This dissertation reports a study exploring adult engagement with sustainability learning practices in EcoSchools-certified secondary schools in Canada, Lithuania and Sweden as a means towards shaping a liveable future. The study is situated in the area of education for sustainable development. The study design was initially based on an interest in revealing specific practices of sustainability education as a means of improving the relationship between environmental impact and wealth. While echoing findings in the existing literature, this research contributes to the development of the field through insight into the perspectives that adults bring to sustainability education. Primary data collected in the spring of 2006 were recorded (mostly single) semistructured interviews with 30 individuals (national coordinators, caretakers, teachers and administrators), including 10 Canadians from four schools, 14 Lithuanians from four schools, and six Swedes from two schools. Four phases of qualitative analysis were used on the data: initial transcript coding and trends; précis document trends; a six-stage model of interview responses allowing vertical (between question) and horizontal (between stage) comparisons; word maps of subthemes as a scaffold to detail participants’ four primary views (long, wide, deep, dynamic) regarding sustainability. Ultimately, the results of this study point less than expected to revealing specific transferable practices regarding success and challenge in EcoSchools. Rather, these findings provide some insight into a means of shaping a sustainable future through an individual’s sustainability perspective: a living responsiveness based on a sense of connection, supported by improved sustainability cognition, and realized through sustainability practice and considered engagement.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-180). / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xiii, 180 leaves, bound 29 cm

The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to the debate about Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and provide a practical tool for teachers with which they can relate to ethical and moral learning in the ESD context. This aim is based on the ambition to develop an approach that takes its starting point from our practical experience of ethics and morals, inspired by the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein and the transactional perspective developed by John Dewey. This implies that ethics and morals are regarded as a human tendency that is observable in action. The central method used to clarify ethical and moral meaning-making is, by the use of examples, to remind of common experiences of how this meaning-making appears in everyday situations. These clarifications are made in order to dissolve (rather than solve) philosophical problems, as well as to create new knowledge. The approach has been applied to four different studies. The first study focuses on the differences between three selective traditions in environmental education: fact-based, normative and pluralistic, with regard to the relationship between facts and values. It is argued that a pluralistic approach can be seen as way of relating facts and values in practice, and consequently that the democratic process neither precedes nor succeeds education but is an integral part of it, and that students therefore are constituted as citizens participating in the progress of sustainable development. The purpose of the second study is to suggest an approach that allows in situ analysis of how individuals’ prior experiences are included in the processes of moral meaning-making. A concrete example shows how individuals can transform the moral discourse in different situations. In the third study, it is suggested that the ethical tendency can be recognised as a communication in which certain values and actions are treated as if they were universally good and right. Three different kinds of situations in which this communication appears are highlighted: personal moral reactions, norms for correct behaviour and ethical reflections.The diverse conditions for learning in these situations are discussed, and specific notice is taken of the risk of indoctrination in ESD. The fourth study addresses the question of how to understand and deal with criticism in a pluralistic educational approach. Through reminders of how criticism appears in everyday practice, it is argued that criticism does not necessarily have to be understood theoretically. Criticism can also be seen as the diverse ways in which human beings morally react, encounter different norms and ethically reflect.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of an integrated adapted physical education setting on the motor performance of preschool children with developmental delays. Subjects in this study participated in segregated and integrated adapted physical education classes. During the integrated conditions, same-age peers without delays participated in activities as "proximity peers" (Jenkins, Speltz & Odom , 1985). Child-directed activities were presented in each class and subjects were observed practicing locomotor and object control skills. The quality of each performance was analyzed to determine the number of critical elements present in the performance and the level of teacher or peer prompt required to initiate and complete each performance. A single subject reversal design (A-B-A-B) was used in this investigation. Four children with developmental delays were filmed within an eight-week school schedule while practicing two fundamental gross motor skills during segregated and integrated conditions. The level and trend of the data was calculated to describe the quality of each child's motor performance within each condition, between conditions, and across segregated and integrated conditions. The results of this study provide evidence that children with developmental delays are able to maintain their level of gross motor skill and independence within an integrated adapted physical education setting. Although day-to- day variability was calculated for each subject, overall skill level remained stable and their level of independence was not compromised in the integrated setting. Recommendations for future research are made based upon the results of this investigation. / Graduation date: 1993

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(M.S.)--Northern Illinois University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [48]-52).

Thesis (M.S.)--Georgia Southern University, 2007. / "A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Science." In Kinesiology, under the direction of Jim McMillan. ETD. Electronic version approved: July 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-48) and appendices.

(M.S.)--Northern Illinois University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [48]-52). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.

Thesis (MTchLn)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-224). Also available via the World Wide Web.