Environmental education : a strategy for primary teacher education
- Authors: Wagiet, Razeena
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1512 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003394
- Description: This research focuses on environmental education in initial teacher education, and is grounded in three interlinked and widely recognised assumptions. First, that education for sustainable living can assist in resolving some environmental problems that are contributing to the environmental crises of sustainability currently facing South Africa and the rest of the world. Second, that education for sustainable living can assist in the establishment of a new environmental ethic that will foster a sustainable way of living. Third, that teacher education is a vital process for the attainment of both. These assumptions inform the aim of this research, which is to explore the potential for the implementation of education for sustainable living, and to identify a strategy for this, for initial teacher education, for senior primary school student teachers in the Western Cape. The strategy is derived following the grounded theory approach, developed through the case study method. In the process of identifying the strategy, this study establishes that there are challenges at macro, meso and micro levels that are obstructing the changes necessary for education for sustainable living. Change theory provides the basis for explaining these shortcomings, by helping to identify the barriers that might obstruct the realisation of the changes that are necessary for education for sustainable living. These challenges need to be perceived in the light of overcoming three sets of barriers in the way of the potential implementation of education for sustainable living in teacher education. First are those that can be ascribed to the formal education system that, while clinging to Western, Eurocentric values on the one hand, bave also failed to secure a policy for environmental education on the other. Second are the barriers ascribed to the teacher educators themselves, with the whole notion of their powerlessness at its core. Finally, there are the logistical barriers, which encompass, for example, time and financial constraints. With these barriers as a backdrop, to facilitate the incorporation of environmental education into initial teacher education, the study identifies a need for the development of a strategy to secure that education for sustainable living assumes its rightful place in the curriculum for initial teacher education. This framework emerges from the theory grounded in the interviewees' responses during the research, and from the theory grounded in the literature. Central to this framework is for education for sustainable living to contribute to the realisation of real change, change that would further the transformation of our conflict-riddled and inequitable society towards a more democratic and just one. This thesis demonstrates that the realisation of the changes necessary for education for sustainable living demand a reconstruction of current teacher education in order to secure and to sustain an appropriate and sound education ethic to form the basis of a trans formative teacher education curriculum for sustainable living within initial teacher education. Except formal policy, but central to overcoming these barriers, is the need for professional development programmes for teacher educators. A strategy in this regard, is outlined.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Wagiet, Razeena
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1512 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003394
- Description: This research focuses on environmental education in initial teacher education, and is grounded in three interlinked and widely recognised assumptions. First, that education for sustainable living can assist in resolving some environmental problems that are contributing to the environmental crises of sustainability currently facing South Africa and the rest of the world. Second, that education for sustainable living can assist in the establishment of a new environmental ethic that will foster a sustainable way of living. Third, that teacher education is a vital process for the attainment of both. These assumptions inform the aim of this research, which is to explore the potential for the implementation of education for sustainable living, and to identify a strategy for this, for initial teacher education, for senior primary school student teachers in the Western Cape. The strategy is derived following the grounded theory approach, developed through the case study method. In the process of identifying the strategy, this study establishes that there are challenges at macro, meso and micro levels that are obstructing the changes necessary for education for sustainable living. Change theory provides the basis for explaining these shortcomings, by helping to identify the barriers that might obstruct the realisation of the changes that are necessary for education for sustainable living. These challenges need to be perceived in the light of overcoming three sets of barriers in the way of the potential implementation of education for sustainable living in teacher education. First are those that can be ascribed to the formal education system that, while clinging to Western, Eurocentric values on the one hand, bave also failed to secure a policy for environmental education on the other. Second are the barriers ascribed to the teacher educators themselves, with the whole notion of their powerlessness at its core. Finally, there are the logistical barriers, which encompass, for example, time and financial constraints. With these barriers as a backdrop, to facilitate the incorporation of environmental education into initial teacher education, the study identifies a need for the development of a strategy to secure that education for sustainable living assumes its rightful place in the curriculum for initial teacher education. This framework emerges from the theory grounded in the interviewees' responses during the research, and from the theory grounded in the literature. Central to this framework is for education for sustainable living to contribute to the realisation of real change, change that would further the transformation of our conflict-riddled and inequitable society towards a more democratic and just one. This thesis demonstrates that the realisation of the changes necessary for education for sustainable living demand a reconstruction of current teacher education in order to secure and to sustain an appropriate and sound education ethic to form the basis of a trans formative teacher education curriculum for sustainable living within initial teacher education. Except formal policy, but central to overcoming these barriers, is the need for professional development programmes for teacher educators. A strategy in this regard, is outlined.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
Share-net: a case study of environmental education resource material development in a risk society
- Authors: Taylor, Robert James
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Environmental education Environmental education -- South Africa Environmental education -- Activity programs -- South Africa Environmental education -- South Africa -- Information resources
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1765 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003650
- Description: This narrative study reviews the development of Share-Net, an informal resource materials network, located within the developing environmental education activities of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa. Historical shaping factors within the Society are discussed and changing views on conservation, environmental education and research are described. Rather than the research process being a utilitarian and outside endeavour for clarifying and monitoring, the research orientation of this study is one of grounded activity within and integrally part of processes of change. Within a developing story of resource materials and workshops, themes are traced and emergent tensions are critically reviewed. Teacher workshops from 1981 until 1995 are analysed and developing orientations are described. Within this review changes are evident from an orientation of 'us' informing 'them' to joint, collaborative endeavours within the development and use of resource materials. The study reviews and illuminates the Share-Net project around questions of project orientation and management and this is done through the narration of case studies. Principles and patterns emerging within these are examined to guide future resource development projects. Popularist notions of networking and structural functionalist notions of social change are also examined. Grand, modernist strategies designed to cause change in others are questioned and the role of small-scale nodes of resource material activity cooperating within an open network are clarified as useful alternatives. Local resourcing centres such as these have proved useful in supporting teachers in the development, use and adaptation of resource materials. The study also examines income and expenditure of the Share-Net project since 1988 to review economic sustainability. A case is made for sustaining the project conceptually and financially through the sales of products and services rather than through external donor sources. Finally the study raises questions and challenges within the project and proposes guiding frameworks for future review, in action, as the story continues.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Taylor, Robert James
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Environmental education Environmental education -- South Africa Environmental education -- Activity programs -- South Africa Environmental education -- South Africa -- Information resources
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1765 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003650
- Description: This narrative study reviews the development of Share-Net, an informal resource materials network, located within the developing environmental education activities of the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa. Historical shaping factors within the Society are discussed and changing views on conservation, environmental education and research are described. Rather than the research process being a utilitarian and outside endeavour for clarifying and monitoring, the research orientation of this study is one of grounded activity within and integrally part of processes of change. Within a developing story of resource materials and workshops, themes are traced and emergent tensions are critically reviewed. Teacher workshops from 1981 until 1995 are analysed and developing orientations are described. Within this review changes are evident from an orientation of 'us' informing 'them' to joint, collaborative endeavours within the development and use of resource materials. The study reviews and illuminates the Share-Net project around questions of project orientation and management and this is done through the narration of case studies. Principles and patterns emerging within these are examined to guide future resource development projects. Popularist notions of networking and structural functionalist notions of social change are also examined. Grand, modernist strategies designed to cause change in others are questioned and the role of small-scale nodes of resource material activity cooperating within an open network are clarified as useful alternatives. Local resourcing centres such as these have proved useful in supporting teachers in the development, use and adaptation of resource materials. The study also examines income and expenditure of the Share-Net project since 1988 to review economic sustainability. A case is made for sustaining the project conceptually and financially through the sales of products and services rather than through external donor sources. Finally the study raises questions and challenges within the project and proposes guiding frameworks for future review, in action, as the story continues.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
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