Children, Youth and Environments
Vol 13, No.1 (Spring 2003)
ISSN 1546-2250

Retrospective

Environmental Education Research: A Decade Later- An Update of My Review of Alternative Paradigms in Environmental Education Research

Louise Chawla
Whitney Young College
Kentucky State University

In rereading my review of this 1993 publication, I was struck by the number of ways in which this collection dated from “the time before” many critical contemporary features of environmental education: the time before widespread access to personal computers and environmental information on the internet; the time before education for sustainability came to play a major role in environmental education planning and debates; the time before the earth’s population passed the six billion mark and human-induced global change became a feature story even in small town newspapers. In the decade since 1993, the urgency of achieving William Stapp’s goals for environmental education- of producing a knowledgeable, aware citizenry who is motivated to work toward the solution of environmental problems- has intensified, while by all evidence, the opportunities for children to know and care for the environment through community-based projects, field trips, and informal exploration of their neighborhoods appears to be steadily eroding under the pressure of tightening school budgets, the tyranny of standards-driven testing and teaching, sprawl, and parents’ fears of letting their children range freely. In this context, debates about one research paradigm or the other appear academic in a way that now appears to me out of touch with the contemporary reality of our need to know as much as we can about how to achieve Stapp’s goal by every research means and method possible. To the extent that the collection clarified the definition and use of different research approaches, it remains useful. To the extent that some contributions advocated one approach to the exclusion of others, they appear unrealistic.

In this context, John Disinger’s observation in 1993 rings as true as ever: that most research on environmental education focuses on work in schools, but there is an inherent conflict between the goals of environmental education and formal education. As Stapp defines environmental education, its purpose is to inform and motivate people to take action to solve environmental problems. In the United States, under pressure from conservative legislators and spokespeople for conservative foundations, environmental educators have had to step back from this goal and avow that they are not advocacy oriented: their goal is only to prepare students to make informed decisions, not to advocate any decisions or actions. This emphasis on knowing and thinking versus acting is evident in the important research review by Mark Rickinson that was published as a special monograph of the journal Environmental Education Research in August 2001. The great majority of studies that he reviewed from around the world investigated young people’s environmental knowledge and attitudes, in contrast to only a few which evaluated programs designed to engage young people in the critical investigation of environmental issues and taking action. As I did in 1993, I still recommend a follow-up publication by the North American Association for Environmental Education which will demonstrate how to assemble a variety of complementary research methods to understand how to effectively and democratically motivate people to not only understand problems, but also take action to address them.


Louise Chawla holds degrees in developmental psychology and environmental psychology, and is the international coordinator of UNESCO’s Growing Up in Cities project. She is a professor at Whitney Young College, an interdisciplinary honors program at Kentucky State University. Dr. Chawla also serves as an adjunct professor in the doctoral program in Environmental Studies at Antioch New England Graduate School in New Hampshire.


Reference

Rickinson, Mark (2001). Special issue on "Learners and Learning in Environmental Education: A Critical Review of the Evidence," Environmental Education Research 7(3).