotton, 2012) utilising visual methods to explore perceptions of sustainability on campus. We were interested in exploring the hidden curriculum, looking beyond the images of sustainability which universities draw on for marketing, to consider the messages a university sends about sustainability through its institutional environment, and the impact on staff and students. The literature on visual methodologies illustrates the strengths of such approaches in exploring latent understandings of participants which individuals may not be able to articulate verbally.
We utilise auto-photography (using a photo competition to gain access to visual images of sustainability on campus) and photo-elicitation (through focus groups using photographs as a visual stimulus) to explore sustainability and climate change on a single HE campus. These methods allow the researcher to identify additional, often latent layers of meaning, offering a rich data set, and arguably creating a deeper understanding than traditional research methods. Grounded, visual pattern analysis (GVPA) (Shortt and Warren, 2019) is used to analyse the campus photos and compare them to a wider set of photos used to illustrate sustainability on university web-sites.
The research consisted of 2 phases:
1. Auto-photography via a sustainability photo competition and photo-elicitation through focus groups.
2. Analysis of secondary publicly available photographs representing sustainability on university web-sites
All data were analysed using Grounded Visual Pattern Analysis (GVPA). This combines the strengths of dialogic analysis (verbal and textual data about photographs) and archaeological analysis (analysing the photo itself as an artefact) (Meyer et al., 2013). GVPA offers a structured process for combining these types of data to analyse both the meanings implied by individual photograph(er)s and draw out sample-level conclusions about a group of photographs. GVPA is a relatively new technique and may undergo further development. However, the approach is clear and simple to use – and flexible enough to allow some personalisation.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis research illustrates a number of disconnects in the ways that sustainability is perceived and represented visually in HE. While staff and student images offered a complex understanding of tensions between humans and their environment, the widespread perception that sustainability implies environment (and particularly ‘wild nature’) rather than social or economic elements potentially limits full engagement with the issues and marginalises city centre campuses which may include little in the way of wild spaces or vegetation. In contrast, images on university web-sites express a more nuanced conception of sustainability. Given that universities are engaged in some very significant activities in support of sustainability, the limited perception of sustainability visuals for staff and students represents a lost opportunity for learning. Education about sustainable development in its broadest sense should be built into every university campus, making use of informal learning opportunities to ensure that the whole community is engaged.
ReferencesHansen, A. & Machin, D. (2013) ‘Researching visual environmental communication’. Environmental Communication: a journal of nature and culture, 7(2):151-168.
Meyer, R. E., Höllerer, M. A., Jancsary, D., & Van Leeuwen, T. (2013) The visual dimension in organizing, organization, and organization research: Core ideas, current developments, and promising avenues. The Academy of Management Annals 7:489-555.
Shortt, H. L., & Warren, S. K. (2019) ‘Grounded visual pattern analysis: photographs in organizational field studies’. Organizational Research Methods, 22(2):539-563.
Winter, J. and Cotton, D.R.E. (2012) Making the Hidden Curriculum Visible: Sustainability Literacy in Higher Education. Environmental Education Research 18(6):783-796
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Paper
Using Situational Analysis in environmental education research: experiences from Austria and Scotland
Claire Ramjan1, Nina Liebhaber2
1University of the West of Scotland, United Kingdom; 2Universität Innsbruck
Presenting Author: Ramjan, Claire;
Liebhaber, Nina
Research Questions
How has Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2003, 2005, Clarke et al, 2018) be used in environmental education research with secondary school pupils in Scotland and Austria?
What opportunities and challenges are experienced in using this research approach in environmental education research?
Objectives
To demonstrate the use of Situational Analysis (SA) in complimentary case studies across two European countries.
To identify and describe the common and diverging experiences of this methodological approach in relation to environmental education research.
Overview
Young people are taking increasingly public and overtly political action in response to environmental concerns. Schools can play a central role in eco-citizenship and climate change education supporting young people in navigating current environmental challenges. However, the capacity for schools to do this is inconsistent and often inadequate. Following a new-materialist approach, two examples of environmental education programmes are explored here to show how schools can be transformative places.
The first of these projects, based in Austria, is the research-education-cooperation k.i.d.Z.21_aCtiOn2. This research provides a new perspective to these debates by collaborating with high school students on the climate-friendly transformations of their schools, thus connecting quality education (SDG4) and climate action (SDG13) (United Nations, 2015). Supported by interdisciplinary researchers, the school students assessed and tried to reduce the CO2 emissions of their schools. The second project, based predominantly in Scotland, involved explores how environmental citizen science can contribute to lived eco-citizenship experiences for young people while they are in formal schooling. A major finding was that environmental citizen science experiences offers opportunities to connect pupils with scientific research practices in a way that offers authentic citizenship opportunities not ordinarily available in schools.
Both of these research projects utilised Situational Analysis (Clarke, 2003, 2005, Clarke et al, 2018) as their major analytic method. Situational Analysis (SA) uses cartographic techniques to explore and analyse the research situation. Three main mapping approaches are used;
1. situational (messy and relational) maps that lay out the major human, nonhuman, discursive, and other elements in the research situation of concern and provoke analyses of relations among them;
2. social worlds/arenas maps that lay out the collective actors, key nonhuman elements, and the arena(s) of commitment within which they are engaged in ongoing negotiations, or meso level interpretations of the situation; and
3. positional maps that lay out the major positions taken, and not taken, in the data vis-à-vis particular discursive axes of variation and difference, concern, and controversy surrounding complicated issues in the situation.
(Clarke, 2003, p. 554)
The intention of these maps is to bring out the complexities, to subject the research situation to a rich and deep analysis that includes the human and non-human actors present in, and impacting upon, the intention of the research (Clarke, 2003). Clarke (2005) describes the use of this cartographic approach as a break with the traditional researchers’ ways of working, thereby generating unique insights into the situation. This approach was deemed to be appropriate when uncovering and understanding the complexity of environmental education programmes situated within formal school settings. The particular attention given to the more-than-human elements of the situation was attractive in attending to the relational and spatial complexities generated in these complementary research projects situated in different European countries.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThis comparative case study brings together experiences of utilising SA in two different settings with secondary school pupils. These projects have been the subject of ongoing discussion and comparison aiming to discern common and diverging experiences in the application of this research approach.
The k.i.d.Z.21¬_aCtiOn2 approach collected persons, sources of emissions, discussions, more-than-human aspects and processes that have to be considered for climate-friendly transformations. Creating situational maps of changing contexts, the mapping had to be supplemented with features hinting at motivators, barriers and changes. Besides present actors, groups and topics, the situational maps include retrospectives as well as outlooks. Although Situational Analysis was often applied to rather stable situations, situational maps could be of decisive importance in achieving changes. In the case of k.i.d.Z.21_aCtiOn2, situational mapping enabled the researchers and students to confront, visualise and analyse complexities and barriers associated with climate-friendly transformations instead of trying to negate them (Clarke, 2004, p. 555). Through a particular interest in young people’s perception of climate change, related experiences and the aspects they deem important when trying to create more climate-friendly schools, the situational mapping mostly depicts their interpretation of the situation. This was further promoted through the Situational Analysis partly being applied as an educational method. In addition to its common use as a research method, we introduced it into the project k.i.d.Z.21_aCtiOn2 as a tool for the participating students to visualise and better understand relevant aspects to the assessment and reduction of CO2 emissions in their schools.
In the Scottish case, situational maps were generated by the researcher in response to a series of data collection events focused on the lived experience of pupils participating in citizen science activities through their secondary school science or geography classes. Participant observations, survey responses and focus group discussions contributed to multiple iterations of maps enabling a visual representation of the situation to be produced and interrogated. Following each data collection exercise, messy and relational maps were constructed. This visual representation of the situation opened up the complexity and messiness, enabling multiple perspectives to be considered. Different elements of the map were expanded or collapsed as the analysis proceeded, illuminating the visible and invisible relationships between element of the research situation.
Bringing these complimentary cases together has enabled the researchers to compare experiences and draw out some of the challenges inherent in this complex research approach, these will be described in our presentation.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsConverging experiences
SA supported understanding the development of eco-citizenship and climate action as it is highly suited to understanding complex (wicked) problems. The open, flexible nature of the approach resulted in the identification of situated knowledge.
In both projects, the attunement to the more-than-human opened meaningful directions of research focus. The synergy between this analytical approach and new-materialist sensitivities is one which is particularly relevant to environmental education research.
The process of working with the relational maps was intuitive and rigorous, however, the social worlds and positional maps proved to be a little more challenging. Like den Outer et al (2013) and Mills et al (2006), we found constructing the positional maps particularly challenging. The ‘positions’ of interest in the data were not immediately clear, it took time and a consistent re-turning to the data to identify and articulate the relationships that warranted further exploration across both projects.
Diverging experiences
The three types of map, but the situational map most clearly, as created by the researcher is a reflection of their specific view at that moment. Changing time or researchers will produce a different map(s), which reflects the changing landscape and alternative journey that might be seen by an alternative perspective.
In each project, the role of the young people in map production was different. In the k.i.d.Z.21_aCtiOn2 the pupils were directly involved in producing relational maps with the support of the researchers. Practical challenges and a lack of familiarity with the approach limited the contribution that some pupils made to these maps. In the Scottish case, the young people were not involved in map production at all. This is a significant consideration for future practice.
Drawing together these experiences, recommendations for the future use of SA in environmental education research with young people will be made in our presentation.
ReferencesClarke, A.E. (2003) Situational analyses: Grounded theory mapping after the postmodern turn. Symbolic interaction, 26 (4), pp. 553-576.
Clarke, A. E. (2005) Situational analysis: Grounded theory after the postmodern turn. Sage
Clarke, A., Friese, C. and Washburn, R. (2018) Situational Analysis Grounded Theory After the Interpretive Turn 2nd ed. California: Sage.
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