This study focuses on reviewing Environmental Education (EE) research that has been conducted by M. Ed and PhD postgraduates from selected South African universities during the period 1995 to 2004. This period 1995-2004 has been characterized by transformation, restructuring, and change in different educational areas of South Africa. This research is premised on the notion that such transformation, restructuring and change may have had an impact on research. The research questions were on the focus, methodologies and, gaps and silences in postgraduate Environmental Education research during the period 1995 to 2004. The study was informed by Homer-Dixon‘s (1994) theory of Resource Capture and Ecological Marginalisation which claims that environmental problems that exist in South Africa today emanated from apartheid and other marginalisation policies. Firstly, the study has argued that knowledge produced through postgraduate research can be useful in addressing these problems if it includes issues in all the environmental dimensions, biophysical, social, economic and political, as understood by O‘Donoghue (1995). Secondly, it further argued that the methodologies that are used to research on these issues can be useful in addressing these problems if they involve the participation of affected people so that they are empowered with appropriate attitudes, skills and knowledge to deal with these. Thirdly, the study argued that unless new knowledge is produced that will address issues of marginalisation as were created by the past, environmental problems experienced in South Africa will persist. Because of its reliance on documents as the source of data, I describe the design of this study as unobtrusive documentary small scale study. Masters and PhD theses and dissertations that were produced at the University of Johannesburg and Rhodes University during the period 1995-2004 were reviewed, using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study identified some gaps in the reviewed postgraduate Environmental Education research. For example, more focus on schooling issues resulted in the overlooking of problems that emanated from marginalisation in the contexts where the sampled institutions are located. Little was done to empower people with skills and knowledge that would be useful in addressing environmental problems. Keywords: Environmental Education research, Education for Sustainable Development, marginalisation, Transformation, / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes special report study entitled: Energy conscious design. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes special report study entitled : Energy conscious design. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Ph.D. / This study investigated the nature of collaboration between three institutions: the school, NGO and community (local leaders and members) in enabling sustainable development in regard to the creation of livelihoods and conservation. Two school-based environmental education programmes in South Africa and Tanzania were used to investigate the nature and issues of collaboration involving the tripartite institutions. Adopting pragmatic and critical paradigms, a mixed model approach formed the framework within which the study was conducted. A mixed model emphasising qualitative methods was appropriate and proved useful enabling insightful investigations. The study found that the nature of collaboration between the tripartite institutions was superfluous. Inspired by their traditional roles and modernistic competitive practices, most institutions preferred independent or singularist approaches and weaker inter-relationships to openness and closer working partnerships for survival. The resultant deliberate negation of developing local capacities promoted the traditional independent relational status quo, which assured little or no innovative approaches to conservation and livelihood creation. The isolated and independent institutional activity implementation approaches led to institutions copying each other as opposed to learning from each other innovatively as enunciated in communities of practice. The position thus contributed in stifling the efforts that could drive sustainable development activities in local communities through the institutions. It also impeded the development of familiarity between, and among the institutions further discouraging meaningful collaboration. Local institutions thus isolated themselves from each other making themselves vulnerable to external forces that further derailed their efforts to contribute towards education, conservation and the creation of livelihoods in local contexts. It is recommended that NGOs involved in education and environmental activities, and the government departments of education in particular assist educators to establish forums and nurture them to attain functional capacities. This is one way of encouraging continuous professional development and growth. Learners must be exposed to as many active learning opportunities as possible, which include activities in the community as part of their formal education requirements and assessment for their final grades. Furthermore, more innovative approaches are required in introducing curriculum changes to educators and involving them to co-interpret such changes with the developers to fit respective contexts and to meaningfully contribute in implementing the envisaged changes. NGOs should invest material and financial resources in school and community programmes during implementation to illuminate deeper socio-economic, cultural and political community issues that influence community development and well-being as a core activity. Indeed conventional education and community development programmes should be integrated in design, budgets, and capacity-building objectives and implementation plans to effectively demonstrate natural community or societal systemic functions essential for nurturing sustainable communities. In conclusion, it is recommended that a critical review of such knowledge claims as "poverty causes environmental degradation" and some of the models that are popularly used in most environmental education activities which relate to human-nature interactions be exposed to learners and community development workers as a way of enabling them to engage with such knowledge claims and realities. The continuing reliance on such false science does not promote a practical understanding, practice, or foster self-sustaining communities for the current generation and posterity.

What has come to be labelled as 'the environment crisis' has roots in the structures and orientations of modern societies. True to our modernist ways we call on, or offer, education and research, experts and science, to address our socio-ecological concerns. This study set out to identify research priorities in environmental education from within the institutional setting of a university and within the context of environmental and political change in southern Africa and epistemological shifts in educational research traditions. The emergent research design allowed for a progressive clarification of theoretical vantage point: from an instrumental listing of priorities, through the participatory development of a critical and consensual framework for research, to a reflexive description of a landscape of shifting priorities. I collected data over a 3-year period, in inter alia 38 semi-structured interviews, workshops with some 150 participants, focus group discussions, documents and conferences. Participants' professional contexts included environmental education, natural resource management, social and biophysical sciences, development, formal and non-formal education, funding agencies, academic and non-academic settings. My engagement with the emerging discourses revealed patterns and inconsistencies in participants' views on research, environmental education, change and research priorities. I identified three orientations - Research for Management to Restore Order to Nature and Society, Research to Resolve Practitioners' and Communities' Problems, and Research for Radical Reconstruction - in the emerging landscape. These orientations were accompanied by change models and themes (discourses of difference and 'othering', instrumental views of education and research and accumulative knowledge, a conceptual theory-practice gap) which limited their potential for transformation towards sustainable living. They presented solutions cut from the same modernist cloth as the environment crisis. An emerging Reflexive perspective in and on environmental education research showed potential as a transitionary orientation outside modernist assumptions. I outline research priorities from this perspective. Reflexivity reveals the myths of expert-driven, instrumental and institutionalised research separated from environmental education and based upon rationalistic interpretations of science. It opens up possibilities for transformative knowledge emerging from 're-search' based versions of education as a process of, rather than a means to, social change.

The study was conducted to investigate whether the use of a wider range of teaching methods can improve the quality of environmental learning in five Zambian primary schools. Nine teachers from five schools were involved in the preliminary stage of answering of questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions about the use of dominant teaching methods and new teaching methods; while only four were involved in the observations of four lessons. The study is a contribution to the on‐going debate on the investigation of whether teaching methods used by teachers can be one of the factors that can influence the quality of education. Definitions of quality and educational quality in particular, are not easy to establish and no agreed upon framework for educational quality exists at present. This study reviews the debates on educational quality, and identifies three major paradigms or discourses on educational quality; and considers the human rights, social justice and capabilities approaches and educational quality frameworks as being relevant to environmental learning and education for sustainable development in the Southern African Development Community context. This, together with a review of research on teaching methods in environmental education, provides the theoretical framework for this study. Using action research and an interpretative methodological framework, a series of research activities were undertaken to generate research data because the study was investigating the teachers’ practice with a view to probe change and to analyse the findings. Nine teachers participated in the preliminary stage of answering questionnaires and focus group interviews reflecting on existing teaching methods. In stage two of this study, teachers went through a planning workshop during which they planned lessons using new preferred teaching methods. The third stage was lesson observations of planned lessons. The final stage was the reflection workshop during which the teachers shared their experiences with the use of new teaching methods. The teaching practices of teachers using the new teaching methods were the subject of further analysis. In order to find out how the use of a wide range of teaching methods can improve quality of environmental learning in primary schools nine teachers were observed teaching lessons with new teaching methods. The Nikel and Lowe (2010) fabric of dimensions of educational quality was adapted and used to find out if teachers included dimensions of quality in the teaching process. Additional socio‐cultural and structural quality dimensions, identified through a review of southern African research, were used to find out if teachers included contextualized regional dimensions of educational quality. This was done to investigate whether the process of teaching and learning was relevant to the learners. Teachers involved in the research reflected that when they used a wider range of teaching methods the result was that the learning opportunities for learners were enhanced and that the methods added value to their teaching, improving the quality of their teaching. The use of a wider range of teaching methods showed the presence of several indicators of dimensions of educational quality, as reflected in the quality analysis tool. Teachers indicated that the use of a wider range of teaching methods led them to include the socio‐cultural dimensions such as the use of local languages and structural dimensions such as informal seating arrangements or group work that they would otherwise neglect if they used the traditional narrow range of teaching methods. A wider range of teaching methods provided learners with an enjoyable learning atmosphere during the lesson. The research also identified that this study can be taken further through broader observations, and that the educational quality dimensions tool is useful for different levels of the education system, and that it has potentially productive uses in teacher education, particularly for observations during teaching practice.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:24:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2010-09-02Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:30:59Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 bitar_al_me_rcla.pdf: 607329 bytes, checksum: e0137529e94d55903852e37e01b4cf5b (MD5) / A questão ambiental tem ganhado destaque entre os diversos setores sociais nos últimos anos, ocupando cada vez mais espaço nos diferentes meios de comunicação, uma vez que os atuais níveis de degradação ambiental têm causado efeitos desastrosos para a humanidade. Assim sendo, a educação ambiental surgiu como opção para minimizar estes impactos, passando a ser objeto de interesse de diversas pesquisas. Embora o desenvolvimento de pesquisas que têm como tema a educação ambiental tenha uma história recente tanto nacional como internacionalmente, a produção acadêmica e cientifica no Brasil é grande e significativa, merecendo ser analisada. Nessa direção, considerando que programas e projetos de educação ambiental têm valorizado e desenvolvido atividades de campo e que estas têm sido tomadas como foco de investigação em diversas pesquisas, entende-se também relevante analisar os significados que têm sido atribuídos a esta perspectiva metodológica. Assim, na tentativa de traçar um quadro quanto à produção acadêmica relacionada à educação ambiental e às atividades de campo, o presente estudo tem por objetivo principal identificar, descrever e analisar esta produção retratada sob a forma de dissertações e teses defendidas no período de 1987 a 2007 presentes no banco de dados da CAPES. Para tentar responder às questões de pesquisa propostas, esta dissertação tomou como procedimento metodológico aquele próprio das pesquisas documentais, isto é, foram analisados os resumos das dissertações e teses relativas às atividades de campo, assim como título, palavra-chave, área de conhecimento, linha(s) de pesquisa informada no banco de dados da CAPES. Todas as etapas de análise dos dados foram orientadas pelos referenciais teórico-metodológicos relacionados à análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 1977; BAUER, 2002). Os resultados obtidos na primeira etapa... / Lately, the environmental issue has been gaining some notability among different social sectors and being reported in different means of communication. This notability is related to the actual level of environmental degradation and its impact on the human society. Thus, the environmental education has arisen as a possibility to minimize these impacts, and it became subject of interest to many researches. Although the development of researches which the main theme is the environmental education is something very recent not only nationally but also internationally, its academic and scientific works are plentiful and meaningful, deserving then to be analyzed. Taking that into consideration and considering that environmental education programs and projects has been valuing and developing field works and that those has been undertaken as the main focus of the investigations in many researches, it is then relevant to analyze the meanings that has been attributed to this methodological perspective, the field work. Thereby, with the attempt of outlining the academic work related to environmental education and the field works, this present study has as its main objective to identify, describe and analyze the academic works about environmental education throughout masters and doctoral thesis that has been presented between 1987 and 2007, and that are available at CAPES, a Brazilian data bank for thesis. In order to fulfill its main objective, this present research has used the appropriate methodological procedure for a documental research, which consisted of the analysis of the abstracts from the thesis which were related to field works. The titles, key words, field of knowledge and research areas were also analyzed. All the steps of the data analysis were based on the methodological theories references about content analysis (BARDIN, 1977; BAUER, 2002). The results found in the first... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Orientador: Luiz Marcelo de Carvalho / Banca: Ivan Amorosino do Amaral / Banca: José Artur Barroso Fernandes / Resumo: A questão ambiental tem ganhado destaque entre os diversos setores sociais nos últimos anos, ocupando cada vez mais espaço nos diferentes meios de comunicação, uma vez que os atuais níveis de degradação ambiental têm causado efeitos desastrosos para a humanidade. Assim sendo, a educação ambiental surgiu como opção para minimizar estes impactos, passando a ser objeto de interesse de diversas pesquisas. Embora o desenvolvimento de pesquisas que têm como tema a educação ambiental tenha uma história recente tanto nacional como internacionalmente, a produção acadêmica e cientifica no Brasil é grande e significativa, merecendo ser analisada. Nessa direção, considerando que programas e projetos de educação ambiental têm valorizado e desenvolvido atividades de campo e que estas têm sido tomadas como foco de investigação em diversas pesquisas, entende-se também relevante analisar os significados que têm sido atribuídos a esta perspectiva metodológica. Assim, na tentativa de traçar um quadro quanto à produção acadêmica relacionada à educação ambiental e às atividades de campo, o presente estudo tem por objetivo principal identificar, descrever e analisar esta produção retratada sob a forma de dissertações e teses defendidas no período de 1987 a 2007 presentes no banco de dados da CAPES. Para tentar responder às questões de pesquisa propostas, esta dissertação tomou como procedimento metodológico aquele próprio das pesquisas documentais, isto é, foram analisados os resumos das dissertações e teses relativas às atividades de campo, assim como título, palavra-chave, área de conhecimento, linha(s) de pesquisa informada no banco de dados da CAPES. Todas as etapas de análise dos dados foram orientadas pelos referenciais teórico-metodológicos relacionados à análise de conteúdo (BARDIN, 1977; BAUER, 2002). Os resultados obtidos na primeira etapa ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Lately, the environmental issue has been gaining some notability among different social sectors and being reported in different means of communication. This notability is related to the actual level of environmental degradation and its impact on the human society. Thus, the environmental education has arisen as a possibility to minimize these impacts, and it became subject of interest to many researches. Although the development of researches which the main theme is the environmental education is something very recent not only nationally but also internationally, its academic and scientific works are plentiful and meaningful, deserving then to be analyzed. Taking that into consideration and considering that environmental education programs and projects has been valuing and developing field works and that those has been undertaken as the main focus of the investigations in many researches, it is then relevant to analyze the meanings that has been attributed to this methodological perspective, the field work. Thereby, with the attempt of outlining the academic work related to environmental education and the field works, this present study has as its main objective to identify, describe and analyze the academic works about environmental education throughout masters and doctoral thesis that has been presented between 1987 and 2007, and that are available at CAPES, a Brazilian data bank for thesis. In order to fulfill its main objective, this present research has used the appropriate methodological procedure for a documental research, which consisted of the analysis of the abstracts from the thesis which were related to field works. The titles, key words, field of knowledge and research areas were also analyzed. All the steps of the data analysis were based on the methodological theories references about content analysis (BARDIN, 1977; BAUER, 2002). The results found in the first... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

This research was undertaken in the context of socio-economic transformation in South Africa, and more specifically, in the context of change in education policy. To support socio-economic transformation in South Africa after the first democratic elections in 1994, a competence-based National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was introduced in 1995. In responding to the particular socio-historical context of South Africa, the South African NQF is underpinned by the notion of applied competence, integrating practical, foundational and reflexive competence, which is the key and distinguishing feature of this competence-based framework. In this context of transformation, the research was aimed at an in-depth exploration of the notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence, and course processes that enable its development, with a view to providing curriculum development insights for learning programme development in the competence-based NQF, more broadly, and environmental education professional development programmes, more specifically. To enable these aims, the research was undertaken in the context of the Rhodes University / Gold Fields Participatory Course in Environmental Education (RU/GF course), as a case example of a professional development course that aims to develop critically reflexive practitioners. Within an interpretivist orientation, a multiple-embedded case study approach was used to gain insight into the relationship between course processes, reflexivity and the development of reflexive competence to clarify and provide a critical perspective on how competence develops in the context of the course. Data was collected over a period of one year using observation, interviewing and document analysis as the primary data collection techniques. Data was analysed through various phases and layers to inform data generation and the synthesising of data for further interpretation. Through the literature review undertaken within the study, various significant insights emerged around the notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence. Firstly, there appears to be a need to distinguish between reflexivity as social processes of change (social actions and interactions within social systems, structures and processes) and reflexive competence (a range of integrative elements of competence) that provides the evidence of an engagement within social processes of change. The second key insight emerging is the significance of social structure in shaping participation in reflexive processes, thus emphasising the duality of structure as both the medium for, and outcome of reflexive social actions and interactions and so challenges the deterministic conception of social structure. Further, the significance of an epistemologically framed notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence emerged, in the context of responding to the complex and uncertain quality of socio-ecological risks and in supporting change in context. Reflexivity, distinguished from processes of critical reflection, foregrounds a critical exploration of both knowledge and unawareness. As such a reinterpretation of reflexive competence is offered as a process of potential challenge to dominant and reigning forms of reasoning (knowledge frameworks) and consequent principles of ordering. Through this reframing of reflexive competence, the potential exists to destabilise dominant forms of reasoning and principles of ordering to create a broader scope of possibilities for action and change in context. This reframing of reflexive competence in the context of transformation in South Africa has critical implications for engaging within processes of learning programme design in the NQF to support an engagement within reflexive processes of change and the development of a range of integrative elements of reflexive competence. In this light, the study attempts to make the following contribution to curriculum deliberations within the context of environmental education and the NQF in relation to reflexivity, reflexive competence and change: ♦ Reflexivity is conceptualised as social processes of change with reflexive competence providing evidence of engagement within these social processes of change; ♦ An epistemologically framed conception of reflexivity and reflexive competence recognises how rules of reason and the ordering of the ‘reasonable’ person come to shape social life; and so ♦ Change is conceptualised as ruptures and breaks in dominant knowledge frames and the power relations embedded in these; ♦ Unawareness emerges as a key dimension within reflexive environmental education processes in responding to the unpredictable and uncertain nature of risks; ♦ An epistemological framing of reflexivity and reflexive competence highlights the need to develop open processes of learning to support the critical exploration of knowledge and unawareness; and ♦ Within this framing of reflexivity and reflexive competence, the difficulty emerges in specifically predefining reflexive competence to inform standard setting processes within a context of intended change. In framing data within this emerging conception of reflexivity and reflexive competence, a review of course processes highlighted potential areas for reorienting the RU/GF course to support change in context, for which I make specific recommendations. Drawing on the review of course processes in the RU/GF course, and in light of the reframing of reflexivity and reflexive competence, I further offer summative discussions as ‘possible implications’ for learning programme design in the South African competence-based NQF, broadly and environmental education professional development programmes in this framework, more specifically.

In 2002, the United Nations designates 2005-2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. In China, Education for Sustainable Development [ESD] has been recognized as an important component in the new educational reform. However, there is an implementation gap between government policy and classroom practice. Teachers play a pivotal role in curriculum implementation. Therefore, knowing what teachers' think about ESD is the first step towards understanding the implementation of ESD. / Key words. sustainable development; education for sustainable development; teacher's belief; geography teacher; instrument development; values; teaching belief; China / Quantitative research methods supported by interview are used in this research. After analyzing relevant literature on ESD and interviewing 16 Beijing geography teachers, it is found that the ESD beliefs comprised two components: sustainability values [VESD] and teaching beliefs of ESD [TESD]. Based on ESD principles and some environmental beliefs instruments, a first draft of VESD instrument was developed and piloted among Yinchuan and Beijing geography teachers. A second draft was then developed and tested with over 300 Guangzhou and Changchun geography teachers. The final VESD instrument with four dimensions has been found with a stable structure and acceptable reliability and validity. These four dimensions are respect and care for the community of life; ecological integrity; social and economic justice; democracy, nonviolence and peace. / The aim of this research is to develop an effective and easy-to-use ESD instrument to reveal teacher's beliefs about ESD. In the process of developing the instrument, it is essential to study: What are teachers' ESD beliefs? Are ESD beliefs made up environmental values and teaching beliefs? What are the structure and content of the values and teaching beliefs of ESD? / The TESD instrument is found to have three factors with good reliability and validity. These three factors are namely: relevance to daily life, student's need in the future, and integrated teaching. / With these two instruments which can be used to tap teacher's ESD beliefs in China, researchers interested in ESD implementation can conduct future researches on teachers' beliefs about ESD and the potential implementation problems. / 楊光. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 256-274). / Adviser: Chi Chung Lam. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-03, Section: A, page: 0867. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xiang gang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 256-274). / Yang Guang.