Post-metatheorizing Environmental Behaviours in Environmental Education

A five-participant dialogue is constructed using Kollmuss and Agyeman's (2002) model of pro-environmental behaviour, Stern's (2000) coherent theory of environmentally significant behaviour, the Hart and Nolan (1999) and Rickinson (2001) critical reviews of the environmental education research literature and this repondent's views. The dialogue demonstrates how metatheoretical development might selectively sensitize and circumstantially advance the practical aspirations of environmental education.     

Does domain experience compensate for working memory capacity in second language reading comprehension?

Reading comprehension in a second language (L2) is a complex task involving knowledge of vocabulary and grammar as well as controlled attention for continuous updating of information. The purpose was to examine the relative contributions of working memory capacity (WMC), first language (L1) comprehension, and domain experience on L2 reading comprehension in Spanish. Three hypotheses of the relationship between ability and experience were examined. The “knowledge is power” model predicts that with enough experience, WMC differences are eliminated. The “independent influences” model predicts that experience and ability separately influence L2 reading comprehension. Finally, the “rich get richer” model, predicts that high WMC individuals benefit more from experience. Results provide evidence for independent influences of experience and ability.     

Web‐Based Project and Key Skills Work

Pupils in England and Wales are increasingly being asked to undertake investigative‐type work, be it the new compulsory projects in data handling for GCSE Mathematics (age 14–16) (see Browne 2002 ) or the Key Skills topic application of number. This article shows how teachers can generate realistic project scenarios using real data and produce indicative model solutions from the same data. The projects range from simple presentational problems for data, through hypothesis testing to complex modelling scenarios.     

Postcritical knowledge ecology in the Anthropocene

The always vexed relationships between philosophy, theory, methodology, empirical work and their representations and legitimations have been thrown into chaos with the belated acknowledgement of the Anthropocene. Unsurprisingly, traditional Western thought may have been complicit, given its underlying anthropocentric assumptions and humanist commitments in education philosophy, theory and practice. The postcritical knowledge ecology developed here is applied to both a modest and responsible form of methodological inquiry in an ethnographic study of nature experience. Our contextualised experiment adds to the nascent literature of an environmentally oriented education now demanded in the Anthropocene.