The Environmental Education (EE) researcher in a radically changing world order

Lili-Ann Wolff

In this contribution, I want to question five ‘myths’ or easily misleading ideas in environmental education (EE) and discuss the effects of these ideas on the EE research. Firstly, EE has to a high degree taken place in form of ‘projects.’ Secondly, EE has long focused on the device ‘we have to start with the children’. Thirdly, the phrase ‘think globally act locally’ has been popular in EE. Fourthly, environmental education has from the beginning tried to develop in accordance with ‘didactic models.’ Fifthly, EE has often focused on the motto ‘small steps can make a big difference.’ In the following I elaborate upon the inadequacy or direct fallacy of these ideas.

1. During the first 40 years of EE research most studies worldwide have focused on showing good practice. Therefore, the studies have mainly been descriptions of interventions and dealt with methods and outcomes of projects and other educational practice. This easily makes it look like there are thousands of success stories. Success may actually have been the case in many cases. Yet, the size of the success has to be measured in relation to the size of the goal that was set up for the intervention. So, even if a success in a single project was the case, the state of the world is all but a success. There is thus still a lack of broader reaching, critical and theoretical studies as well as studies of how sustainability is and could be implemented in regular educational activities on a daily basis.
2. In EE discussions, voices often state that we have to start with the children and young people as they are the future decision makers. Yes, they are, if there is a future to come, but education also needs to encourage impressive actions from the contemporary grownups, not at least politicians and voters. Adult education is definitely a branch in need of more EE research, both in Finland and internationally.
3. ‘Think globally, act locally’ (or think global, act local) may sound accurate, but it is an oversimplification; environmental problems are complex combinations of global and local activities, causes and consequences. It is necessary to act locally with regard to global consequences, but also to directly step up on the global stage and act globally because of local consequences. EE researchers need to find educational methods to reveal what takes place on the global as well as the local stage, and to empower people to engagement and participation.
4. Especially EE studies based on psychology has searched for didactic models showing how environmental responsibility is created, and how to design education that leads towards specific aims. According to the model thinking, the teacher is the one who sets the aims, but education of today can no longer neglect the students own thinking and action capacities, nor their own diverse values and the multicultural experiences these might be based on. How a person relates to the environment is a complex, value and context dependent phenomenon. For example students in Finland might learn to recognize and understand the signs of global warming and how politics and actions in the Global North can minimize climate change. At the same time students in Bolivia and other countries at risk in the Global South are already training how to act when the catastrophe is reality (recognition of urgent risks, first aid and evacuation strategies). The EE research can be a tool to discover how to make the EE methods timely and context related, but also how to combine perspectives from various corners of the world.
5. Small lifestyle changing steps are good for the environment, but the world needs big steps as well. Especially the climate change dilemma shows that the planet is in a very bad condition, and when more and more climate victims are displaced by the disasters the global inequality becomes particularly obvious. Small steps may bring immediate satisfaction and numb the consciousness. Yet, the environmental situation is urgent, and therefore, a total world order revision is necessary, which means big steps taken without delay. Critically focused EE research is a commitment that encourages educators, students and other stakeholders and thus inspires and supports big steps.

The largest obstacles for a sustainable world order lie on the economic and political levels. There is an interlinked quandary due to capitalist politics, a neoliberal lifestyle and free global trade. Yet, since the problems are huge, it is not fare to expect individuals to solve them merely through their own change of lifestyles. Too many extremely strong forces work to stop and hinder all efforts against climate change. Therefore, we need critical research focusing on how to progressively change the ‘top secret top level’ of the decision making and support sustainability by promoting and empowering grassroots to brave and creative actions.

In conclusion, today EE might have to strongly work for change by critically revealing what is going on in the corridors of the most powerful actors among politicians, business leaders and investors and how their actions influence other people’s social and individual lives. The reasons behind the world order is something everybody has a right to know. Power mobilization and networking from the bottom on local and global level simultaneously may be the only solution to our unsustainable dilemmas. EE research is connected to ontology and epistemology, to identity formation and value creation, but also to social order, global organization, the state of the world and the whole biosphere. It relates to power constellations, material circulation and thus the interlinkage between individuals, societies, corporations and the natural world on the entire planet. To tackle this huge area of interest, EE researchers have to work interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary in collaboration with non-academics searching for totally new education and research approaches, and by identifying new agents. By broadening the EE research approach and also involving actors from economy, political science, jurisprudence, history, etc., the understanding grows and may initiate new networking and facilitate new kinds of bottom up forces.

Suggested reading:

In my chapter Adult education in an unsustainable era (p. 194-209), I discuss global unsustainability dilemmas and social innovations. The new online book also contains many other interesting chapters: http://www.vapausjavastuu.fi/yhteistoiminta/julkaisut/adult-education-and-planetary-condition/

Richard Heede’s article from 2014, reveals that only 90 investor-owned corporations and government-run industries are responsible for 63 percent of the global greenhouse-gas emissions during the past 250 years: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-013-0986-y

Naomi Klein’s This changes everything: Capitalism vs the climate change (2014 in English, 2015 in Swedish and Finnish) is an urgent speech in the climate change discussion. The New York Times calls it ‘the most momentous and contentious environmental book since “Silent Spring.”

Lili-Ann Wolff is the leader of SIRENE’s research coordination group. She is associate professor in environmental education and university lecturer at the University of Helsinki.

Kuva: Lili-Ann Wolff