The effectiveness of Education for Sustainable Development depends on the ability of schools and teachers to embrace pedagogies that reduce the gap between the rhetoric of education for the environment and the reality of classroom practices. This book responds to the need to better understand the nature of the relationships between agency and structure that contribute to the development of educational rhetoric-reality gaps in order to inform processes that most effectively facilitate pedagogical change. This book explores the issues of pedagogical change through the experiences of Australian primary school teachers faced with the challenge of implementing an environmental education program in which young students were positioned as active participants in the social processes from which environmentally sustainable practices could be developed. These teachers were required to adopt pedagogies that often represented the antithesis of their well-established teacher-directed approaches. Through the use of Anthony Giddens’ Theory of Structuration this book provides unique perspectives of the teacher mediated manner in which certain elements of structure and agency interrelate to enable and constrain classroom practices—essential understandings for school principals and educational policy developers who aim to effectively implement pedagogical change. This book also demonstrates that the Theory of Structuration provides a valuable ontological research framework, and provides social researchers with practical guidance for how to relate this theory to specific research issues.

This Open Access book is about the development of a common understanding of environmental citizenship. It conceptualizes and frames environmental citizenship taking an educational perspective. Organized in four complementary parts, the book first explains the political, economic and societal dimensions of the concept. Next, it examines environmental citizenship as a psychological concept with a specific focus on knowledge, values, beliefs and attitudes. It then explores environmental citizenship within the context of environmental education and education for sustainability. It elaborates responsible environmental behaviour, youth activism and education for sustainability through the lens of environmental citizenship. Finally, it discusses the concept within the context of different educational levels, such as primary and secondary education in formal and non-formal settings. Environmental citizenship is a key factor in sustainability, green and cycle economy, and low-carbon society, and an important aspect in addressing global environmental problems. It has been an influential concept in many different arenas such as economy, policy, philosophy, and organizational marketing. In the field of education, the concept could be better exploited and established, however. Education and, especially, environmental discourses in science education have a great deal to contribute to the adoption and promotion of environmental citizenship.

This volume seeks to broaden current ideas about the role of critical thinking (CT) in biology and environmental education considering educational challenges in the post-truth era. The chapters are distributed into three sections, perspectives of a theoretical character (part I), empirical research about CT in the context of biology and health education (part II), and empirical research on CT in the context of environmental and sustainability education (part III). The volume includes studies reporting students’ engagement in the practice of critical thinking, and displays how CT can be integrated in biology and environmental education and why biology and environmental issues are privileged contexts for the development of CT. The chapters examine a range of dimensions of CT, such as skills, dispositions, emotions, agency, open-mindedness, or personal epistemologies. In addition, they explore topics such as climate change, sustainable diets, genetically modified food, vaccination, acceptance of evolution, homeopathy, and gene cloning. Concluding remarks regarding the connections between the chapters and future directions for the integration of critical thinking in biology and environmental education are presented in a final chapter.

The book deals with the matter of environmental education applied to education for sustainability, taking into account formal and non-formal education contexts and bearing in mind the relationship between environmental quality and quality of life. The ideas, experiences and perspectives presented by the various specialists contributing to the book, from various geographical regions, provide an overview of the diversity of approaches used internationally in the field of environmental education and supply background information on the different problems inherent to this field, as well as a bird's eye perspective on the initiatives, projects and concrete action on the ground.

This volume supports educators in integrating meaningful education for social justice and sustainability across a wide range of curricular subjects by drawing on educational theory, innovative pedagogical approaches and creative ideas for teaching and learning. Both practical and theoretical in its approach, it addresses subject areas ranging from mathematics to visual arts to language teaching. Chapters provide subject entry points for teachers seeking to embed social justice and sustainability principles and pedagogies into their work. Transferable across various areas of learning, a range of pedagogical approaches are exemplified, ranging from inquiry approaches to ethical dilemmas to critical relational pedagogies. Ready-to-use teaching exemplars, activities and resources address issues which are of interest and relevance to children’s lives, including gender stereotyping, racism, heterosexism, climate change and species extinction. Practical guidance is provided on how to engage children in dialogue and reflection on these complex issues in a safe and ethical way. This accessible and unique volume is essential reading for student teachers, teachers, educational leaders, teacher educators and anyone interested in inspiring children to work towards creating a more socially just and sustainable world.

This book brings together stories of the green schools movement ((Eco Schools, Enviroschools, Green Schools, Sustainable Schools, ResourceSmart Schools etc) in several countries around the world, with a focus on the impact of the movement on the development and implementation of education for sustainable development in each of the countries. In particular, each story will explain the history of the movement per country, its current status, achievements, obstacles and broader impact. There have been a number of evaluations of these school movements at a national or more local level, and numerous articles and chapters have been published on aspects of these schools’ activities, but to date these have not been brought together in a single volume that focuses attention on the impact of the movement on education for sustainable development in each country. This is the purpose of this volume. The green schools movement focuses on a whole school approach which aims to include everyone (students, teachers and the local community), to improve school environments, including resource usage and the environmental footprint of the school, to motivate students to take on environmental problems and seek resolutions particularly at a local level but also thinking globally, and to improve students' attitudes and behaviours as part of developing a sustainable mind set.

This book focuses on socioecological learning through the touchstone concepts of the Anthropocene, the Posthuman and Common Worlds as Creative Milieux. The editors and contributors explore, situate and interrogate social learning through transdisciplinary positionings, exemplars and theories. The eclectic and cohesive chapters unfold as a journey that may inspire innovative and unique understandings of the socioecological learner: insights that will surely be paramount as we careen towards the 22nd century and all of its as-yet-unknown challenges. Offering tangible and nuanced practice for educational leadership in socioecological learning, this pioneering book will be of interest and value to researchers and educators at all levels. This volume is sure to appeal to students and scholars of socioecological learning as well as the Anthropocene and the Posthuman.