A review of photovoice applications in environment,sustainability, and conservation contexts: is the method maintaining its emancipatory intents?

Abstract

Photovoice, a Participatory Action Research method developed by Wang and Burris, has gained popularity as a pedagogical tool to engage youth with environmental, sustainability, and conservation issues. Influenced by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, feminist theory, and documentary photography, photovoice supports reflection about place, critical dialogue about community issues, and social change by reaching policymakers. Some scholars have modified the method and applied varying frameworks to increase relevance for diverse participants. However, adaptation also may lose the original tenets. Through a scoping review, this study examined methodological applications to science, conservation, and sustainability education and whether emerging approaches align with Wang and Burris’ original goals. The scoping review identified and analyzed four applications of photovoice: i) place as pedagogy, ii) conservation and sustainability, iii) STEM teaching; and iv) decolonizing education. Current scholarship shows promise for photovoice in environmental education applications to support participatory, diverse, and equitable educational settings, but some projects would benefit from more explicit attention to the original emancipatory intents of the method.     

Deconstructing difference and inclusion in educational research: reflections on the international journal of qualitative studies in education special edition on difference

Disabled and disability studies scholars and activists have challenged and are challenging the bio- and necro-politics of disability subjectivity through scholarship, art, activism, and online engagement. As this edition articulates, difference takes many forms, is intersectional, and is often characterized and codified by and through educational research. Acknowledging that difference is socially constructed poses challenges to the ablenationalism that undergirds not only complex systems of schooling, but the educational research on which these systems rest.     

我国环境教育的现状、问题与解决路径

环境保护,教育为本。我国的环境教育在理论和实践层面都取得了一定的成果,但仍存在环境教育理念陈旧、环境教育研究相对滞后、环境教育师资缺乏等问题。通过分析现状,针对问题,提出更新环境教育理念、加强环境教育体系建设、加快环境教育立法等等适合我国国情的环境教育对策和建议。     

The places of pedagogy: or,what we can do with culture through intersubjective experiences

Beginning by highlighting considerations of the intersections among social and ecological issues and the recent diversification of critical pedagogy, this paper suggests means by which approaches such as Gruenewald’s (2003 Gruenewald, D.A. 2003. The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Educational Researcher, 32(4): 3–12. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]) “critical pedagogy of place” can be expanded to accommodate a broader range of possible places of pedagogy. The paper is centrally concerned with what happens when we consider socio‐ecological learning, not as occuring via cognitive critique or embodied place‐based experience, but rather as taking place in between the thought and the sensed via a range of intersubjective experiences. It suggests that these intersubjective locations that comprise the “where” of the learning of the student can be particular physical places, but can also be in and of experiences of friendship, art, literature, irony, cultural difference, community. By expanding our possible repertoire of “pedagogical arts,” or the range of intersubjective places and spaces of pedagogy engaged, we are able to conceptualise and practise education in ways that enable a deeper connection to place but also opportunities for other modes and outcomes of student learning. In particular, the paper outlines the possibilities for learning and cultural formation enabled by spaces of collective youth engagement.     

The sociology of education as the history of the present: fabrication,difference and abjection

The paper explores the fabrications of human kinds in pedagogical research. It examines the social and psychological sciences of education as producing independent spaces for the study of people in order to act on them and as a cultural thesis for people to act for themselves. Further, it explores the principles generated about who the child is and should be. It is argued that the making of human kinds embodies particular historically generated modes of representing the possibilities of life; and these modes function to divide, differentiate and abject particular qualities of people and populations into unlivable spaces. This comparativeness produces inequality as it strives for equality. The analysis engages educational studies in a conversation with history, philosophy, political and cultural studies that draw on particular European studies brought into the US to challenge its philosophical, analytical and social/psychological traditions.     

重新认识高等教育研究的存在价值——兼论大学治理中的经验与科学

高等教育研究的价值,既是高等教育学科生存与发展的重要命题,也是关系到一个国家高等教育发展水平和治理能力的命题。一般认为,高等教育研究伴随着大学的产生而产生,其价值随着高等教育的发展而逐渐彰显。但高等教育研究在不同的国家、不同的高等教育发展历史阶段,呈现出来的研究价值大不相同。世界上的高等教育强国,既是高等教育研究起步较早的国家,也是重视高等教育研究的国家。在我国从高等教育大国向高等教育强国迈进的进程中,系统梳理中西方高等教育研究的历程,重新审视高等教育研究的价值,对于深化我国高等教育研究,引导我国高等教育从“经验办学”走向“科学办学”,无疑具有重大意义。     

The coordination role in research education: emerging understandings and dilemmas for leadership

Changes in expectations of research education worldwide have seen the rise of new demands beyond supervision and have highlighted the need for academic leadership in research education at a local level. Based on an interview study of those who have taken up local leadership roles in four Australian universities, this paper maps and analyses different dimensions of the emerging leadership role of research education coordination. It argues that while there is increasing clarity of what is required, there are considerable tensions in the nature of the coordination role and how coordination is to be executed. In particular, what leadership roles are appropriate and how can they be positioned effectively within universities? The paper draws on the Integrated Competing Values Framework to focus on the activities of coordination and on ideas of distributed leadership to discuss the leadership that characterises coordination. It is argued that without acknowledgement of the influences that coordinators need to exert and the positioning and support needed to achieve this, the contemporary agenda for research education will not be realised.     

One decade of environmental education research in Brazil: trajectories and trends in three national scientific conferences (ANPEd,ANPPAS and EPEA)

Abstract

This article discusses the scientific research work on environmental education presented during the last decade in three Brazilian conferences: the meetings of the National Association of Graduate Research on Education (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Educação, ANPEd), the National Association of Graduate Research on Environment and Society (Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Ambiente e Sociedade, ANPPAS), and the Environmental Education Research Meetings (Encontros de Pesquisa em Educação Ambiental, EPEA). It analyzes the authors, institutions, and regions whence the studies came from, as well as their main research subjects. Our findings indicate the prevalence of women in all academic degree segments; of PhD holders and candidates; of professors in public higher education institutions located in the Brazilian Southwest and South regions; and of environmental education in formal teaching as the main subject in all three conferences. Based on these results, we discuss how this body of research relates to the development of Brazilian academic and educational policies, and indicate some of the challenges involved in building a research tradition in this field, in close dialogue with the arduous political and pedagogical path of environmental education in Brazilian schools.     

The complexities of participatory action research and the problems of power,identity and influence

This article highlights the complexity of participatory action research (PAR) in that the study outlined was carried out with and by, as opposed to on, participants. The project was contextualised in two prior-to-school settings in Australia, with the early childhood professionals and, to some extent, the preschoolers involved in this PAR project seen as co-researchers. This article explores the author’s journey to PAR, which she considered a socially just mode of inquiry. However, it is not without its complexities and challenges. This article makes transparent these complexities and explores issues of ‘power’, identity and influence in collaborative research. Questions often reflected upon by researchers are re-visited in this article: What theoretical underpinnings align with the investigation? Why undertake such a demanding research design as PAR? What does this research design involve? Where does the university researcher fit? How does a PAR team ‘work’ when there are so many different personalities involved? What are the challenges that are faced by participatory action researchers and how might these be overcome? While these challenges are not new to PAR researchers, the solutions and discussion put forward in this article may generate further reflection and debate.     

Global citizenship education in South Korea: ideologies,inequalities, and teacher voices

Guided by neoliberalism and post-colonialism, this article takes the case of global citizenship education (GCE) in South Korea to explore social studies teachers’ experiences and their everyday voices in teaching GCE. The findings demonstrated a number of barriers that teachers confront and the entrenched ideologies behind these hurdles, which contributes to the marginalisation of GCE. By drawing scholarly and policy implications that consider the complicated global/local nexus of GCE within dominant Eurocentric and neoliberal discourses, the study adds to existing research on teachers’ GCE practices from different societies and expands upon the critique of Western-centric, neoliberal perspectives embedded in GCE.     

全球化背景下区域教育研究的提倡及其基本问题

全球化和区域化互动是全球化时代的一个重要特征。在这样的时代背景下,提倡区域教育研究反映了全球化所带来的区域结构变化特征和我国比较教育学科发展的需要。区域教育研究包括社区(community)教育研究、外国教育研究和地区(region)教育研究,为了保证研究的有效性,无论哪种形式的教育的区域研究,都应当遵守区域研究(area studies)方法论的学术规范。一个完整的比较教育研究,既有教育的区域研究,也有教育的问题研究,研究者可以根据自己的价值取向,或采取区域研究框架下的问题分析模式,或采取问题研究框架下的区域解释模式,两者均有其效用。本文的观点只是为谋求我国比较教育学实现理论创新和实践创新所作的些许思考。     

Making global connections: The knowledge,understanding and motivation of trainee teachers

This article begins by noting some of the global concerns that young people have today and highlights the crucial role of global education in responding to such concerns. It then considers the importance of teacher training in such matters and reports on a preliminary study relating to the initial training of teachers in England. In particular this raises questions about the knowledge and understanding that such students bring to their courses. It concludes by identifying some of the consequent dilemmas faced by teacher trainers working in this context.     

Teacher candidates research,teach, and learn in the nation's first net zero school

Teacher candidates conducted field hours in the nation's first net zero school, which uses the same amount of energy, measured annually, as it produces. These teacher candidates saw firsthand integration of the net zero advantages by completing a Collaborative Research Project and a Net Zero Lesson, which incorporated the use of the net zero building features as part of the lesson plan criteria. As a result, teacher candidates experienced how students can learn from their constructed environment and how that learning could contribute to a more sustainable world.     

绿色教育的意蕴与纲领

通常意义上的绿色教育即指环境教育,意在通过教育促进环境保护.但它经常需要借助环境来进行,而不是单纯依靠教师或专门的课程来进行.然而即便这种作为工具的环境也只是“环境教育的体系”或“环境教育的微观环境”,与作为保护的对象的外部大环境并不一致.“可持续发展教育”将环境问题与广泛的社会发展问题对接,但现实的教育依然只是一种与真实的社会与自然环境相脱离的实践.我们在脱离环境的条件下进行教育的替代办法,就是人为地建构一个学校教育的理性环境,个人的可持续发展在此依然缺位;事实上要改变我们的环境,必须首先改变我们自己.或者更确切地说,要保护好环境,必须首先保护好我们自己.因此,有必要重提一个国际性的、教育学意义上的、更为宽泛的环境概念,善待环境中的各种制度的、关系的、文化的、亚群体的和个人的资源,将教育真正建立在环境影响的基础之上,并致力于一个能平抑我们理性冲动的社会生态系统的建设.     

The policy problem: the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and implications for access to education

This paper explores the changing terrain of disability support policy in Australia. Drawing on a critical disability framework of policy sociology, the paper considers the policy problem of access to education for people with disabilities under recent reform by means of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), which commenced full roll-out across the country from July 2016. The paper reviews NDIS reports, legislation and associated literature to consider how eligibility to scheme participation and education services are shaped, and how education is positioned in the development and implementation of the NDIS. The analysis highlights tensions that exist for people with disabilities and their families who both access the scheme and who might draw on its provision to support their education, because of the way the policy is oriented towards pathological categorisation, standardised outcomes and service delineation rather than integrated support and informed involvement. The paper concludes by arguing that despite the policy priority across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries of increasing lifelong learning opportunities, fragmented NDIS policy in Australia prevents people with disabilities from achieving this ideal.     

Engaging students in environmental research projects: Perceptions of fluency with innovative technologies and levels of scientific inquiry abilities

The purpose of this mixed‐method study was to investigate the changes in high school students' perceptions of fluency with innovative technologies (IT) and the levels of students' scientific inquiry abilities as a result of engaging students in long‐term scientific research projects focusing on community‐based environmental issues. Over a span of 3 years, a total of 125 ninth‐ through twelfth‐grade students participated in this study. A project‐specific Likert‐scale survey consisting of three parts (fluency with All Technologies, GPS/GIS, and CBL2/EasyData) was administered to all students as a pre‐ and post‐test. At the end of the study, 45 students were randomly interviewed and asked to elaborate on the changes in their perceptions of fluency with IT. The results indicated statistically significant increases (p < 0.001) in students' perceptions of their fluency with IT. Qualitative analysis of students' interview results corroborated the statistical findings of students' changes in perceptions of their fluency with IT. Students' research papers based on the environmental studies conducted at the interface of classroom and community were analyzed using the Scientific Inquiry Rubrics, which consist of 11 criteria developed by the researchers. Results indicated the students' abilities to conduct scientific inquiry for 7 out of 11 criteria were at the proficient level. This study clearly points to the correlation between the development of IT fluency and ability levels to engage in scientific inquiry based on respective competencies. Ultimately, this research study recommends that students' IT fluency ought to be developed and assessed concurrently with an emphasis on contemporary higher order scientific inquiry abilities. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 48: 94–116, 2011     

The Effects of an Environmental Education Program on Students,Parents, and Community

Abstract

This study evaluated the impact of an environmental education program on students, parents, and the community. The program, in place for 5 years in 5th and 6th grade classes, was designed to help learners take an in-depth look at environmental issues in their community, make data-based decisions about those issues, and participate in resolving those issues. Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed (including student, parent, school personnel, and community member interviews). The authors discuss program connections to students' critical thinking, environmental literacy, and participation in the community; reading, writing, and speaking skills; student and teacher characteristics; and parent and community viewpoints.