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Purpose: Engaging students in environmental citizenship to promote education for sustainability (EfS) as an explicit goal of academic courses is not common, notwithstanding wide consensus on its importance. Collaborative learning has rarely been investigated using action research methods in the context of environmental citizenship in higher education; the purpose of this study is to fill the gap. Design/methodology/approach: Adopting Bandura's (2012) theory of self-efficacy and collective efficacy, this study explores how collaborative learning, used throughout an action research-based course, encouraged students' efficacy to implement environmental citizenship in their communities. Data were collected through multiple sources: students' written reflections, instructors' reflective journals and continuous discussions, interviews with students and different documents (course syllabi, lesson plans and students' scientific posters). Findings: The findings of this study indicate that the authors succeeded in creating an appropriate social academic setting for the students to become acquainted with each other and to share ideas, successes and challenges in an accepting atmosphere, which proved beneficial to developing their self-confidence to promote EfS in practice. Adopting collaborative learning in the context of environmental citizenship also increased students' self-efficacy and collective efficacy. Self-efficacy was strengthened in the four sources discussed by Bandura (2012): mastery experiences, social modeling, social persuasion and emotional states. Collective efficacy was developed both in the academic and practical domains. Originality/value: The findings of this study suggest that collaborative learning could serve as a powerful way to promote EfS in higher education, especially in teacher education. This contribution was achieved through integrating academic and practical knowledge foundations, which are required to implement environmental citizenship successfully, supporting learners' initial steps towards becoming change agents in the society.

Acknowledging the diverse perceptions about science-religion relationships among learners who come from various religious environments may increase learners' willingness to learn about evolution. This study is based on a zoology course designed for in-service teachers, which aimed to provide basic scientific knowledge about evolution using the Religious Cultural Competence in Evolution Education framework. The study explores whether learners who were resistant to evolution modify their attitudes and willingness to learn about it, and whether they develop respect toward learners who hold contradicting views. Using qualitative methods, the findings indicate that using the Religious Cultural Competence in Evolution Education framework increased some formerly "resistant" learners' willingness to learn about evolution and include it in their own teaching, albeit in varying degrees and with various reservations. The learners appreciated the freedom to express their challenges concerning evolution learning or teaching and became more willing to respect opposing perspectives, even though not all the religious learners accepted evolution as an explanation for the development of organisms. This study has international implications for bridging the gap between science and religion, thus reducing resistance to learning and teaching about evolution.

Making people aware of the interconnections between personal consumerism and its environmental consequences is fundamental for motivating them to engage in more environmentally responsible consumption practices. This interpretive study, conducted in 2018, explored how transformative sustainability learning is implemented in waste education conducted at an environmental education center within the largest waste-treatment facility in Israel, and if it initiates a transformative process. Educators were selected since they serve as societal change-agents. Data were collected from learning plans developed by the center, observations, and interviews of participants (150) during and after their visit. Findings indicate that the educational intervention comprised a "key experience", initiating a transformative process, and elicited a framework of characteristics for transformative waste education. In view of the role of consumer society in contemporary waste-related challenges, the principles emerging from this study may provide a model for other such centers, based on critical waste education that may motivate behavioral change.

Promoting education for sustainability (EfS) within schools requires adopting a whole-school approach for organizational change. In this study, we adopted Schein's (1985) organizational culture model in school context, which includes three levels: artifacts, espoused values and basic underlying assumptions. Since sense of community is an important component in school culture, we explored the relationships between EfS, school culture and sense of community. Our findings indicated that the elementary-school staff felt committed to EfS and to their school community at all levels of school culture and every level served as a stable platform for the development of the next level. Furthermore, interconnections between artifacts, teachers' values and underlying assumptions indicated a deep connection between EfS and school culture, which is not common in schools. The study concludes that schools' investment in their staff's sense of community is necessary for creating teachers' commitment to promoting EfS as part of a whole-school approach.

In this qualitative case study, we adopted theories of street-level bureaucracy and policy entrepreneurship to examine formation processes of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy at school and local government level. We focused on teachers' and urban government ESE officials' motives for initiating ESE programs, the support systems they have in place for developing them, and the ways they recruit or repurpose budgets for them. We identified three main motives that induced actors to initiate ESE programs: social, rebranding and environmental. Additionally, we identified three patterns of support that administrators provided in the implementation process: initiating, allowing and adopting. We discuss the connections between budget types, motives and support patterns. A major implication is that following ESE dedicated policies conceals the ESE implementation processes that formal education undergoes. ESE policy research will benefit from understanding local educational government structure and programs, and their role in shaping ESE policy in practice.

Contemporary society needs teachers who are motivated and equipped to function as social change-agents and policy entrepreneurs for sustainability, including education for sustainable consumption, which is targeted as one of the 2030 SD goals to transform consumption patterns and cultural attitudes and norms regarding consumerism. This case study explored: how an environmental and sustainability education center in the largest waste treatment facility in Israel manifests its role as a social change-agent and street-level-policy-entrepreneur (SLPE) for sustainability in its teacher professional development (TPD) programs and their impact on developing these attributes in K-9 teachers. Semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups were conducted with the educational center's senior staff and with 19 K-9 teachers who participated in PD programs. Policy documents and PD curricula supplemented information on the center's educational vision and how it translates into content and pedagogies. Findings indicate that the center's educators function as SLPEs. The TPD impact on teachers is partial but notable, with greater effect in cultivating change-agency competencies among kindergarten and elementary-school teachers compared to middle school teachers. Findings highlight the necessity of PD programs to address the different needs and challenges confronting teachers of different age-level students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although population growth (PG) is acknowledged as a major factor that drives the global environmental crisis, this issue is rarely included in environmental and sustainability education (ESE) because of its controversiality. This mixed-methods study explores the perspectives of Israeli ESE and non-ESE teachers regarding PG as an environmental risk, their willingness to include PG in their teaching, the frequency and foci of including it, the reasons for including or disregarding it, and the factors that predict their inclusion of it. The findings reveal that the deep-rooted pronatalist culture in Israel and a national pronatalist agenda impact the education system. It was found that an academic background in ESE had limited impact on teachers' perceptions concerning PG or on their willingness to discuss its controversiality in class. Teachers' attitudes related to PG demonstrated socially, culturally, and politically oriented disavowal justification regarding the negative impacts of rapid PG. The absence of PG from school curricula and the Israeli public discourse have been reported as major reasons for disregarding it in schools. To encourage teachers to incorporate this controversial issue in their teaching, and successfully confront dominant pronatalist cultures, they need ongoing support. Stakeholders in the education system must bring the population debate into schools as part of human efforts to mitigate environmental degradation and as an opportunity to strengthen tolerance among students towards diverse opinions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State, civil society and private sector partnerships play a crucial role in fostering a sustainable society. This case study explores the role of school-state-community-civil society-business partnerships in promoting environmental citizenship as a major component of education for sustainability (EfS), and social capital as a new outcome, from a school's perspective. The findings indicate that the school succeeded in establishing and maintaining long-term connections with diverse actors. Both the connections and the actors promoted EfS and social capital within the school and community. School-state-community partnerships cultivated the students' and community's environmental citizenship, and school-business partnerships improved the physical infrastructure of the School, and also assisted the promotion of EfS in the school. Additionally, school-business partnerships were hard to sustain in long term.

Agricultural education is a fertile framework for environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Hence, 'farm-schools', which are learning settings around agriculture, can and should play a crucial role in promoting ESE. Farm-school teachers are key to realizing this potential. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the perspectives of farm-school teachers concerning the role of farm schools in conducting ESE and their role as environmental and sustainability educators. The research employed a mixed methodology. Quantitative data from close-ended sections of the questionnaire enabled evaluation of the teachers' environmental literacy and citizenship attributes, which are fundamental for their capacity to incorporate ESE within their teaching. Open-ended sections of the questionnaire and interviews provided in-depth information regarding the teachers' perspectives and practices concerning ESE (content, values, and pedagogies) within the framework of farm schools. Findings indicate that these teachers have pro-environmental dispositions in their individual lives and as educators and that they incorporate ESE within their teaching, but they exhibit a relatively narrow perspective regarding ESE, focusing largely on content knowledge, with limited focus on values discourse. Providing professional development tailored to the specific attributes and needs of these agriculture teachers will strengthen their capacities in teaching the strategies inherent to ESE, such as facilitating in-depth critical discourse around socio-environmental dilemmas. This will contribute to realizing the full potential of farm schools in terms of contributing to the crucial area of ESE within the educational system, employing agriculture as the curricular platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this qualitative study, we describe and characterize the pedagogical decisions that three college instructors made to mitigate challenges they faced as they taught by inquiry, as well as the rationale for their decisions and their perceptions of the efficacy of their decisions. We found that instructors made a range of decisions, including reorganizing course content and structure, adding more opportunities for and models of inquiry practice, adding more opportunities for feedback and assessment, and enhancing scaffolding of the inquiry. Notably, single instructional decisions had the capacity to mitigate multiple challenges. The instructors were satisfied with many of their decisions, yet they continued to question the efficacy of certain decisions and to generate ideas for further changes to address their students' and their own struggles with inquiry teaching. Although many of their decisions reflected the instructors' responses to external factors, such as their students' needs or the logistical constraints of their classes or institutions, other decisions reflected the instructors' own development as teaching professionals. Our findings serve as concrete examples of how instructors can alleviate the challenges of inquiry teaching at the college level. Our results also highlight the need for appropriate instructional preparation and support for all students during inquiry teaching, regardless of their backgrounds or undergraduate majors.

One aspect of the increasing position of sustainability in higher education is establishment of distinct interdisciplinary environment-oriented programs. The point-of-departure of this study is differentiation between teaching- and non-teaching-oriented students, in view of their different respective professional roles in society. The motives and environmental literacy (EL) of incoming students were investigated in three types of sustainability programs in Israel: undergraduate teacher-training, graduate teacher-education and graduate non-teacher programs. For all students acquiring knowledge was the major motive for studies. Undergraduate student-teachers demonstrated the least developed EL, although it is slightly higher than that found for incoming student-teachers a decade ago. Graduate teacher-students displayed strong identity as educational agents-of-change and role-models; however, their limited environmental-knowledge raises questions concerning providing knowledge foundations in undergraduate teacher-training programs, indicating the necessity to supplement this in graduate teacher-programs. Graduate non-teacher students perceive their continuing sustainability-oriented studies as a means for developing an environmental career and enter these programs relatively environmentally-literate. The implications focus on necessary components and characteristics of sustainability-programs directed to teaching- and non-teaching-oriented students. These include the necessity to strengthen the environmental-knowledge component in programs directed to teachers; and embed opportunities for professional internships within graduate programs for non-teachers seeking environmental careers.

Purpose: Distributed leadership has been reported in the literature as an effective management approach for educational organizations such as institutions of higher education. This study aims to investigate the role of distributed leadership in the promotion of sustainability in an Israeli college of teacher education. Design/methodology/approach: Based on the in higher education, taken from Bolden et al. (2008a) and from Woods et al. (2004), the authors investigated how the characteristics of distributed leadership are expressed in three central organization-wide structures in the college (a student group, the green council and a professional development program). They also explored in what ways aspects of distributed leadership promote sustainability-oriented activities on campus. They used a deductive and inductive interpretive approach in this case study. Findings: The authors found three organization-level processes that are based on the principles of distributed leadership and that promote sustainability on campus: distributed leadership enables change in the organization's internal culture with respect to mainstreaming sustainability; distributed leadership encourages collaboration between the entire campus population and between different departments and distributed leadership on campus enables the development of diverse "bottom-up" and "top-down" structures in the organization. Originality/value: While the study's findings indicated several challenges regarding the implementation of distributed leadership in the organization, they ultimately support the idea that distributed leadership may contribute to the long-term, organization-wide implementation of sustainability in higher education institutes. Therefore, the authors recommend that institutions that are willing to promote sustainability adopt distributed leadership as their major management approach.

This study focuses on the impact of a sustainability leadership development program (SLDP) designed to develop staff members as leaders who encourage sustainability practices within institutions of higher education (IHE). Using the framework of community of practice (CoP), we explored the program's contribution by interviewing 16 staff members who had attended the program. At the individual level, we found that the SLDP provided participants with opportunities to learn from and with other members of the CoP and to engage them in debate about the various meanings of "sustainability", increasing their environmental awareness and their environmental involvement within the IHE's community. At the institutional level, the SLDP disseminated the college's socio-environmental mission statement, increased its administration's commitment and involvement, served as a platform for addressing local socio-environmental problems and initiated an Education-for-Sustainability (EfS) activists' network. However, the participants indicated that the SLDP had limited impact on the environmentalism of other staff members and that the on-going mentoring and support from the college administration was insufficient. This study highlights the importance of such EfS professional programs to the development of both staff members and entire institutions as sustainability leaders. It also suggests ways to increase staff involvement in institutional EfS discourse.

This interpretive study identifies challenges of working with Bedouin and Jewish Israeli youth in two multicultural projects: education for sustainability and place-conscious education. It also describes the ways the adult project leaders addressed these challenges and their views on the effectiveness of their decisions. Participants comprised 16 Bedouin and Jewish educators. Data collection included interviews and observations of project meetings and staff meetings. Project leaders reported challenges related to (1) intergroup differences in environmental viewpoints, knowledge, and learning styles, (2) embedding issues of environmental justice in the multicultural discourse, and (3) Bedouin-Jewish interactions. To address these challenges, the leaders separated groups for some learning activities, directed discourses, adopted bilingual teaching strategies, and emphasized unique socio-cultural characteristics. Their level of satisfaction with most of their decisions is high. They avoided discussing the broader socio-political Arab-Jewish conflict. The findings highlight dilemmas that multicultural environmental projects pose and suggest the need to adopt critical pedagogy of place to address such dilemmas and challenges. The findings also emphasize the need to better prepare educators for environmental education in multicultural settings.

This study is part of a first study of collaborative socio-environmental projects that engage Jewish and Arab students in Israel in learning about their local environment and about each other through outdoor learning and environmental action. We used ideas of social learning and environmental citizenship to frame our research. We investigated students' knowledge regarding their local environment and their knowledge of each other's community. We also studied the participants' views regarding their project-partners'environmental knowledge, awareness and behaviour in comparison to their own. Initially, differences were found regarding various aspects of the students' socio-environmental knowledge and in students' views of their counterparts' environmentalism. At the end of the projects, students showed better understanding of local socio-environmental issues and demonstrated changes in their original views towards the environmental awareness and behaviour of their counterparts. These findings suggest that projects which involve students from segregated communities not only promote environmental awareness but contribute to a reduction in mutual prejudices. We suggest that the differences we found are not related to ethnicity, but rather to students' socioeconomic status and experience in environmental education programmes.

Socio-environmental projects involving Arab and Jewish youth in Israel are uncommon. In this study, we interviewed 16 adult leaders of two projects that were carried out in the Galilee in northern Israel, to better understand the views of the leaders and their motives. The two projects focused on mutual environmental issues and dealt with social, cultural, and political aspects with respect to the environmental context. The participants were teachers and principals of the students who participated in the projects and facilitators of two environmental organizations. We found diverse views with respect to environmental education, local environmental issues, and possible solutions. The Arab adults expressed stronger attachment to the local environment than the Jewish ones. The major projects' goals according to the leaders included: (improving) knowledge, awareness, and environmental behavior of the students and their communities; an opportunity for taking part in community collaboration and action; an opportunity for multicultural interaction; and meaningful long-term learning in the outdoors. Our findings highlight the importance of identifying the views of educators of diverse cultures in order to carry out future successful multicultural environmental projects. Our findings also suggest adopting critical pedagogy of place while designing and implementing such projects in sensitive regions such as Israel. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

A multicultural socio-environmental project that is framed in the ideas of education for sustainability brought together Jew and Arab students was investigated to identify the participants' views of the program's objectives and their accomplishments. We investigated the project's strengths and weaknesses according to the participants' views and the way culturally diverse students addressed the main local socio-environmental conflict related to conservation versus development of a local creek. The participants agreed that the environmental objectives were properly attained, while the social objectives were accomplished to a limited extent. All the participants emphasized the importance of multicultural knowledge and expected to learn and work together. We found different views of the Jewish and the Arab participants regarding expectations, collaboration and overall satisfaction, with higher expectations of the Arab students and leaders. The students' views of the local conflict varied but were not associated with their ethnic background. We suggest that the differences between the groups result from the different positions and needs of each community, and mainly as a consequence of the difficulties that the Arab minority faces in Israel. Overall, we found that the project allowed the expression of multiple voices of both groups, and suggested an applicable program for education for sustainability in a multicultural society.