Elisabeth Barratt Hacking

Engaging children: research issues around participation and environmental learning

In this article we explore a number of issues arising from the papers in this special issue of Environmental Education Research. The papers focus on current examples of childhood environment research in the UK together with research reviews from the UK, the US and Australia. In order to provide a framework for considering and contextualizing this research we explore conceptions of childhood and the field of childhood environment research. Reduced opportunities for childrens outdoor environmental experience and resulting concerns for childrens well‐being are recurring themes in this research field. We also discuss themes that emerge from our review of the research reported in this special issue, including issues around the engagement of children as environmental stakeholders and their engagement in environmental learning. The article ends with reflections on childhood environment research methodologies and an argument for developing participatory research with children. The concept of restorative environmental justice is suggested as a future focus for childhood environment research.

Novice teachers and their geographical persuasions

This paper explores the nature of a novice teachers geographical persuasion and its influence on professional learning. The implementation of a naturalistic methodology is discussed in order to illuminate aspects of the novice teachers experience. Analysis of the data endeavours to attribute meaning to an individual novice teachers experience. Two themes emerging from this research are presented and discussed. Firstly, that novice teachers hold diverse interests and perspectives on the study of geography and feel strongly about particular aspects of the subject; and secondly, during their early school experiences novice teachers suspend their geographical persuasion in their thinking and planning. It is proposed that these findings may have implications for current practice.

Children’s research into their local environment: Stevenson’s gap, and possibilities for the curriculum

The article critically explores the conditions necessary for children to be fully involved in developing a community‐related school curriculum, doing this through a critical reappraisal of the gap between the philosophy of environmental education and its practice in schools highlighted by Stevenson in 1987. This article draws on a recent UK Economic and Social Science Research Council project [RES 221‐25‐0036]: Listening to Children—Environmental Perspectives and the School Curriculum (L2C). This one‐year, participatory research initiative studied children’s local environmental perspectives and was undertaken by the authors, in partnership with teachers, 11–12‐year‐old school children and their 17‐year‐old mentors, and community representatives, in a secondary school serving an English urban community on the edge of a large conurbation. The research focused on (1) how children perceive and act within their local environment and community, (2) how they make sense of this in relation both to their lives and to the school curriculum, and (3) how schools might enable children’s local environmental perspectives to become a part of their curriculum experience. The article is in two parts; the first details the research and reviews its success in bringing children’s local experience and knowledge into the curriculum. The second then uses the L2C experience as a lens through which to examine the environmental education philosophy–practice gap within English schools, commenting on what has changed over the twenty years since Bob Stevenson’s original article. It ends with a discussion of the current opportunities for environmental education.

A Clash of Worlds: Children Talking About their Community Experience in Relation to the School Curriculum

In this chapter, we discuss our experience of developing participatory research with children. We draw on a pilot research project with 11to 12-year-old children, studying at an urban secondary school for 11to 18-year-olds in central England. The project was a precursor to a recent UK Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) project ‘Listening to Children – Environmental Perspectives and the School Curriculum’. The chapter starts by outlining the wider theoretical basis of the project in order to ground its purpose, methodology and conceptualisation. We then describe the research context and the design of the pilot project, and discuss the tentative findings. Our approach is sympathetic to the ethnographic work of Van Maanen (1979) and the work of Chawla (Chapter 6, this volume) in attempting to understand the meanings and actions children express in their social settings, and to this end, we have developed a series of propositions to explicate the relationship between the child, their school curriculum experience, and their local community. Finally, in reflecting on the propositions, the idea of school identity is used to explore how children’s participation in curriculum and community development can be promoted through a school forum. Here, the drivers (and barriers) in establishing a closer relationship between the school and the local community, as perceived by children, are identified and discussed. The chapter concludes by discussing children’s prerequisites for an effective school-based participatory research project.

Children researching their urban environment: developing a methodology

Listening to children: environmental perspectives and the school curriculum (L2C) was a UK research council project based in schools in a socially and economically deprived urban area in England. It focused on 10/12 year old childrens experience of their local community and environment, and how they made sense of this in relation both to their lives and the school curriculum. Issues faced by the research team in developing and implementing the project methods are explored including the challenge to promote childrens equal involvement with adults in all aspects of the research. A case is made for promoting participatory and collaborative research with children in school settings. It is suggested that through the L2C project, the children developed an approach that was sensitive to childrens personal experience and that developed their capacity as researchers and their understanding of the value of research.

International Mindedness in Practice: The Evidence from International Baccalaureate Schools

International Mindedness is an overarching construct related to multilingualism, intercultural understanding and global engagement (Hill, 2012). The concept is central to the International Baccalaureate (IB) and sits at the heart of its education policies and programmes. The aim of this research study was to examine systematically how schools offering International Baccalaureate programmes (so-called IB World Schools) conceptualise, develop, assess and evaluate International Mindedness (IM), and to understand related challenges and problems, with a view to improving practice in schools. Nine case study schools, identified as being strongly engaged with IM, were selected for in-depth scrutiny of their practice and thinking related to IM. Conclusions from this study will also inform on-going debate on other similar global initiatives.