Environmental and sustainability education policy research: a systematic review of methodological and thematic trends

Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Canadian Higher Education

“…Moving beyond a single case study approach, the Sustainability and Education Policy Network (SEPN) was developed to undertake national and international comparative studies of sustainability in education policy and practice [29]. These studies include document analyses, national surveys, in-depth site analyses, and ongoing knowledge mobilization regarding sustainability policy and practice in kindergarten to grade 12 (K−12) and post-secondary or higher education [14,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. For example, a census of sustainability initiatives across all 220 post-secondary institutions in Canada found a strong co-occurrence of sustainability assessments, sustainability policies, and sustainability offices or officers, which suggests some re-enforcement between these types of sustainability initiatives [32].…”

The roots and routes of environmental and sustainability education policy research

“…Underlying this semantic debate is a discursive struggle between 'competing paradigms' (Aikens et al 2016), and hence diverging perspectives on the role and purpose of ESE. Two vital topics of disagreement that emerge within this discussion are: environmental education (EE) versus education for the environment (EfE) -a discussion about the purpose of education; and environmental education versus education for sustainable development (ESD) -a discussion centred on the field's subject matter and focus.…”

Tomorrow's Leaders and Today's Agents of Change? Children, Sustainability Education and Environmental Governance

“…Reference to critical models of education for sustainable citizenship are included here to indicate the breadth of thinking in sustainability education and to highlight the inclusion of disjunctive voices in relation to the dominant model of ESD. However, despite a substantial volume of work considering educational models (for a systematic review of this work, see Aikens and others, ), it is noteworthy that considerably less scholarly work has considered children's responses to moral and educational messages presenting the environment as an object of concern, or children's ‘everyday encounters with sustainability’ outside of school settings (Horton and others, , p. 906). This absence fits with Nolas’ (, p. 163) observation in relation to children's participation that the wealth of academic work on children's everyday lives has been ‘largely untapped’ by policy‐makers and practitioners.…”