Socialization content in schools and education for sustainable development – I. A study of teachers’ selective traditions

Abstract

This article studies content issues by examining teachers' communicated socialization content. The value-laden socialization content constitutes the educational context for the teaching of integrated subject matter and has not yet been thoroughly studied empirically in environmental education research. The implications of the results can be fruitful in discussions about how educational traditions evolve, as well as discussions about the relationships between environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). In this study, ten upper secondary teachers are interviewed and their expressed socialization content is examined. Various qualitative positions regarding five important educational aspects can be described in terms of three selective traditions. To strengthen the validity of the socialization content found in this study, the students of the same teachers were interviewed regarding their experiences of the socialization content of these teachers' teaching. This is reported in a supplementary article (Sund and Wickman 2011; Sund 2008). Together these three studies (this article; Sund and Wickman 2011; Sund 2008) work to establish and test a method of discerning qualitative aspects in socialization content. Although the amount of data is limited, the ambition has been to triangulate socialization content qualitatively from three different sources: a literature study, teacher interviews, and student interviews.

Experienced ESD-schoolteachers’ teaching – an issue of complexity

“…The third step, then, involved an initial explorative analysis of the data generated from the interviews with the 11 teachers using the methodology developed by Sund andWickman (2011a, 2011b) regarding selective traditions, as described above, and using an analytical tool developed in Sund (2008)[cf. to discern selective traditions in Sund and Wickman (2011a)]. This first screening showed that three teachers worked in the fact-based tradition, one in the normative and seven in the pluralistic tradition.…”

Reclaim “Education” in Environmental and Sustainability Education Research

“…Individual teaching habits are often rooted in disciplinary traditions that are not shy of emphasizing educational ends. Two of the three EE selective teaching traditions found in Sweden focus on -products' such as knowledge (factual tradition) and specific attitudes (normative tradition), while teachers working mainly in the pluralistic tradition are more focused on the process [29,30].…”

Exploring the Constitution of Environmental Education as Situated, Critical Processes of Learning and Change: A Collaborative Synthesis Across Diverse Regional Contexts

“…At present a discourse of targets, efficiency and educational effectiveness, rather than purpose or values, dominates the educational system of many western countries (HARTAS, 2010). From a critical perspective, pluralism and reflexivity are crucial elements for a social inquiry with emancipatory potential (SUND & WICKMAN, 2011), that rejects telling informed citizens what to do with their acquired knowledge normativity and prescription.…”