30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Research Workshop
Channelling Hope, Mitigating Fear, Brokering Knowledges: Exploring Headteachers’ Roles and Perceptions in Implementing Climate Change Curricula in Schools
Heena Dave
The University of Stirling, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Dave, Heena
Context
The UN’s IPCC (2022) continues to warn about the dire consequences of inaction in response to human-induced climate change. Its evidence, showing extensive disruption to ecosystems, affecting billions of lives across the planet, is provoking a renewed focus on education at all levels, going beyond knowledge of issues towards empowerment and action to mitigate climate impacts and improve adaption capacity (see UNESCO, 2018). With an urgency to accelerate our efforts and the prioritisation of climate change education (CCE) made explicit through education policy (Vision 2030+, Education Scotland 2016 and Department for Education, 2022), teachers report that they lack capacity and demand more support in the delivery of CCE (Dunlop and Ruston, 2021). In parallel, school communities are facing unprecedented levels of climate anxiety and dissatisfaction amongst children and young people (Hickman et al., 2021). Within this context the voices of headteachers as brokers of change are largely invisible and this ongoing project is focused on discerning:
- The decision-making process of headteachers in assessing the urgency and importance of CCE.
- The barriers and possible pathways forward in relation to the implementation of high-quality CCE for children and young people.
Literature
Headteachers play a critical role in brokering school improvement through effective implementation practices and organisational management (Albers and Pattuwage, 2017), yet their perspectives are largely absent from the literature on how CCE could be embedded across a school. This is in stark contrast to classroom teachers whose views on climate change education have been explored extensively (see Dunlop and Ruston, 2021). Whilst Müller et al., 2020, proposes a theoretical framework for school development towards sustainability based on relevant literature on leadership, there are limited studies on how headteachers approach the development of CCE at a school level. Furthermore, from a curricula perspective, the literature is less focussed on a headteacher’s position as a powerful actor within the school community in enabling a response to the increasingly loud, collective voices of children and young people for climate justice (Verlie and Flynn, 2022). Based on the identified gaps in the literature, the research question being addressed is “What are the barriers and possible pathways to leading the implementation of high-quality climate change education with a school community?”
Theoretical framing
Within a socio-cultural framework (Hestness, McGinnis and Breslyn, 2016), the project explores how headteachers are key to creating coherence (OECD, 2015) between different levels of curriculum making (van den Akker, 2010) and their role in working across these levels as a mediator, as well as responding to the needs of their students, teachers and wider school community to create hope in light of the climate emergency (Ojala, 2011). Within this context, the sociocultural nature of effecting systemic change in an organisational context is being explored through the lens of a headteacher’s day-to-day priorities, accountability measures, socio-economic drivers and political issues.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedIn this qualitative case study, the first phase of the study involved a sensitisation period using literature, key informant conversations and evidence from workshops and past projects regarding headteachers. In the second phase, four headteachers were recruited (two in England and two in Scotland). Participants were selected to have varying expertise/experience in their role, were of different gender, age and work in schools across diverse areas of England and Scotland (urban/rural/advantaged/disadvantaged areas). A cohort of headteachers was selected based on their personally held views that climate change education is not an educational priority and the second cohort was selected based on their views that climate change education is a priority. Semi-structured, 50-minute interviews are underway (Jan – Jun) and are being conducted remotely via Teams.
Taking a socio-cultural approach, the researcher will analyse data from the headteachers’ interviews (which are already underway) to explore the connections between a range of emerging influences which are perceived to enable a culture of collective change and hope in relation to CCE within the headteachers’ specific context.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsEarly findings
Antecedent projects involving headteachers have shown that a key consideration is the headteacher’s personal commitment to CCE and the importance of the school’s own vision, ethos and strategic priorities (Müller et al., 2020). It is expected that findings will provide insights on headteachers as being key in creating coherence between the macro, meso, micro and nano levels of curriculum making (van den Akker, 2010).
The current study contributes to a wider understanding of how a cohesive culture for CCE may emerge which supports teachers to develop the school’s curriculum and pedagogical strategies through professional development and in collaboration with students. By exploring issues in relation to effective implementation practices in enabling CCE through appropriate school policies, routines, and practices, the study outlines how headteachers can broker a pathway to the active involvement of the whole-school community in establishing the school as an agent for climate justice and hope.
Expected impact
The findings from this study will be finally reported in July 2023 to support headteachers to develop their approach on the effective implementation of high-quality CCE within their setting. More specifically, the findings and key learnings will:
- Be presented at a range of educational conferences in England and Scotland.
- Be used to create professional development and training for headteachers across England and Scotland.
- Be disseminated through webinars for school leaders and educators.
- Be shared with policy makers in England and Scotland, to support in the adaption of their own guidance to school leaders.
- Contribute to the complex picture of how CCE curricula are made and shaped in macro contexts via the work of headteachers as they concurrently emerge in the nano contexts of classrooms.
ReferencesAlbers, B and Pattuwage, L. (2017). Implementation in Education:
Findings from a Scoping Review. Melbourne: Evidence for Learning
Department for Education (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/sustainability-and-climate-change-a-strategy-for-the-education-and-childrens-services-systems [Accessed 29 January 2023].
Dunlop, L. and Rushton, E.A.C. (2022). Putting climate change at the heart of education: Is England’s strategy a placebo for policy? British Educational Research Journal. doi:10.1002/berj.3816.
Education Scotland (2016). Concluding report of the Learning for Sustainability National Implementation Group VISION 2030+ CONCLUDING REPORT OF THE LEARNING FOR SUSTAINABILITY NATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION GROUP. [online] Available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/documents/res1-vision-2030.pdf [Accessed: 14 November 2022].
Hestness, E., McGinnis, J.R. and Breslyn, W. (2016). Examining the relationship between middle school students’ sociocultural participation and their ideas about climate change. Environmental Education Research, 25(6), pp.912–924. doi:10.1080/13504622.2016.1266303.
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R.E., Mayall, E.E., Wray, B., Mellor, C. and van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), pp.e863–e873. doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(21)00278-3.
IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf,
S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA,
3056 pp., doi:10.1017/9781009325844. Available at: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf [Accessed: 14 November 2022].
Müller, U., Lude, A. and Hancock, D. R. (2020) Leading Schools towards Sustainability. Fields of Action and Management Strategies for Principals, Sustainability, 12(7), p.3031. doi:10.3390/su12073031.
OECD (2015). Improving Schools in Scotland: An OECD Perspective. Paris, France: OECD.
Ojala, M. (2012). Hope and climate change: the importance of hope for environmental engagement among young people. Environmental Education Research, 18(5), pp.625–642. doi:10.1080/13504622.2011.637157.
UNESCO. Global Education Meeting 2018. (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://en.unesco.org/sites/default/files/2018-12-07_brussels_declaration.pdf [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022].
van den Akker, J 2010, Building bridges: how research may improve curriculum policies and classroom practices. in SM Stoney (ed.), Beyond Lisbon 2010: Perspectives from research and development for educational policy in Europe. CIDREE, Sint-Katelijne-Waver, Belgium, pp. 175-195.
Verlie, B. and Flynn, A. (2022). School strike for climate: A reckoning for education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, [online] 38(1), pp.1–12. doi:10.1017/aee.2022.5.
|
