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Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 14086

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Aihua Hu

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Guest Editor

Department of Pedagogy, Religion and Social Studies, Høgskulen på Vestlandet, 5063 Bergen, Norway
Interests: teacher education and teacher development; early childhood education; transition; education for sustainability; education policy; comparative and international education

Dr. Sylvia Christine Almeida

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Education, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC 3201, Australia
Interests: environmental and sustainability education; teacher education

Prof. Dr. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson

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Guest Editor

Department of Education, Communication and Learning, Goteborgs Universitet, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
Interests: children’s learning; teaching and didactics/pedagogy in early childhood education; curriculum in ECE and sustainable development
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is yet to find a universally accepted definition and continues to be a highly contested topic based on individuals’ environmental identity, understandings of equity, justice, and freedom. Individuals’ environmental beliefs are deeply held and influenced by their early life experiences, values, and knowledge. We extend this contestation to include sustainability within this paradigm—an equally complex and fluid term with many versions and not any single agreed-upon definition. There is therefore a need for varied lenses in helping to understand sustainability through different worldviews, thereby creating a better understanding of this term (Corcoran, Walker and Wals, 2004). This will also allow for deeper perceptions into sustainability as it is understood across the globe, and also the many dimensions of sustainability such as space, time, history, ethics, and culture. Sustainability, understood differently across different countries and cultures, is developed over time and based on a wide range of norms and values. This Special Issue provides an opportunity for different voices from varying contexts and perspectives on a single uniform platform. Young children as future stakeholders will be bearing the maximum impacts of an unsustainable lifestyle and climate change issues, amongst others (Committee on the rights of the child, 2017; UNEP, 2015). In light of this, early years education is critical in building resilience, developing alternative strategies, and giving heed to young children’s voices.

This Special Issue has three major aims. First, we want to share and discuss with interested readers the existing understanding of and practices in early years education for environment and sustainability education. Second, we aim to increase people’s awareness of the importance of environment and sustainability education in young children. Finally, but importantly, we aim to inspire better policies and practices. The articles in this issue will provide a glimpse into windows from across the world offering differing notions of key concepts and understandings of environment and sustainability enacted on a global scale. The focus is on both contemporary empirical research and philosophical perspectives of early years education for environmental and sustainability. We also welcome papers that are beyond early years and offer a deep insight into different cultural perspectives in the field.

Please email your abstracts to aihu@hvl.no Or sylvia.almeida@monash.edu

Deadline for abstract submission: 1 April 2021

References

Committee on the rights of the child (2017) Report of the 2016 day of general discussion: Children’s rights and the environment. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRC/Discussions/2016/DGDoutcomereport-May2017.pdf

Corcoran, P. B., Walker, K. E. & Wals, A. E. J. (2004) Case studies, make‐your‐case studies, and case stories: a critique of case‐study methodology in sustainability in higher education, Environmental Education Research, 10(1), 7-21, DOI: 10.1080/1350462032000173670

UNDP (2015). Sustainable consumption and production: A handbook for policymakers https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRC/Discussions/2016/DGDoutcomereport-May2017.pdf

Dr. Aihua Hu
Dr. Sylvia Christine Almeida
Prof. Dr. Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Sustainability
Environment
lifestyle
resilience
early years

Published Papers (5 papers)

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17 pages, 309 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Community Resilience Processes in Schools with Roma Students during COVID-19: Two Case Studies in Spain

by Virginia Martínez-Lozano, Beatriz Macías-Gómez-Estern and José L. Lalueza

Sustainability 2023, 15(13), 10502; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151310502 - 04 Jul 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1286

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe coping strategies for difficulties generated by the COVID-19 pandemic in schools categorized as “highly vulnerable” in Spain, mainly focusing on children from immigrant and Roma families. Within the framework of a broader research study, we focus our gaze, as a case study, on two schools using in-depth interviews with its principals. These two schools were chosen as case studies because they had shown a history of carrying out documented educational change processes for at least 3 years before the pandemic. Our analytical strategy was a qualitative content analysis of a deductive–inductive nature. The results of our study can help identify key elements for the mechanisms of “Community Socio-Educational Resilience” and show that the innovative educational strategies tested by schools in the periods prior to the pandemic facilitated the generation of specific strategies for addressing problems arising from the pandemic. These strategies contributed to cushioning the increased inequality generated by the pandemic, contributing to the social sustainability of the educational and community system. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives)

14 pages, 559 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Alternative Perspectives on Environmental and Sustainability Education: A Study of Curriculum Policies across India, China and Japan

by Sylvia Christine Almeida, Aihua Hu and Michiko Inoue

Sustainability 2022, 14(17), 10686; https://doi.org/10.3390/su141710686 - 27 Aug 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2104

Abstract

Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) in the formal sector is evolving rapidly across global contexts. Early Childhood settings are increasingly being seen as fertile grounds for promoting ESE values, attitudes and life-long pro-environmental behaviours. This article provides an in-depth understanding of the Early Childhood policy frameworks in India, China and Japan, focusing on how these support ESE implementation in Early Childhood settings. The study provides a comparative analysis of the key commonalities in the policy frameworks, the main enablers and vital challenges. It also offers a deep conversation on the convergences and divergences that bring together these three Asian countries in their goals of ESE implementation. Finally, the paper appeals to a global audience by offering a review of non-dominant approaches in these three countries, drawing upon their distinctive social, cultural and political contexts. The paper showcases the commonalities and divergences in Eastern cultures and also provides a lens to decipher key shifts from dominant Western philosophies. Overall, the paper responds to the call of this special issue to look at alternative perspectives and understand ESE in different contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives)

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21 pages, 1961 KiB

Open AccessArticle

How Did the Young Children Encounter the Japanese Urban Landscape?: A Study on Emergent Pedagogy for Sustainability Transformation

by Midori Mitsuhashi and Ikuko Gyobu

Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9723; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179723 - 30 Aug 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2145

Abstract

This research evaluates how children’s new subjectivities emerge through exploring urban landscapes in the river basin in Tokyo. Research has stressed the importance of children as active agents, while posthuman perspectives include all elements of human–nature entangled world as potential agents. This analysis indicates how an assemblage of human and non-human agents contributes to enacting children as critical agents for sustainability issues. The theoretical framework for this study is the theory of landscape, including traditional Japanese discourses and the assemblage theory inspired by Félix Guattari’s ecosophy. One of the authors conducted nine-month ethnographic research at a Japanese nursery in 2018, accompanying a five-year-old class whose curiosity drove the expedition at the river basin all the way to the Tokyo Bay. The authors applied the method of multiple interpretations of the documentation, including photos and children’s drawings. This exploration and subsequent events during the journey transformed the children’s fragmented interpretation of the environment into an interconnected one and translated it into tangible action. This study illustrated that stimulating children’s subjectivity toward the landscape and fostering their positive but critical relationship with it through emergent first-hand exploration provided them with potential grounds to be resilient by ethically and ecologically responding to changes in vulnerable environments and potential commons in the community and to take actions for sustainable lifestyles at present and in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives)

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16 pages, 714 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Place-Based STEM Education for Sustainability: A Path towards Socioecological Resilience

by Martín Bascopé and Kristina Reiss

Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8414; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158414 - 28 Jul 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2894

Abstract

This article analyzes STEM projects conducted in eight schools with children from 4 to 10 years old in southern Chile. The main purpose of the study was to describe and analyze how these projects can affect students’ and educators’ attitudes and create community capacities to tackle local socioecological challenges. We used an ethnographic design with an intentioned coding process of interviews and participant observations to summarize one year of collaborative and transdisciplinary project building. The results describe the main attitudinal changes of teachers and students and give evidence on how these projects create new links and foster collaborations with local actors and organizations that are usually sidelined from educational experiences. Examples of meaningful learning experiences to tackle sustainability challenges were systematized and shared, to inspire new initiatives, raise new voices, and promote active participation of the new generations to foster socioecological resilience. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives)

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17 pages, 280 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Dancing as Moments of Belonging: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Dancing as a Relevant Activity for Social and Cultural Sustainability in Early Childhood Education

by Maria Grindheim and Liv Torunn Grindheim

Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 8080; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13148080 - 20 Jul 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 4457

Abstract

Individuals’ capacities to contribute to more sustainable living are deeply influenced by their early life experiences. Hence, there is a need to discover which experiences are relevant to young children’s contemporary and future contributions to more sustainable living. Perceiving children as aesthetically oriented to the world and their sense of belonging as a core experience for social and cultural sustainability, and using the example of dancing, we investigate how such a sense of belonging can be supported through aesthetic first-person experiences. This article is therefore structured around the following research question: How can adults’ experiences of themselves, others and their sense of belonging—when dancing—inform explorations of ways to foster embodied and aesthetic belonging for social and cultural sustainability in early childhood education (ECE)? Drawing on a phenomenological study, we analyse interviews with four dancers, who differ in age, gender and dance genre. Our analysis reveals their experiences when dancing as being in a meditative state, having a sense of freedom and feeling body and mind as one, described as an overall “different”, resilient way of being and belonging in a social context. Our findings indicate that facilitating moments of sensible and bodily awareness can support a non-verbal understanding of oneself and others, as well as arguments for promoting aesthetic experiences while dancing as relevant to sustainable practices in ECE. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental and Sustainability Education in Early Years: Global Contexts, Understandings and Perspectives)

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