<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">This study aims to find higher education students’ perceptions about environmental issues and how the perceptions are related to perceptions of media coverage. This study investigates higher education students’ perceptions of the seriousness of environmental issues and their relation to perceptions of media coverage. Higher education students perceived a global problem, lack of clean water, as most serious environmental problem. Media has had an effect on students’ perceptions on environmental issues: when students perceived the problem as serious they also perceived the information in media concerning it appropriate. Students perceived that the media underestimate and obscure some environmental problems such as biological diversity and global warming. It was concluded that higher education educators need more knowledge of students’, future decision makers’ concerns and perceptions about environmental issues to develop more effective teaching practices in higher education. Through education environmental issues literacy, which is a precursor for engaged protection of the environment, can be fostered. This study offers some insights into higher education students’ perceptions of the media’s role in environmental issues.</abstract>

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Environmental Issues and Media Coverage

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Teachers who are specialized in environmental education (environmental education school coordinators<xref ref-type="fn" rid="fn1_w2aab2b8b6b1b7b1ab1aaAa">1</xref>) can play an important role in empowering students to shape a sustainable future. In this study, the authors examined a group of Czech environmental education school coordinators. The authors aimed to clarify how they interpret their role at their respective schools, how they perceive their self-efficacy, and what they observe as benefits and barriers to their work as a coordinator. They conducted a qualitative study with focus groups and completed individual in-depth interviews with the coordinators. The results suggest that the coordinators view their work as a mission. The ultimate goal of this mission is to change the children’s behavior to make it more pro-environmental, and, at the same time, to establish this effort as a commitment of the whole school. The authors identified different forms of mission, described development in time and connected them with the perceived self-efficacy of the coordinators.</abstract>

Do Environmental Education School Coordinators Have a Mission?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">As educators at a faculty of education, the authors found that teacher candidates (TCs) invariably purchased new materials whenever they had an assignment requiring some form of construction activity. They were concerned about this learned, consumer behavior; lessons of moderation in using the Earth’s resources are important elements of sustainability education. Humans are consumers in both a natural and an anthropological sense, but are capable of sustainable consumerism. Therefore, the authors wanted to promote moderation/sustainable consumerism through an educational intervention in their teacher-education classes. Inspired by Selby’s (2011) third proposition for education for sustainable contraction, they revised an existing art/science integration project where constructions would be created from recycled and/or natural materials. The TCs’ constructions, process work, and Reflection papers provided insight into their creative thinking, and learning, regarding sustainable consumerism.</abstract>

“I’m Just Going to Buy That!”: Confronting Consumerism in Teacher Education

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Though work in the area of <italic>photovoice</italic> (in which students take photos to structure a dialogue that can serve to advance social action as the community responds to the participants’ perspectives and locates them in solution-generation) has been conducted in science education research to focus on learner’s experiences, little has been done to showcase community members’ perspectives resulting from the photovoice experience—though it is here that photovoice holds the most potential to effect positive change locally. The research presented here, conducted during a study abroad course taught in Costa Rica, seeks to understand the ways in which the experience of photovoice stimulated an understanding of and connection to local sustainability issues and to those for whom these issues are most pressing. The study involves a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic exchange of ideas regarding sustainable crop development between study abroad students and community members in a rural mountain town in Costa Rica. Results indicated that the experience of photovoice broadened and enriched all participants’ understanding of environmental sustainability—university students <italic>and</italic> local residents—as well as inspired critique of socio-scientific issues of personal relevance and impact. Photovoice is thus presented as a rich and engaging instructional technique that also serves as a community participation tool with potential for connecting students and communities from distinct cultures and languages.</abstract>

Using Photovoice to Explore Environmental Sustainability Across Languages and Cultures

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Is future teachers’ contact with the physical environment significant enough for them to choose to educate their students about sustainability? These digital natives stand out from previous generations by their way of living. The research based on grounded theory was aimed at understanding future teachers’ relationships with physical and technological environments. The analysis of interviews, with Moncton and Montreal teacher education students, reveals that future teachers maintain a sporadic relation to the natural environment. They are still conscious that nature provides them calmness, rejuvenation and beauty. The Internet offers them distraction, social affiliation, personalized information, and facilitates their tasks and contact with the World. Future teachers are critical and cautious in their use of ICT but are however not much involved in the environmental cause. The research emphasizes the need to work on future teachers’ relationship to the physical environment with outdoor activities to get to know, appreciate, analyze and improve the natural and urban environments.</abstract>

Perceived Affordances, Tensions, and Complementarities in the Physical and Digital Environments Frequented by Future Teachers

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Integral and deep pedagogical content knowledge can support future primary teachers’ ability to follow ideas of education for sustainability in science class. Initial teacher education provides opportunity to learn what and how to teach but still the practical experiences of teaching can reveal uneven development of student teachers’ professionality. The aim of the study is to describe how future primary teachers reflect on their experiences about science teaching and what components of science pedagogical content knowledge they see as meaningful. A questionnaire and interviews were used. The results reveal the deep impact of teaching practice on students’ understanding of the role of a teacher in supporting pupils’ acquisition of scientific skills. The experiences described are related more to teaching and learning in general and less with science-specific factors. Nevertheless, students described changes in mission e.g. how they learned about their role through pupils’ achievements and thinking about science. Changes in professional identity were mentioned rarely but this could point to an underestimated resource issue for teacher education. Positive changes in professional identity may help students to decide to choose more integral strategies in science teaching and thus promote more sustainability oriented teaching.</abstract>

Primary Science Teaching – Is it Integral and Deep Experience For Students?

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Sustainability is one of the core challenges for education in modern times, particularly concerning cultural heritage. The study evaluates, from a German point of view, how Latvians outside of Latvia after World War II kept their cultural heritage alive by educational concepts, which can be characterized as early roots of modern sustainable education. The evaluation focus concerns a group of Latvians in Germany associated with the Latvian high school in Muenster (MLG). The study concerns the 25 years from 1957 (school relocation to Muenster) until 1982 (founding of the organization “Latvian Center of Muenster e.V.” (LCM), and combines interviews and literature research. It underlines that environmental, social and heritage education can be seen as core elements of Latvian education abroad. Therefore, the study will not present a concise history of the Latvian high school in Muenster (MLG), which has already been done (Sprogis, 2009), but will concisely evaluate the educational concepts of this particular period as a model, how Latvians maintained their heritage in a sustainable way.</abstract>

Sustainability by Education: How Latvian Heritage was Kept Alive in German Exile

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Nowadays, education for sustainable development starts covering wider and wider spheres of interest and human activity. Out of the three main spheres of interest, such as environmental, economic, and socio-cultural, the first two mentioned here seem to be given more attention than the sphere of socio-cultural activity. In this respect, the aim of the present paper is to redirect the concern of administrators, researchers and educators preoccupied with sustainability to issues such as equal opportunity, tolerance, respect, and especially foreign language education, being component parts of the socio-cultural sphere. Undoubtedly, competence in the socio-linguistic field becomes the decisive element in negotiations and international contacts which require from the language user to be tactful and tolerant. Since sustainability is not a local issue, all sustainability related problems ought to be discussed on the macro scale, which requires an internationally shared means of communication such as language. Although no name of any language appears in the paper, it becomes evident that the attention is directed towards English as an internationally recognized language or, if necessary, any other language which might serve as a means of communication on the macro scale.In the course of discussion, both the needs and limitations appearing in the process of education for sustainable development are presented and supported by opinions and examples. The paper ends in conclusions directly related to real-life situations, and gives implications to be utilized in the educational process directed at sustainable development.</abstract>

Language Education for Sustainable Development

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">In a shrinking world where events across the globe become relevant for the lives of masses of people regardless of the distances that divide them, some serious issues have arisen which have particular significance for education policies and practice. Too many children are growing up against a backdrop of polarised views and attitudes which is a cause for concern in many countries where societies are characterized by racial, cultural and religious diversity.This article explores some critical concepts that are pertinent to contemporary Australia and uses research findings and content analysis to problematize the issue. It argues that there is clear evidence that the health and wellbeing of children and young people is being affected by exposure to prejudicial attitudes which can be linked to the diversity that has become a sustaining feature of many contemporary societies and it has had serious consequences for their identity and sense of belonging. It proposes that one way of addressing these issues is through education that addresses the relational dimension of students’ lives which is expressed through their connectedness to all others, that is, their spiritual natures. Finally, it identifies some features of such an educational system.</abstract>

The Spiritual Dimension of Education – Addressing Issues of Identity and Belonging

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">There is much research and educational practices at all levels of education on how to deal with promoting acceptance and understanding between different cultures. A cultural study forms an important part of shaping intercultural understanding. <italic>The aim</italic> of the research is to analyze an innovative way of incorporating cultural studies in teacher education program from the perspective of encouraging multinational students to reveal common values within diverse manifestations of different cultures. The present article describes a qualitative study of multinational students’ experiences in international project related to the learning about Nordic and Baltic cultural traditions. In the conclusion of the article, the efficiency of the structure of content and the process of in-depth cultural studies are analyzed. The discussion contains problems for further research of this topic.</abstract>

In-depth Cultural Studies in Multicultural Group

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The author takes a retrospective look at his book <italic>Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach</italic>, first published in 1997, and now available to readers, open access, via the European Wergeland Centre website (<ext-link ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="http://www.theewc.org/Content/Library/Research-Development/Literature/Introducing-Religious-Education-an-Interpretive-Approach">http://www.theewc.org/Content/Library/Research-Development/Literature/Introducing-Religious-Education-an-Interpretive-Approach</ext-link>). He tells a personal story of teaching, broadcasting and research, moving from the design of a methodology for studying the religions of minority groups in Britain to identifying the main concepts used for teaching about religions to children and young people in an engaging way, which relates to their own personal and social experience. The article, explains the key concept of <italic>representation</italic> – looking, for example, at how religions are often represented in ways that play down their internal diversity. Next the concept of <italic>interpretation</italic> is considered, emphasising the activity through which learners can compare and contrast the use of language by religious believers with their own nearest equivalent language uses, in trying, with sensitivity, to get as close as possible to their meanings. Finally, the process of <italic>reflexivity</italic> is explained; this gives learners an opportunity for three activities – to re-assess their understanding of their own world view (called <italic>edification</italic> in the interpretive approach), to make a distanced critique of beliefs and ideas they have studied, and to evaluate the methods that they have been using to learn about the religious meanings of others. Finally the author illustrates how the key concepts from the interpretive approach have been adapted for use in field research studies on teaching and learning about religions.</abstract>

A Retrospective Introduction to Religious Education: An Interpretive Approach

AHEAD OF PRINT

Volume 14 (2023): Issue 2 (December 2023)

Volume 14 (2023): Issue 1 (June 2023)

Volume 13 (2022): Issue 2 (December 2022)

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Volume 12 (2021): Issue 2 (December 2021)

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Volume 11 (2020): Issue 2 (December 2020)

Volume 11 (2020): Issue 1 (June 2020)

Volume 10 (2019): Issue 2 (December 2019)

Volume 10 (2019): Issue 1 (June 2019)

Volume 9 (2018): Issue 2 (December 2018)

Volume 9 (2018): Issue 1 (June 2018)

Volume 8 (2017): Issue 2 (December 2017)

Volume 8 (2017): Issue 1 (June 2017)

Volume 7 (2016): Issue 2 (December 2016)

Volume 7 (2016): Issue 1 (December 2016)

Volume 6 (2015): Issue 1 (December 2015)

Volume 5 (2014): Issue 1 (December 2014)

Volume 3 (2012): Issue 2012 (December 2012)

Volume 2 (2011): Issue 2011 (December 2011)

Volume 1 (2010): Issue 2 (December 2010)

Volume 1 (2010): Issue 1 (June 2010)

Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education

 Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education is an international, double blind peer-reviewed journal that provides a forum for the examination of policies, theories and practices related to discourse and communication for sustainable education. Since contemporary discourse study has extended its field to the study of multifaceted contexts of discourse, it is able to be integrated in the broader study of the phenomena of communication in relation to sustainable education. The journal Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education publishes research articles and reviews. Its diversity is apparent in the variety of its theories, methods and approaches, thus avoiding the frequent limitation to one school, approach, academic branch. The only criteria will be the quality and the originality of its articles. The journal Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education welcomes articles which explore inspirational ideas in sustainable education, are written in innovative ways or are presented in experimental ways. It does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 