Roger Firth

Knowledge about Education for Sustainable Development: four case studies of student teachers in English secondary schools

Considerable activity has occurred in the recent past regarding policy‐making around Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the school curriculum. Teaching about sustainable development involves complex and contested ethical and political issues. This case study research investigates how four student teachers taking part in a one‐year teacher education programme in a university in England (Post Graduate Certificate in Education or PGCE) translate their knowledge, experiences and beliefs about ESD into classroom practice in the context of the Geography National Curriculum and ESD policies in secondary schools. The researchers critically analyse curriculum materials used by three student teachers to explore the potential for ethical and political engagement with ESD knowledge. The research reveals some of the ethical and political dilemmas faced by student teachers who, as committed environmentalists, struggle to resolve the tensions between the constraints of policy, school culture, school teaching materials and their own values and enthusiasms.

Making geography visible as an object of study in the secondary school curriculum

This article considers disciplinary-based knowledge and its recontextualisation and acquisition in the secondary school curriculum. It starts from the premise that teaching disciplinary knowledge is important. The focus is the subject of geography and the increasingly influential realist school of thought in the sociology of education and the endeavour to ‘bring knowledge back’ into education. Social realist theorists emphasise the importance of the explanatory power of specialist or disciplinary knowledge. Basil Bernsteins ideas of hierarchical and horizontal knowledge structures are being developed in order to bring into view the epistemological principles that underpin the recontextualisation of such knowledge within the school curriculum that can support meaningful learning. The generative capacity of Bernsteins typology is illustrated by the work of Maton who places knower structures and legitimation codes alongside Bernsteins knowledge structures. The article outlines this ‘structure of knowledge’ approach before discussing the nature of geographical knowledge. Consideration is then given to how these ideas about the structuring of knowledge might influence thinking about the geography curriculum and pedagogy. In recognising the significance of the social realist approach to knowledge and the link between discipline and curriculum, the article ends with some thoughts about the limitations of social realism as an overarching theory of knowledge for educational purposes. These revolve around the nature of epistemic communities and specifically: the extent to which social realism recognises the socio-epistemic relation between educational and disciplinary contexts; the under-theorisation of the field of knowledge production itself; and the fact that social realist theorists tend to ignore a key aspect of the epistemic relation of knowledge – what knowledge is about. Engagement with such issues is necessary to support a model of education centred on the student, the teacher and knowledge and concerned with knowledge orientation as well as knowledge acquisition.

As the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development comes to an end: what has it achieved and what are the ways forward?

Sustainable development is recognised as an issue of global concern. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, sees it as the imperative of the twenty-first century, one that encompasses: the saving of the planet, the lifting of people out of poverty, and the advancing of economic growth (Ban Ki-moon, 2011). Awareness of sustainable development has risen enormously in recent years, and many of us are now much more conscious of issues such as climate change and the need to act to preserve precious resources and use them sustainably for the future. Sustainable development challenges us, as individuals and as members of families, community groups and workplaces, to think about and act upon some very big issues. Learning and understanding to deal with the complex issues that threaten planetary sustainability is the challenge of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It had become a feature of policy initiatives and educational programmes across many countries prior to the decision at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (held in Johannesburg, 2002) to promote a Decade on the subject. At the World Summit United Nations member states reaffirmed their commitment to the crucial role of education (formal and non-formal) and learning in the pursuit of sustainable development and recommended the establishment of a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD, 2005–2014). The decade was launched on 1 January 2005. However, the very idea that education should be for something (whether sustainable development or anything else), remains as questionable as ever (Jickling &Wals, 2012, p. 51). ‘To integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning’ is the overarching goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. This, it is believed, will encourage behaviour changes that allow for a more sustainable and just society for all. The instigation of the Decade clearly recognised the need for intensified efforts to achieve sustainable development. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) required far-reaching changes in the way education was/is often practised. Prior to the start of the Decade the Report on the International Consultation on Education for Sustainable Development Learning to Change Our World underlined its significance. The motto of the consultation was learning for sustainable development: reflect – rethink – reform. It was not

What is the place of radical/critical research in geography education?

In this article the value of critical research to research in geography education is considered. It raises the question as to whether the geography education community requires a wider range of orientations to research, concerned as we are with its impact on classroom practice, policy-making and future directions for geography education.

“By our theories shall you know us”: the role of theory in geographical education

This short article explores the role of theory in the field of research in geographical education in the UK. It suggests that the fact that the field is dominated by teacher educators has led to the adoption of theories closely associated with the classroom practice of teachers. Although in the 1980s there were signs that geographical education might engage with a wider set of perspectives from the sociolology of education and curriculum studies, these developments were interrupted by tighter regulation of the work of teacher educators. The article prepares the ground for our other contribution to this Forum on the place of critical theory in geographical education.

The impact of adopting a research orientation towards use of the Pupil Premium Grant in preparing beginning teachers in England to understand and work effectively with young people living in poverty

Abstract The introduction in England of the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) provided a stimulus to ensure that beginning teachers understand the nature of poverty and critically examine strategies used by schools seeking to overcome the barriers to academic achievement that it presents. This article explores the effects of asking student-teachers within a well-established initial teacher education partnership to adopt a research orientation towards the use of PPG funding. It focuses on the student-teachers’ experiences and developing thinking as they engaged in small-scale investigative projects and on the perspectives of their school-based teacher educators (professional tutors). Whole-course evaluation data suggest that most projects operated successfully, with the student-teachers encouraged to ask critical questions about current practices, drawing on different kinds of evidence. Three case studies illustrate the diversity of approaches adopted towards the project, reflecting the views of individual professional tutors and the complex interplay between the competing object motives of different participants.

Teaching geography 11–18: a conceptual approach

This is a very engaging and important book. It has the expressed purpose of beginning a process of thinking about geography and its development in the school curriculum. It provides a framework and a resource to support teachers in responding to the challenges of teaching geography in secondary schools today – and in the future (an idea to which I will return). David Lambert and John Morgan have set out an ambitious series of challenges for teachers which are outlined in the final page of the book, as defined in the Geographical Association’s manifesto, A Different View. These are:

Knowledge and the future school: curriculum and social justice. By Michael Young and David Lambert, with Carolyn Roberts and Martin Roberts

attention than the latter, and mostly in negative terms. Furthermore, the treatment of religion is very narrow, which is ironic in a text founded on complexity theory. Religions are presented with broad brush strokes, and in a linear way, different religious traditions are often collapsed together with little consideration of the diversity that exists between or within these, and the research substantiating these claims is fairly thin. As an example of the above, without citation Davies claims that ‘Religion is focused on the absolute and unconditional and as a result can adopt totalitarian characteristics. It is the combination of absolute and exclusive validity claimed by the major monotheistic religions which generates religious fragmentation. Religious exclusiveness may also be hostile to both pluralism and liberal democracy’ (p. 42). Exclusivism, absolutism and potentially aligned problems for pluralism and liberal democracy are of course strains within some monotheistic (and other) religions. Even the most cursory study, however, would show that not all monotheists are exclusivists, and of course that not all religions are monotheistic. Furthermore, each of the world religions contains both prophetic and contemplative strains which would align well with the vision for education that Davies proposes. For a book which posits that the dynamism in secular societies comes from ‘allowing – even encouraging – a diversity of religious and other belief systems, as these populate a rich landscape of possibility’ (p. 92), the missing dynamism of religious belief in its analysis is a shame. Nevertheless, these problems do not undermine the theoretical framework that Davies establishes. This is where she wishes to make her contribution, and indeed where the book does. It will be as well if this could be developed with a more critical and careful consideration of the role of the religions in future discussions, as well as with the perhaps underestimated role of secular ideologies which present as the kinds of Unsafe Gods that Davies wishes to challenge through her model of education. This book will be of interest to, and beneficial for, educators, policy-makers and all who are interested in the complexity of our current context and creative and constructive ways that education is involved with it.