(1999). A Critical Analysis of Research in Environmental Education. Studies in Science Education: Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 1-69.

A Critical Analysis of Research in Environmental Education

Summary This paper acknowledges that, in many contexts, the term ‘education for the environment’ has generated powerful images which have resonated with educators seeking empowerment for themselves and their students. We also acknowledge that it has enabled inquiry into socio‐political dimensions of environmental issues. However, we propose that this term has become a slogan and, as such, its use has been insufficiently problematised. We identify anomalies and inconsistencies associated with the use of ‘education for the environment.’ Further, we argue that the term is conceptually and linguistically flawed and that we may not need, or want, the structures that it imposes. In challenging, rather than casually accepting, this terminology, we seek to regenerate a fundamental dimension of the discourse within environmental education.

Education for the Environment: a critique

The environment and contested notions of sustainability are increasingly topics of public interest, political debate, and legislation across the world. Environmental education journals now publish research from a wide variety of methodological traditions that show linkages between the environment, health, development, and education. This growth in scholarship makes this an opportune time to review and consolidate the knowledge base of the environmental education (EE) field.

The purpose of this 51-chapter handbook is not only to illuminate the most important concepts, findings and theories that have been developed by EE research, but also to critically examine the historical progression of the field, its current debates and controversies, what is still missing from the EE research agenda, and where that agenda might be headed.

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International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education

A sharper profile of environmental education is needed to improve the quality of future environmental education. This involves an understanding of the conceptions related to ‘environmental issues’. It is argued that environmental issues have to be understood as issues in the community with conflicting interests at several levels. At the same time the authors argue for the development of the ‘action competence’ of the pupils as the main goal of the new generation of environmental education and refer to promising findings from Danish environmental education, mainly from the MUVIN Programme.

Action Competence and Environmental Education

There is a tendency to use case‐study research methodology for research issues aiming at simply describing a complex situation, and to draw conclusions with insufficient rigour. Sound case‐study re...

Does case‐study methodology lack rigour? The need for quality criteria for sound case‐study research, as illustrated by a recent case in secondary and higher education

Rick Mrazek

Papers

Alternative paradigms in environmental education research