Environmental Education Research Research Articles

Awareness and application of minimum impact practices among rock climbers in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky

This study examines Leave No Trace (LNT) knowledge among rock climbers in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge (RRG), looking to establish if knowing more about LNT practices alters subsequent actions while climbing. The study uses survey data collected over one year in the RRG climbing areas. Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis reveals a positive relationship between a respondent’s awareness level of minimum impact practices and their self-reported actions adhering to those practices based on ones’ knowledge of LNT. Having a high income also has an impact on this relationship. This study establishes a dialogue about LNT principles as they relate to outdoor recreation and land management in climbing areas, while looking to continue the push for environmental education and minimum impact research to more fields.

Environmental education research and significance of experience: the depth of life history brought about by mutual relationships

This paper describes the correlation between research and researcher and his/her own life story. How is the researcher’s own experience understood, meaningful, and rebuilt? This paper shows that studying the subject using the life story approach itself makes the biography of the researcher vivid. It points out that the interaction between researchers and subjects is dynamic and suggests that the life story approach may enrich the stage of research in the environmental education area.

Constructing legitimacy? Agroecology within and beyond the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST)

"Constructing legitimacy? Agroecology within and beyond the Brazilian Landless Workers' Movement (MST)." Environmental Education Research, 26(2), pp. 299–300

Centering gender on the agenda for environmental education research

ABSTRACTThe environmental education movement developed in the 1970s at the same time as the environment movement, the feminist movement and the ecofeminist movement. However, while environmental education feels a close affinity with the environment movement the relationship with the (eco)feminist movement in environmental education research has been less than robust. Although there was some feminist environmental education research in the 1990s and 2000s, until the two recent special issues of The Journal of Environmental Education there had been a prolonged, even a deafening, silence around gender, eco/feminism and environmental education research. This article traces the history of feminist environmental education research across this and other environmental education research journals to argue that it is time for gender to be much higher on the agenda of environmental education researchers and of journals if we are to better achieve gender equality and more fully address the climate emergency within the field.

Referees for Environmental Education Research 2019

Referees for Environmental Education Research 2019

Gatekeeper or gardener? Exploring positioning, paradigms, and metaphors in indigenous environmental education research

ABSTRACTIn this article, I autoethnographically consider my experiences as a Métis scholar of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry based in Canada as an entry point for exploration of critical, interpretive, Indigenous and other traditional and contemporary research paradigms relevant to the field of Indigenous environmental education. Foundational scholarship, metaphorical models for the relationships between Western and Indigenous science and environmental knowledge systems, educators, and researchers, and current trends and tensions within the field are also discussed. In closing, I present future considerations and lingering questions for Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars alike.

Preamble

[Extract] This Special Issue marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of The Journal of Environmental Education, the first scholarly journal in the field of environmental education (EE). Our intent was to first acknowledge what has been learned from those 50 years of EE research, represented by what has been published in the JEE as well as research published elsewhere. Our second and most important objective was to offer a means by reflecting back to explore new ways of looking forward to where the field might and should be heading.

Children's Outdoor Activities and Parenting Style in Children's Social Skill

Physical activity is very important for early childhood, especially outdoor activities that add a lot of new experiences. This study aims to check the relationship of children's outdoor activities and parenting styles and children's social skills. The participants are 125 parents of early childhood who attend kindergarten. The research method is a descriptive study using the relational screening model. The results showed that there was a relationship between outside play and parenting style on the social skills of children in their childhood. Democratic parenting styles are found to promote children's social skills, while authoritative parenting styles have a negative correlation with interpersonal skills, the ability to express verbally, self-control, listening skills, emotional management and adaptation to change. In the sub-dimensions of anger management and adaptation to changing skills is a significant difference between authoritative parenting styles and not permissive parenting with children's social skills.

Words (are) matter: generating material-semiotic lines of flight in environmental education research assemblages (with a little help from SF)

We address the aims of this Special Issue by exploring, critiquing, and responding constructively to the emergence and potential significance of new materialist thought in environmental education research and the broader theoretical landscape in which such research is situated. We offer some productive possibilities for advancing postparadigmatic materialist theorising in environmental education research by deploying concepts selected from Deleuze and Guattari’s ‘box of tools’ (namely, ‘machinic assemblage’ and ‘lines of flight’), supplemented by concepts associated with SF (science/speculative fiction)—namely ‘cognitive estrangement’ and ‘object-orientated thought experiments’—to generate new lines of flight in material-semiotic environmental education research assemblages.

THE COMPATIBILITY OF OUTDOOR STUDY APPLICATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUBJECT USING PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND MEANINGFUL LEARNING IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

THE COMPATIBILITY OF OUTDOOR STUDY APPLICATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL SUBJECT USING PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF INTELLIGENCE AND MEANINGFUL LEARNING IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Relational identities and intergenerational learning in an undergraduate critical food studies course

Environmental education (EE) scholars view intergenerational learning as a means to influence adult understandings of and relationships with the environment. Yet EE researchers have studied intergenerational learning in a limited fashion, with no emphasis on its role in higher education. The purpose of this article is to use feminist posthumanist theories to broadly explore intergenerational learning in critical food studies courses taught at the university level. We rely primarily on student coursework and post-course interviews as data sources that convey student perceptions of interactions with their families and the natural world, demonstrating how students develop relational identities shaped by personal experience as well as experiences in the course. To conclude, we discuss both the limitations and implications of this research for the field of EE.

Key questions about climate change education and research: ‘essences’ and ‘fragrances’

This non-traditional article identifies a series of questions pursued and/or critiqued within inquiries about climate change education (CCE) and research. The questions and clustering format were initially crystallised from summaries and critical discussion with editors, referees, and critical friends of this journal, during the process of bringing together a series of international studies for various CCE collections in Environmental Education Research. First offered as a supplement to a Virtual Special Issue, launched at Education Day of COP23 in Bonn (2017), the ‘key questions’ were subsequently revised in light of community feedback and further analysis of the ‘blind, blank, bald, and bright spots’ for environmental education and CCE research that they might represent. Sources used to guide the initial compilation and revision were submissions to, reviews of, and studies published in the journal between 2010 and 2019, and those forming two additional collections of research and commentary on CCE, published in Volume 25. Other considerations were: (i) the literature base associated with these papers (drawing on citation and document analysis), and (ii) presentations and conversations on CCE topics at various international research- and education-focused events during that period, focusing on what seemed ‘stale', 'fresh', and 'invigorating’. In sum, the questions: (a) suggest various ‘fundamental topics’ to ‘niche considerations’ about CCE and research in this research field, (b) reflect a diversity of question purposes and formats that may direct, underpin, and/or structure associated research projects and publications too, and (c) reveal a complex array of assumptions and ends-in-view that are not necessarily compatible with each other nor with a coherent or progressive agenda for research and practice development. Further commentary and responses to the ‘essences’ and ‘fragrances’ associated with such questions, as well as new questions and analysis from relevant sources, fields, periods and projects, are invited.

Diagnóstico das atividades de educação ambiental em unidades de conservação: propondo ações no contexto atual

O presente trabalho apresenta um diagnóstico das atividades de educação ambiental em Unidades de Conservação, faz um levantamento dos problemas enfrentados pelas UCs e propõe ações para auxiliar na efetividade destas atividades. O estudo foi realizado através de um questionário onde seis UCs responderam à pesquisa: Parque Nacional Aparados da Serra e Parque Nacional da Serra Geral, Parque Estadual Delta do Jacuí e Área de Proteção Ambiental Estadual Delta do Jacuí, Parque Estadual de Itapeva, Parque Estadual de Itapuã, Área de Proteção Ambiental do Banhado Grande e Parque Natural Municipal Morro do Osso. Todas as UCs informaram realizar alguma atividade de educação ambiental, com exceção da APA Banhado Grande. O principal problema citado para a não realização das atividades é a falta de incentivo financeiro e falta de pessoal. Sobre as necessidades para a efetividade das ações e alcance dos objetivos da UC, foram citadas: a falta de recursos humanos, capacitação de pessoal, recursos financeiros e fiscalização. Ações propostas pelo estudo para auxiliar a gestão e tornar ações efetivas, incluem: diagnóstico rápido participativo, pesquisas de educação ambiental em UC, parcerias com outras instituições, capacitação de educadores ambientais, estratégias de arrecadação de recursos financeiros, monitoramento e acompanhamento da efetividade das atividades.

Identifying and developing crosscutting environmental education outcomes for adolescents in the twenty-first century (EE21)

While multiple valid measures exist for assessing outcomes of environmental education (EE) programs, the field lacks a comprehensive and logistically feasible common instrument that can apply across diverse programs. We describe a participatory effort for identifying and developing crosscutting outcomes for Environmental Education in the twenty-first Century (EE21). Following extensive input and debate from a wide range of EE providers and researchers, we developed, tested and statistically validated crosscutting scales for measuring consensus-based outcomes for individual participants in youth EE programs using confirmatory factor analysis across six unique sites, including two single-day field trip locations, four multiday residential programs and one science museum in the United States. The results suggest that the scales are valid and reliable for measuring outcomes that many EE programs in the United States can aspire to influence in adolescent participants, ages 10–14.

Environmental education in transition: A critical review of recent research on climate change and energy education

The transition from centralized energy systems based on fossil fuels to renewable-based systems is a macro-level societal shift necessitated by climate change. This review of recent environmental education (EE) research identifies gaps and opportunities for promoting environmental action in this new context. We found that environmental educators and researchers are currently focused on researching and promoting energy conservation behavior with an emphasis on children and youth. We also found an emerging research focus on energy transitions at the regional and national levels. We recommend that environmental educators and researchers adopt a vision and strategy for climate change and energy education that more explicitly addresses the role of collective action, multiactor networks, and sociotechnical innovation in shaping energy transition processes.

Acknowledging the agency of a more-than-human world: material relations on a Snowy River journey

In this article we describe our attempt to challenge our anthropocentric gaze during an outdoor environmental education (OEE) research project involving a 10-day journey with high school students on the Snowy River in south-eastern Australia. Although much contemporary OEE research explores place responsive methodologies that provide possibilities for expanding beyond human centered practices, such movements can be difficult to make. We attempt, through this project, to shift our gaze away from a human-centered viewpoint to understand ways in which new perspectives of journeys, place(s) and learning might be available. To do this we adopt a posthuman/relational materialist approach to explore how the material world is creative of places, people and learning opportunities beyond human centered ways of seeing. We argue for a focus on the more-than-human aspects of places and engage posthuman concepts that allow us to challenge traditional ways of researching. In doing so we seek to uncover and acknowledge the agency of the more-than-human world, and how material places and their elements are valuable in the creation of emergent learning possibilities on an OEE journey. Rather than exact findings, this article is an exploratory journey of thinking OEE in different ways, to explore new opportunities for place and context responsive learning and environmental understanding.

Fieldnotes and situational analysis in environmental education research: experiments in new materialism

This article details the approach taken to a recent study in an environmental education context, with a focus on the writing and analysis of ethnographic fieldnotes. This approach drew upon aspects of new materialist theory and multi-species ethnography for the writing of fieldnotes, and Situational Analysis for their analysis. These approaches represent a ‘site of experimentation’ that arose through attempts to carry out research in a manner sensitive to new materialist theories, whilst operating within a time-bound, collaborative study. As well as highlighting potential synergies, this article also explores the constant tensions that arose when attempting to use existing qualitative research methods in combination with new materialist theories. It is not intended as a guide to conducting research in a ‘new materialist’ or ‘post-qualitative’ manner, but rather as an insight into the tensions, synergies and on-the-ground methodological struggles within this site of experimentation, and what was produced through the ‘research assemblage’ thereby created. The article aims to demonstrate the ways in which existing qualitative research methods were re-oriented through this approach, as well as the onward effects of these re-orientations on what then amounted to ‘the data’.

What if schools were lively more-than-human agencements all along? Troubling environmental education with moldschools

The recent more-than-human turn has increased interest in writing about relations between humans and other animals. In addition, scholars have called for a need to complement the animal turn with a turn to microbes. Microbes entangle all life in relations and participate in processes of living and dying, but thus far, they have been largely absent in environmental education research. This article attempts to think with microbes in environmental education by zooming into the phenomenon of ‘moldschools’ in Finland. Employing the concept of agencement, the article first explores how school buildings, toxic molds, and humans have effectuated each other and introduces the idea of indoor climate crisis. Then the article explores the complexity of everyday life in one moldschool, asking, how was the school becoming felt and practiced differently by children and teachers in relation to material-discursive mold. Finally, the article asks what moldschools might teach us or ask from us in terms of environmental education and ethics. The notion of schools as always already more-than-human agencements is offered to make space for hesitation and curiosity on various scales of connection.

Türkiye’de Çevre Eğitimi Araştırmalarının İrdelenmesi: Yapılandırmacılık ya da Kuramsız Düşünme “İndoktrinasyon” mu?

Bu çalışmada Çevre Eğitimi (ÇE) adı altında Türkiye’de yapılan ve Türkiye’deki hakemli dergilerde basılan 52 alan yazın araştırması ve 55 lisans üstü tez incelenmiştir. Benzer çalışmalar mevcut olsa da bu çalışmada incelenen araştırmaların yöntemleri, konuları, veri toplama yaklaşımları ve önerileri dışında, çalışmaların kuramsal çerçeveleri ve bulguları arasındaki bağları da irdelenmiştir. ÇE teriminin ülkemizdeki popülerliği artmakla birlikte Türk Eğitim sistemine damgasını vuran yapılandırmacılık ÇE çalışmalarını da etkilemiştir. Cinsiyete göre çevreye karşı duyarlılık, uygulanan mekân dışı öğretimin eğitime olumlu katkısı, yapılandırmacı yaklaşıma övgü vb. sonuçları araştırma bulgularında sıklıkla görmekteyiz. Ancak bu çalışmalardaki kuramsal çerçeve eksikliği, neden-sonuç ilişkisine ışık tutmamakta ve nasıl sorusunu yanıtsız bırakmaktadır. Bu araştırmada ise sıklıkla kullanılan yapılandırmacılığın ya da kuramsal çerçeve eksikliğinin indoktrinasyon olup olmadığı tartışılmaktadır. Umulan bu araştırmanın farklı akademik çevrelerde verimli bir tartışma kapısı açmasıdır.

Ecological Citizenship Education and the Consumption of Animal Subjectivity

The unfolding of the ecological disaster has led authors to reconsider the position of the human subject and his/her relationship with the earth. One entry point is the concept of ecological citizenship, which emphasizes responsibility, community, and care. However, the discourse of ecological citizenship often reduces the human subject to a critical consumer-citizen and citizenship education to the production of such a subject. The position outlined in this paper provides a more fundamental critique of consumption as a way of being in and relating to the world. In particular, it foregrounds objectification, commodification, and its impacts on human and nonhuman subjectivity and the possibility of care within a multi-species community. The paper brings animal-sensitive work in environmental education research and political theory into dialogue with a more general critique of culture and pedagogy in consumer society. From this perspective, ecological citizenship education seeks to liberate human and nonhuman beings from predetermined behavioral results and functions, and opens the time and space for the subjectification of human and nonhuman citizens within the complex dynamics of a multi-species community. With this proposition, the paper contributes to an ecocentric understanding of ecological citizenship education that builds on the continuity of life and subjective experience.