Search

This paper addresses one of the key challenges for work on education, sustainable development and climate change: the overall conceptualisation of central ideas such as Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Climate Change Education (CCE). What do these concepts mean in diverse contexts and amongst diverse actors? The paper draws on evidence from Denmark, Singapore, Canada and the UK to highlight both the similarities and differences found within national discussions around these essentially contested concepts and their relationships to policy and practice. It further argues that such debates about how EE, ESD and CCE are conceptualised remain highly relevant, not just to academic work itself, but also to wider international discussions regarding both the current and potential relationships between conceptual understanding, policy and practice. (Contains 2 notes.)

Our paper traces the history and progressive development of environmental education and education for sustainable development (ESD) in Sweden and Denmark. Our main focus is on work in primary and lower secondary schools as part of a search for trends of international interest related to the conceptualisation and practice of environmental education and ESD in both countries, as well as the role and significance of democratic perspectives to their development. Traditionally, Sweden has a more centralised approach to change compared to a more decentralised approach in Denmark. Accordingly, the interplay between the State, the individual and private initiatives has differed over the past half-century, and this has given rise to interesting effects on the development of environmental education as well as ESD. The discussion of their development in Sweden draws on historical, political and organisational perspectives, while for Denmark, we focus on how these perspectives relate to a series of challenges; for example, the epistemological challenge of the development of environmental education that resulted in "the new generation of environmental education", and the effects of taking an action competence approach to environmental education. In both countries the links between the development of environmental education and ESD and the discourse of environmental protection and democracy are highlighted, as are the interplays between the State's agenda on education, the actions of research institutions, and the provision of in-service teacher training. Sweden has become a world leader in initiatives for ESD promotion and joint efforts to spur innovations and clarification of ESD, while Denmark has mainly put its efforts into developing science education, and in this regard, has sacrificed the development of ESD.

Can we avoid inheriting serious issues from research related to environmental education when the researcher community is addressing education for sustainable development? This paper identifies and discusses three main issues: if an explicit and coherent concept of environmental education or education for sustainable development is missing; if the field is dominated by researchers with an environmental science background; and if the research is aiming at improving practice through prescriptive, normative recommendations. The elaboration of the issues is taking a point of departure in the World Environmental Education Congress 2007 in Durban with perspectives for future ESD research and traces the historical roots of some of the trends and issues. It is argued that the overall question is related to a basic dichotomy: is the researcher seeing the role as a support to solving environmental problems here and now, or is the researcher seeing long-term empowerment through education as the main idea.

States that a sharper profile of environmental education is needed. Argues that environmental education should focus on developing students' action competence. Includes a discussion on the MUVIN (Environmental Education in Nordic Countries) Project that has investigated the concept of action competence. (CMK)