Many environmental educators insist that environmental education (EE) should be started from a young age. The Korean Ministry of Education (1999) has also emphasized the importance of environmental education in early childhood by including content and objectives regarding EE in the 1999 National Curriculum of Kindergarten. However, many Korean kindergarten teachers do not sufficiently implement environmental education in their teaching practice. To address this issue, this study aimed at investigating and overcoming barriers to fully implement EE in the Korean kindergarten context. Four experienced Korean kindergarten teachers were involved in a fourteeniv week critical action research project that included weekly group meetings. At these group meetings, teachers reflected on the barriers preventing the full implementation of EE in their classrooms and discussed possible environmental education actions to be attempted in the following week. These actions, individually implemented in teachers’classrooms, were reviewed at subsequent group meetings. Data from group meetings and teacher lessons were used to analyze the effectiveness of this critical action research project for developing environmental education. At the beginning stages of this study, Korean kindergarten teachers felt strongly uncomfortable participating in group communication. However, through the continuous encouragement of the researcher and with the involvement of participants who have similar educational backgrounds, age, and working experiences, participants came to actively engage in group communication. Participants in this study identified the following barriers to fully implement EE in kindergartens: insufficient understandings and awareness of EE, reluctant attitudes towards the environment, lack of educational support and resources, low parental involvement, and discomfort about going on a field trip to environments. Teachers came to understand the importance, objectives, potential topics, and teaching methods of early childhood environmental education. While implementing environmental education in their classrooms, teachers recognized possibilities for environmental education through connections with children’s daily lives and previous activities conducted in their classrooms. Teachers also identified that critical action research through group communication provided practical and useful knowledge of their educational practices. Teachers’ improved pedagogical knowledge and awareness about EE increased their confidence to teach environmental education. To lessen the burden of going on a field trip to environments, teachers provided children direct experiences in the environment surrounding schools and during school picnics. Teachers also actively participated in environmental activities with children. These direct experiences of the environment helped teachers and children appreciate the beauty of the environment and change their reluctant attitudes towards the environment. By providing parents children’s products produced during EE, teachers were also able to help parents develop an interest in environmental education. While most educational research in Korean kindergartens is conducted by university-based researchers, this research inquiry revealed that action research by the effective partnership with a university-based researcher can encourage the confidence and passion of Korean kindergarten teachers to reflect and resolve issues arising from their experiences and to change educational practices.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Environmental and Life Science, Dept. of Graduate School of the Environment, 2008. / Bibliography: p. 370-395. / Part 1: Introduction and contextual influences ; chapter 1: Getting a sense of the research terrain ; chapter 2: Shaping contextual influences -- Part 2: Theoretical foundations of the study ; chapter 3: Understanding organisational change ; chapter 4: Exploring organisational learning and sustainability as social learning processes -- Part 3: Methodology and research processes ; chapter 5: Critical action research methodology ; chapter 6: Research design and processes -- Part 4: Contextual issues and social learning outcomes ; chapter 7: Critical organisational analysis of the NMK ; chapter 8: Deliberating and exploring possibilities for change -- Part 5: Discussion of findings ; chapter 9: Ontological, epistemological and pedagogical implications of the study ; chapter 10: Reflections, contributions and recommendations -- References. / The main goal of this study was to deepen an understanding of exploring organisational learning and sustainability using critical action research methodology in a Kenyan context. The research process invloved a group of 23 middle level management emplyees of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) in identifying and acting on sustainability issues. This group was designed and cultivated as a community of practice for organisational learning purposes. The basic premise underlying the study is that exploring agential, structural and cultural interactions (morphogenetic relationships) through educational interventions (communicative interactions) in a community of practice can deepen context specific understanding of organisational learning and sustainability. I developed this argument by drawing on a complex philosophical framework that brought together assumptions from Archerian social realism, Deweyan pragmatism and critical theory. The framework underpinned three distinct and yet related theoretical perspectives - the Archerian morphogenetic approach. Habermasian critical theory and Lave and Wenger's communities of practice. The Archerian morphogenetic approach and Habermasian critical theory respectively provided ontological and epistemological perspectives for the study. Lave and Wenger's communities of practice approach provided both a unit of analysis (the NMK community) and a social theory of learning to complement the Archerian and Habermasian theoretical perspectives. -- I generated data within a 14-month period between March 2005 and March 2007 in three distinct but integrally intertwined broad action research cycles of inquiry. During the first cycle, the research group identified contextual issues related to organisational learning and sustainability. In the second cycle the group investigated the issues deeper and deliberated possibilities for social change and the emergence of sustainability. The final cycle delineated social learning outcomes from the study and explored ways of institutionalising social change processes. Throughout these cycles, I explored ways of knowing the social reality of enabling organisational learning and sustainability. The cycles were integral to communicative interactions, which I implemented as educational interventions for developing agency in the NMK community of practice. Data analysis was undertaken within cyclical processes of entering and managing data, manual coding and developing categories, identifying themes, presenting results and validating findings. -- Undertaking a collaborative critical organisational analysis of the NMK revealed various contextual factors that both constrained and enabled participant learning capabilities and reflexivity to address sustainability issues. These factors manifested as contextually mediated issues of communication and information flows, decision making and leadership (governance), staff motivation and development, financial management and identity and role of the NMK. The research process promoted collective social action and innovation, forstered critical reflections and reflexivity, enhanced democratic deliberations and strengthened systemic thinking capabilities in the NMK community of practice. This study contributes to the body of literature on environmental education in its employment of a coherent and complex philosophical and thoretical framework for exploring organisational learning and sustainability. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / xvi, 419 p. ill. (some col.)

Submitted by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-04-25T14:24:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Patricia Machado Oliveira.pdf: 2269661 bytes, checksum: b993089f8364dddad96374ede7a43c6f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-04-27T14:12:53Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Patricia Machado Oliveira.pdf: 2269661 bytes, checksum: b993089f8364dddad96374ede7a43c6f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-27T14:12:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2015_Patricia Machado Oliveira.pdf: 2269661 bytes, checksum: b993089f8364dddad96374ede7a43c6f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-13 / O presente trabalho apresenta e aplica a oficina “Sou Eco 13” como recurso pedagógico, no ensino de ciências, especificamente em Educação Ambiental, objetivando realizar um levantamento das percepções ambientais dos educandos e representantes da comunidade, assim como, fortalecer o sentimento de pertencimento desses participantes. Foi realizada uma contextualização história, relatando o processo de desenvolvimento socioeconômico do município de Nova Guarita – MT, onde as atividades foram realizadas. Trabalhamos em parceria com educandos do III Ciclo e do Ensino Médio, na Escola Estadual 13 de Maio, durante os anos letivos de 2013 e 2014. Usamos como aporte metodológico os princípios norteadores da Pesquisa-ação Crítica. Os dados foram avaliados de forma qualitativa e coletados por questionário aberto, entrevista semiestruturada e anotações realizadas em sala de aula. Os questionários permitiram realizar um apanhado geral acerca das percepções ambientais dos educandos. Com essas informações orientávamos debates e, em seguida desenvolvíamos a oficina, que apresentou duas etapas: “Árvore dos sonhos” e “Pedras no caminho”. Por fim os educandos eram orientados a entrevistarem pessoas da comunidade, de preferencia mais idosas e que morassem a mais tempo no município. A oficina se mostrou um eficiente recurso pedagógico em EA, na medida em que atingiu os objetivos previstos, se mostrou uma prática inovadora, dinâmica, dialógica e, por isso, bem aceita pelos educandos. / This paper presents and applies the workshop "I am'm Eco 13" as a pedagogical tool in teaching science , specifically in Environmental Education , in order to survey the environmental perceptions of students and community representatives , as well as strengthen the feeling of belonging of these participants. A story context was performed , reporting the socioeconomic development process of the city of Nova Guarita - MT , where the activities were performed . We work in partnership with students of the Third Cycle and High School , in the Escola Estadual 13 de Maio, during the school years 2013 and 2014. We used as methodological support the guiding principles of Critique Aaction Rresearch Critique. Data were analyzed qualitatively and collected by open questionnaire , semi-structured interviews and notes taken in class . The questionnaires allowed accomplish an overview of the environmental perceptions of students . With this information debates guided them , and then we developed the workshop , which presented two steps: "Dreams tree" and " Stones in the way ." Finally the students were instructed to interview people in the community , the older preference and that they lived the longest in the city . The workshop proved to be an effective pedagogical feramente tool in EEEA, in that it achieved the expected goals , was an innovative practice , dynamic , dialogic and therefore well accepted by the students.

This dissertation documents a critical-ethnographic-action-research (CEAR) project conducted in two elementary schools in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the collaboration of one language teacher educator and ten language student teachers. The two schools have a diverse student body composed of mestizo children and children from different Indigenous groups. The CEAR Project challenged historical and societal ideologies that position Indigenous children as deficient learners and their translanguaging and multiliteracies practices as inappropriate for schools. The CEAR Project was also a response to a world phenomenon that associates English with “development” and economic success and Indigenous and “minoritized” languages with backwardness marginalization. The CEAR Project’s purpose was to use the student teachers’ English language praxicum in order to: (a) develop elementary school teaching expertise, (b) co-construct affirming identities among all the participants, (c) foster multilingual, multiliteracies, and intercultural practices, and (d) dialogue with the children in order to change pejorative ideologies that regard certain languages, literacies, and cultures as better than others. The Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy developed by Cummins (in press) and critical pedagogies theory (Freire, 1970; Norton & Toohey, 2004) informed the CEAR Project and the data collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and children’s work samples. Using narrative, photos, and videos, this dissertation presents the migratory lives, the families, and the language and literacy practices of 50 children, and their views regarding the English language and Indigenous languages and peoples. It portrays the vivid critical moments and changes that occurred in the praxicum as the children became teachers and linguists. Through the construction of identity texts and the translanguaging and multiliteracies practices that the student teachers and the children engaged in, stories emerge that portray them as the intelligent, creative, and genuine individuals that they really are. This dissertation also documents how the children’s complex lives challenged constructs such as “family” and “Indigenous,” and the new Mexican educational policy that brings English into public elementary schools using a generic English software. It is concluded that every policy, theory, social construct, pedagogy, and curriculum should be challenged on a daily basis if we are truly to serve the ever-evolving diverse classrooms of today.

This dissertation documents a critical-ethnographic-action-research (CEAR) project conducted in two elementary schools in Oaxaca, Mexico, with the collaboration of one language teacher educator and ten language student teachers. The two schools have a diverse student body composed of mestizo children and children from different Indigenous groups. The CEAR Project challenged historical and societal ideologies that position Indigenous children as deficient learners and their translanguaging and multiliteracies practices as inappropriate for schools. The CEAR Project was also a response to a world phenomenon that associates English with “development” and economic success and Indigenous and “minoritized” languages with backwardness marginalization. The CEAR Project’s purpose was to use the student teachers’ English language praxicum in order to: (a) develop elementary school teaching expertise, (b) co-construct affirming identities among all the participants, (c) foster multilingual, multiliteracies, and intercultural practices, and (d) dialogue with the children in order to change pejorative ideologies that regard certain languages, literacies, and cultures as better than others. The Transformative Multiliteracies Pedagogy developed by Cummins (in press) and critical pedagogies theory (Freire, 1970; Norton & Toohey, 2004) informed the CEAR Project and the data collected through classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and children’s work samples. Using narrative, photos, and videos, this dissertation presents the migratory lives, the families, and the language and literacy practices of 50 children, and their views regarding the English language and Indigenous languages and peoples. It portrays the vivid critical moments and changes that occurred in the praxicum as the children became teachers and linguists. Through the construction of identity texts and the translanguaging and multiliteracies practices that the student teachers and the children engaged in, stories emerge that portray them as the intelligent, creative, and genuine individuals that they really are. This dissertation also documents how the children’s complex lives challenged constructs such as “family” and “Indigenous,” and the new Mexican educational policy that brings English into public elementary schools using a generic English software. It is concluded that every policy, theory, social construct, pedagogy, and curriculum should be challenged on a daily basis if we are truly to serve the ever-evolving diverse classrooms of today.