Environmental Education and Children
- LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0205
- LAST REVIEWED: 20 February 2024
- LAST MODIFIED: 20 February 2024
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791231-0205
Introduction
Environmental education (EE) is an interdisciplinary field of educational and social science research and pedagogic practice. Scholars working in the field trace the formal emergence of EE to the late 1960s, when evidence of strains in the relationship between humans and the nonhuman environment made human-environment relations an object of scientific concern and debate in many (largely Global North) contexts. Various national EE bodies, as well as the first (US-based) journal dedicated to EE, were established around this time. EE was formalized on a global scale and assigned a set of global objectives through a series of conferences convened by the United Nations (UN) under the governance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). These conferences have secured EE as a policy tool within the architecture of global environmental governance, most notably through the UNESCO-led “Education for Sustainable Development” (ESD) framework, which, in its current phase, is closely aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Nonetheless, pedagogic practices of teaching in and about “the environment” predate top-down formalization in national and global contexts and are much more diverse than published EE research and policy initiatives might suggest. The disproportionate volume of anglophone research published in, if not on, Global North contexts means that debates and developments in EE research reprise particular historical and cultural viewpoints and may not be reflective of the environmental and educational concerns of lesser published contexts. Reviews—often critical—of top-down EE initiatives may also give the impression that such global initiatives are more of a defining force in education than may be the case in many local contexts, where many educators struggle to incorporate EE into the demands of national curricula or university courses. Despite these caveats, the growth of EE as a field of research and practice reflects increasing recognition of the fundamental challenges posed to and by human-environment relations and the urgency of using education—in all its many forms and guises—to find ways to resolve these challenges and promote socio-ecological justice. Owing in no small part to the increasing calls led by young people across the world for action on climate change, climate change and climate justice are central points of focus in EE policy initiatives, yet these points of focus do not always translate to classrooms and pedagogic practices within the broad remit of what is known and taught as EE.
General Overviews
The following publications provide overviews of the emergence and formalization of environmental education (EE), as well as its subsequent diversification. Gough 2013 locates the emergence of EE in growing concerns in the 1960s among North American educators over signs of environmental degradation, which were brought to public attention by scientists. Gough describes how after five decades of development, EE research encompasses a wide array of concerns and epistemological perspectives. Kopnina 2012 also describes the plurality of approaches in contemporary EE and reviews trends to encourage this plurality in reaction to what liberal scholars interpret as moves to make EE overly instrumental (for example, as Education for Sustainable Development, Education for Citizenship, or Education for Sustainability). Writing from an ecocentric perspective, Kopnina defends the instrumentalism of EE, but she also argues that it must keep this in balance with the original purpose for which it was designed: to foster an environmental ethics in learners that promotes ecological justice. One major, and necessary, way that this instrumentalism is being worked out in contemporary classrooms is through preparing learners to respond to the ethical and emotional challenges of living with climate change. As climate change and climate justice become key foci in EE, Mochizuki and Bryan 2015 argues that Climate Change Education (CCE) should be addressed in the context of existing Education for Sustainable Development frameworks (see Agenda 21 [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992] and related policy documents cited under Policy Background). The authors argue that anchoring CCE in these frameworks allows for a more holistic and socially critical approach to CCE, which is not limited to classroom learning and which draws on scientific, place-based, and indigenous knowledge to address climate change as an issue of shared but unequal vulnerabilities. Stevenson, et al. 2017 argues that CCE is about learning in the face of risk, uncertainty, and rapid change and thus educators should encourage co-learning, collective problem solving, and action. While this is challenging not only conceptually but also emotionally, the authors reference a growing body of research that argues that CCE can help students to overcome feelings of distress, hopelessness, and fear prompted by climate change when it is delivered in participatory, action-oriented ways. Together, the articles presented here offer insights into the range of theoretical and pedagogic approaches that characterize EE research and practice, the tensions and debates that circulate around the fundamental purpose of EE, and EE’s increasing focus on responding to climate change.
Gough, Annette. “The Emergence of Environmental Education Research: A ‘History’ of the Field.” In International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education. Edited by Robert B. Stevenson, Michael Brody, Justin Dillon, and Arjen E. J. Wals, 13–22. New York: Routledge, 2013.
Gough’s genealogical review traces the emergence of environmental education (EE) as a distinct field of pedagogic practice, policy governance, and educational research. Her review focuses on the latter, considering how approaches to researching EE have moved from largely positivist—using behavior change models to assess EE’s efficacy—to a more diverse field, incorporating a broader range of social science methodologies, including interpretivist, post-structuralist, and feminist approaches.
Kopnina, Helen. “Education for Sustainable Development: The Turn Away from ‘Environment’ in Environmental Education?” Environmental Education Research 18.5 (2012): 699–717.
DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2012.658028
Kopnina makes distinctive arguments relating to the purpose of EE and presents these in relation to contemporary scholarship and EE’s historical formulation, making this a useful overview of ongoing EE developments and debates. Kopnina’s core arguments are that the environmental focus of EE is being lost amid a growing plurality of purpose and tendency toward anthropocentrism, and that recent, liberal scholarship has encouraged this plurality.
Mochizuki, Yoko, and Audrey Bryan. “Climate Change Education in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development: Rationale and Principles.” Journal of Education for Sustainable Development 9.1 (2015): 4–26.
This article, included in a special section to mark the end of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD), considers how the ESD pedagogic framework can provide a foundation for Climate Change Education. The resulting framework, Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development, is structured around three organizing principles: ensuring an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to knowledge about climate change, addressing local and global perspectives, and centering climate justice.
Stevenson, Robert B., Jennifer Nicholls, and Hilary Whitehouse. “What Is Climate Change Education?” Curriculum Perspectives 37.3 (2017): 67–71.
DOI: 10.1007/s41297-017-0015-9
Incorporating insights from pedagogic practice in Australia, this short article reviews challenges and opportunities for educators across disciplines to use their teaching to prepare students for living with climate change. The authors present climate change as “a complex social as well as scientific issue characterized by uncertain and context-specific knowledge,” and they argue that educators must adopt a stance of co-learning with students while critically assessing and drawing on available resources.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Abduction of Children
- Aboriginal Childhoods
- Addams, Jane
- ADHD, Sociological Perspectives on
- Adolescence and Youth
- Adolescent Consent to Medical Treatment
- Adoption and Fostering
- Adoption and Fostering, History of Cross-Country
- Adoption and Fostering in Canada, History of
- Advertising and Marketing, Psychological Approaches to
- Advertising and Marketing, Sociocultural Approaches to
- Africa, Children and Young People in
- African American Children and Childhood
- After-school Hours and Activities
- Aggression across the Lifespan
- Ancient Near and Middle East, Child Sacrifice in the
- Animals, Children and
- Animations, Comic Books, and Manga
- Anthropology of Childhood
- Archaeology of Childhood
- Ariès, Philippe
- Art History, Children in
- Attachment in Children and Adolescents
- Australia, History of Adoption and Fostering in
- Australian Indigenous Contexts and Childhood Experiences
- Autism, Females and
- Autism, Medical Model Perspectives on
- Autobiography and Childhood
- Benjamin, Walter
- Bereavement
- Best Interest of the Child
- Bioarchaeology of Childhood
- Body, Children and the
- Body Image
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Boy Scouts/Girl Guides
- Boys and Fatherhood
- Breastfeeding
- Bronfenbrenner, Urie
- Bruner, Jerome
- Buddhist Views of Childhood
- Byzantine Childhoods
- Care, Early Childhood Education and
- Child and Adolescent Anger
- Child Beauty Pageants
- Child Homelessness
- Child Mortality, Historical Perspectives on Infant and
- Child Protection
- Child Protection, Children, Neoliberalism, and
- Child Public Health
- Child Trafficking and Slavery
- Childcare Manuals
- Childhod, Agency and
- Childhood and Borders
- Childhood and Empire
- Childhood as Discourse
- Childhood, Biopolitics of
- Childhood, Confucian Views of Children and
- Childhood, Memory and
- Childhood Publics
- Childhood Studies and Leisure Studies
- Childhood Studies in France
- Childhood Studies, Interdisciplinarity in
- Childhood Studies, Posthumanism and
- Childhoods in the United States, Sports and
- Childism
- Children and Dance
- Children and Film-Making
- Children and Money
- Children and Social Media
- Children and Sport
- Children and Sustainable Cities
- Children as Language Brokers
- Children as Perpetrators of Crime
- Children, Code-switching and
- Children in the Industrial Revolution
- Children with Autism in a Brazilian Context
- Children, Young People, and Architecture
- Children's Humor
- Children’s Museums
- Children’s Parliaments
- Children’s Reading Development and Instruction
- Children's Views of Childhood
- China, Japan, and Korea
- China's One Child Policy
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights Movement and Desegregation
- Class
- Classical World, Children in the
- Clothes and Costume, Children’s
- Collective Memory in Latin America, Childhoods and Collect...
- Colonial America, Child Witches in
- Colonialism and Human Rights
- Colonization and Nationalism
- Color Symbolism and Child Development
- Common World Childhoods
- Competitiveness, Children and
- Conceptual Development in Early Childhood
- Congenital Disabilities
- Constructivist Approaches to Childhood
- Consumer Culture, Children and
- Consumption, Child and Teen
- Conversation Analysis and Research with Children
- Critical Approaches to Children’s Work and the Concept of ...
- Crying
- Cultural psychology and human development
- Debt and Financialization of Childhood
- Disability
- Discipline and Punishment
- Discrimination
- Disney, Walt
- Divorce And Custody
- Dolls
- Domestic Violence
- Drawings, Children’s
- Early Childhood
- Early Childhood Care and Education, Selected History of
- Eating disorders and obesity
- Education: Learning and Schooling Worldwide
- Environment, Children and the
- Environmental Education and Children
- Ethics in Research with Children
- Eugenics
- Europe (including Greece and Rome), Child Sacrifice in
- Evolutionary Studies of Childhood
- Family Meals
- Fandom (Fan Studies)
- Fathers
- Female Genital Cutting
- Feminist New Materialist Approaches to Childhood Studies
- Feral and "Wild" Children
- Fetuses and Embryos
- Filicide
- Films about Children
- Films for Children
- Folk Tales, Fairy Tales and
- Folklore
- Food
- Foundlings and Abandoned Children
- Freud, Anna
- Freud, Sigmund
- Friends and Peers: Psychological Perspectives
- Froebel, Friedrich
- Gangs
- Gay and Lesbian Parents
- Gender and Childhood
- Generations, The Concept of
- Geographies, Children's
- Gifted and Talented Children
- Global South, Skilling Youth in the
- Globalization
- Growing Up in the Digital Era
- Hall, G. Stanley
- Happiness in Children
- Hindu Views of Childhood and Child Rearing
- Hispanic Childhoods (U.S.)
- Historical Approaches to Child Witches
- History of Childhood in America
- History of Childhood in Canada
- HIV/AIDS, Growing Up with
- Homeschooling
- Humor and Laughter
- Images of Childhood, Adulthood, and Old Age in Children’s ...
- India, Indigenous Childhoods in
- Infancy and Ethnography
- Infant Mortality in a Global Context
- Innocence and Childhood
- Institutional Care
- Intercultural Learning and Teaching with Children
- Islamic Views of Childhood
- Japan, Childhood in
- Juvenile Detention in the US
- Key, Ellen
- Klein, Melanie
- Labor, Child
- Latin America
- Learning, Language
- Learning to Write
- Legends, Contemporary
- Literary Representations of Childhood
- Literature, Children's
- Love and Care in the Early Years
- Magazines for Teenagers
- Maltreatment, Child
- Maria Montessori
- Marxism and Childhood
- Masculinities/Boyhood
- Material Cultures of Western Childhoods
- Mead, Margaret
- Media, Children in the
- Media Culture, Children's
- Medieval and Anglo-Saxon Childhoods
- Menstruation
- Middle Childhood
- Middle East
- Migration
- Miscarriage
- Missionaries/Evangelism
- Moral Development
- Moral Panics
- Mothers
- Multi-culturalism and Education
- Music and Babies
- Nation and Childhood
- Native American and Aboriginal Canadian Childhood
- New Reproductive Technologies and Assisted Conception
- Nursery Rhymes
- Organizations, Nongovernmental
- Orphans
- Parental Gender Preferences, The Social Construction of
- Parenting
- Pediatrics, History of
- Peer Culture
- Perspectives on Boys' Circumcision
- Peter Pan
- Philosophy and Childhood
- Piaget, Jean
- Play
- Politics, Children and
- Postcolonial Childhoods
- Post-Modernism
- Poverty, Rights, and Well-being, Child
- Pre-Colombian Mesoamerica Childhoods
- Premodern China, Conceptions of Childhood in
- Prostitution and Pornography, Child
- Psychoanalysis
- Queer Theory and Childhood
- Race and Ethnicity
- Racism, Children and
- Radio, Children, and Young People
- Readers, Children as
- Refugee and Displaced Children
- Reimagining Early Childhood Education, Reconceptualizing a...
- Relational Ontologies
- Relational Pedagogies
- Rights, Children’s
- Risk and Resilience
- Russia
- School Shootings
- Sex Education in the United States
- Sexuality
- Siblings
- Siblings, Learning Disabilities and
- Social and Cultural Capital of Childhood
- Social Habitus in Childhood
- Social Movements, Children's
- Social Policy, Children and
- Socialization and Child Rearing
- Socio-cultural Perspectives on Children's Spirituality
- Sociology of Childhood
- South African Birth to Twenty Project
- South Asia
- South Asia, History of Childhood in
- Special Education
- Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence
- Spock, Benjamin
- Sports and Organized Games
- Street Children
- Street Children And Brazil
- Subcultures
- Sure Start
- Teenage Fathers
- Teenage Pregnancy
- Television
- The Bible and Children
- The Harms and Prevention of Drugs and Alcohol on Children
- The Spaces of Childhood
- Theater for Children and Young People
- Theories, Pedagogic
- Tourism
- Toys
- Transgender Children
- Tweens
- Twins and Multiple Births
- Unaccompanied Migrant Children
- United Kingdom, History of Adoption and Fostering in the
- United States, Schooling in the
- Value of Children
- Views of Childhood, Jewish and Christian
- Violence, Children and
- Visual Representations of Childhood
- Voice, Participation, and Agency
- Vygotsky, Lev and His Cultural-historical Approach to Deve...
- War
- Welfare Law in the United States, Child
- Well-Being, Child
- Western Europe and Scandinavia
- Western Literature, The Urban Child in
- Witchcraft in the Contemporary World, Children and
- Work and Apprenticeship, Children's
- Young Carers
- Young Children and Inclusion
- Young Children’s Imagination
- Young Lives
- Young People, Alcohol, and Urban Life
- Young People and Climate Activism
- Young People and Disadvantaged Environments in Affluent Co...