Teachers’ reflections of professional change during a literacy-reform initiative

Policymakers recently have targeted teacher quality, and school systems have increased their attention to instructional reform through professional development. The purpose of this study was to examine teachers’ views about the change process and professional development that supports change. Semi-structured focus-group data were gathered from 41 primary-grades teachers (students ages 5–9) across five schools in a high-poverty urban district that participated in a 2-year literacy-reform initiative. Results indicated that teachers viewed the change process from two stances: as learners and as change agents. Three conditions supported their professional growth: professional development embedded in school and classroom contexts, professional development focused on limited and clearly defined learning goals, and on-demand access to time and resources. Changes that occurred did so in three phases: movement from curriculum-centered to student-centered practices, increased collaboration, and requests for policy changes via teacher autonomy and advocacy for students.     

Prospects for learning in river management: exploring the initial implementation of the Water Framework Directive in a Swedish river basin

This case study explores the initial implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the Lule River basin, Sweden, examining how and to what extent administrative procedures enable learning through dialogue and stakeholder collaboration. Theorising on adaptive co-management and social learning is used to structure what is to be learnt, how and by whom. Qualitative content analyses of policy documents, responses from consultation procedures and interviews show that there are opportunities for stakeholder involvement and dialogue in organizational settings of various kinds, but as the number of affected interest is large and difficult to demarcate many interests lack a formal channel for influence. It is primarily through poorly attended Water Council meetings and during the consultation process prior to decisions on management plans that all affected interests can voice their opinions. Consultation processes represent one-way communication rather than dialogue and the ones examined are strongly focused on scientific rather than experience based knowledge. If language is to be used productively to assist the constitution of relevant knowledge in the implementation of the WFD, it is important to find ways of communication that can serve as a platform for common meaning making among a large number of diverse societal actors.     

The new ecological paradigm revisited: anchoring the NEP scale in environmental ethics

The New Environmental or Ecological Paradigm (NEP) is widely acknowledged as a reliable multiple‐item scale to capture environmental attitudes or beliefs. It has been used in statistical analyses for almost 30 years, primarily by psychologists, but also by political scientists, sociologists and geographers. The scale's theoretical foundation is, however, seldom discussed and not comprehensively specified. This article explores the environmental ethics that underlies the scale, analysing which ethical positions on human—nature relations the scale seem to match. The study shows that pronounced forms of anthropocentrism are well captured by the scale, while the environmental position is ‘shallow’ rather than ‘deep green’ and misses crucial elements of the contemporary environmental ethics debate.