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Education Sciences
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Ecocentric Education
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Ecocentric Education

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 47744

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Helen Kopnina

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. International Business, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521 EN Den Haag, The Netherlands
2. Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, NE18ST Newcastle upon Tyne CCE1, UK
Interests: sustainability; sustainable business; environmental education

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This call for papers seeks articles with focus on ecological values in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD). Ecocentric education includes conservation (e.g., Norris and Jacobson 1998; Goodall 2015), education for deep ecology (e.g., LaChapelle 1991; Glasser 2011), post-humanist education (e.g., Bonnett 2013), animal rights (e.g., Ortiz 2015; Kopnina and Cherniak 2016), and animal welfare education (e.g., Gorski 2009). This education focuses on unity between environmental ethics and sustainability (Kopnina 2011, 2012, 2014a, 2014b, 2016, Kopnina and Meijers 2014; Kopnina and Gjerris 2015).

The articles in this special issue can then address the following questions: What is the prevalence and characteristics of ecocentric education? Does EE/ESD positively influence environmental knowledge and attitudes in school children and help develop competencies and skills necessary for transition to a sustainable society in students of higher education? What are the most effective forms of EE/ESD taking environmental sustainability as an ultimate goal? How can context-specific studies of EE/ESD contribute to the scholarship of social change that contributes to environmental sustainability?

The expected societal and economic consequences of research reported in the articles for this Special Issue will be development, stimulation, maintenance and monitoring of successful programs and their adaptation in the wider international context. Understanding how complex variables such as national and institutional context, ideology and ethics (e.g., ecocentric orientation) and pedagogical skills (e.g., didactic qualities) can be supported to ensure a sustainable future, represents a high-reward objective. Research reported in the articles needs to focus on nationally contextualized studies on the nexus of education, environment, and sustainable future by examining how a wide range of educational programs have influenced the students’ worldview and raised particular moral concerns in relation to the environment and our common future.

Helen Kopnina
Guest Editor

Bibliography

  1. Norris, K.S.; Jacobson, S.K. Content analysis of tropical conservation education programs: Elements of success. Environ. Educ. 1998, 30, 38–44.
  2. Glasser, H. Learning Our Way to a Sustainable and Desirable World: Ideas Inspired by Arne Naess and Deep Ecology. In Higher Education and the Challenge of Sustainability: Problematics, Promisei, and Practice; Corcoran, P.B., Wals, A.E.J., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2004; pp. 131–148.
  3. LaChapelle, D. Educating for Deep Ecology. Exp. Educ. 1991, 14, 18–22.
  4. Bonnett, M. Sustainable development, environmental education, and the significance of being in place. J. 2013, 24, 250–271.
  5. Kopnina, H.; Cherniak, B. Neoliberalism and Justice in Education for Sustainable Development: A call for inclusive pluralism. Educ. Res. 2016, 22, 827–841.
  6. Ortiz, A. Humane Liberation: Incorporating Animal Rights into Critical Pedagogy. Connect. 2015, 32, 8–30.
  7. Gorski, P.C. Critical Ties: The Animal Rights Awakening of a Social Justice Educator. Available online: http://www.edchange.org/publications/animal-rights-social-justice.pdf (accessed on 11 June 2017).
  8. Kopnina, H. Of Big Hegemonies and Little Tigers: Ecocentrism and Environmental Justice. Special Issue “On the politics of policy-making for education for sustainable development”. Environ. Educ. 2016, 47, 132–150.
  9. Kopnina, H. Future Scenarios and Environmental Education. Environ. Educ. 2014a, 45, 217–231.
  10. Kopnina, H. Revisiting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): Examining anthropocentric bias through the transition of environmental education to ESD. Dev. 2014b, 22, 73–83.
  11. Kopnina, H. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): The way from ‘environment’ in environmental education? Educ. Res. 2012, 18, 699–717.
  12. Kopnina, H. Qualitative Revision of the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale for children. J. Environ. Res. 2011, 5, 1025–1034.
  13. Kopnina, H.; Gjerris, M. Are some animals more equal than others? Animal Rights and Deep Ecology in environmental education. J. Environ. Educ. 2015, 20, 109–123.
  14. Kopnina, H.; Meijers, F. Education for sustainable development (ESD): Exploring theoretical and practical challenges. J. Sustain. High. Educ. 2014, 15, 188–207.

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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6 pages, 174 KiB  
Editorial
Ecocentric Education: Introduction to a Special Collection of Essays
by Helen Kopnina
Educ. Sci. 2020, 10(9), 217; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10090217 - 21 Aug 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4592
Abstract
This Special Issue “Ecocentric education” contains articles focused on ecological values in environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)

Research

Jump to: Editorial, Review, Other

11 pages, 2920 KiB  
Article
Multi-Timescale Education Program for Temporal Expansion in Ecocentric Education: Using Fixed-Point Time-Lapse Images for Phenology Observation
by Kazuhiko W. Nakamura, Akio Fujiwara, Hill Hiroki Kobayashi and Kaoru Saito
Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(3), 190; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9030190 - 19 Jul 2019
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3647
Abstract
Ecocentric education programs should include a method for the in-depth understanding of multi-scale ecological time concepts. To accomplish this, the common restriction that ecocentric education should pertain only to realistic nature may have to be removed. The purpose of this research was to [...] Read more.
Ecocentric education programs should include a method for the in-depth understanding of multi-scale ecological time concepts. To accomplish this, the common restriction that ecocentric education should pertain only to realistic nature may have to be removed. The purpose of this research was to confirm the validity of a program featuring phenology observation, employing fixed-point time-lapse images as climate change learning, and to obtain suggestions on the influence of the program on the multi-timescale concepts of the learners. An observation sheet listing images of cherry flowering from 16 April to 15 March each year from 1996 to 2017 was created, and the 50-min educational program using the observation sheet was conducted with 189 third year junior high school students. The tendencies among students’ answers to the two questions before and after the program suggest that the program contributed to the students acquiring the hundreds-year timescale concept based on the short-term timescale concept of dynamic nature. The contribution of this research is to visualize long-term and multi-scale ecological time concepts. By combining long-term time-lapse images with everyday nature experiences, the possibility of expanding such emotions as wonder and attachment to nature towards a long-term ecological timescale is achieved. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)
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15 pages, 243 KiB  
Article
Ecophilosophical Principles for an Ecocentric Environmental Education
by David Molina-Motos
Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(1), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9010037 - 13 Feb 2019
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 7072
Abstract
As environmental slogans have been permeating the social imaginary and permeating the conceptual and axiological dimensions of the different educational currents, Environmental Education has been prompted to define its own specific nature in contrast to the supposedly more integrative educational movements. In contrast [...] Read more.
As environmental slogans have been permeating the social imaginary and permeating the conceptual and axiological dimensions of the different educational currents, Environmental Education has been prompted to define its own specific nature in contrast to the supposedly more integrative educational movements. In contrast to the historical or meta-theoretical strategies of specification and foundation of environmental education, we propose the establishment of some principles derived from genuinely ecological and ecocentric environmental philosophies; the ecophilosophies. This work reviews—in a conciliatory framework and with a pedagogical interest in mind—the most significant contributions of land ethics, deep ecology, social ecology, ecofeminism and the change of paradigm ecologies. The result is a set of facets, key categories and features that offer an integrated and synoptic view of how Ecocentric Environmental Education (EEE) could be based on ecophilosophical principles. In addition, the contrasting features that define those non-ecocentric perspectives of Environmental Education are proposed, and a deconstructive transition of these in alliance with another reconstructive ecophilosophical feature is suggested as the central intention of the Environmental Education methodology. Finally, the value of the theoretical proposal is defended as a foundation and framework for future pedagogical specifications and methodological developments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)
18 pages, 237 KiB  
Article
Education for Wonder
by Haydn Washington
Educ. Sci. 2018, 8(3), 125; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8030125 - 21 Aug 2018
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 7207
Abstract
This article argues that rejuvenating a sense of wonder towards nature is essential to ecocentric education and to finding a sustainable future. It examines the barriers that block education for wonder and looks at the issues around education for wonder in the home, [...] Read more.
This article argues that rejuvenating a sense of wonder towards nature is essential to ecocentric education and to finding a sustainable future. It examines the barriers that block education for wonder and looks at the issues around education for wonder in the home, at school, at university, and in the community in general. It considers the scale of a natural area in terms of wonder education, and ways of teaching wonder in school that increase wonder rather than isolate the student from nature. It also considers the issue of an “education for sustainable development” influenced by anthropocentrism, in contrast to an environmental education where some scholars accept the intrinsic value of nature. It discusses the need to balance “facts” in education with ethics. The article concludes by summarizing the steps needed to re-educate for wonder. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)

Review

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11 pages, 261 KiB  
Review
The Contested Space of Animals in Education: A Response to the “Animal Turn” in Education for Sustainable Development
by Helena Pedersen
Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(3), 211; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9030211 - 8 Aug 2019
Cited by 22 | Viewed by 5287
Abstract
The so-called “animal turn”, having been on the agenda for around 15 years in the humanities and social sciences, is gaining force also in the educational sciences, typically with an orientation toward posthumanist ontologies. One particular space where educational “more-than-human” relations are debated [...] Read more.
The so-called “animal turn”, having been on the agenda for around 15 years in the humanities and social sciences, is gaining force also in the educational sciences, typically with an orientation toward posthumanist ontologies. One particular space where educational “more-than-human” relations are debated is the field of education for sustainable development (ESD). This paper responds to two recent contributions to this debate, both positioned within ESD frameworks. The purpose of this response is two-fold: First, to give a critical account of the knowledge claims of the two articles, their overlaps and divergences, as well as their implications for pedagogical practice and their potential consequences for the position of animals in education and in society at large. The meaning and usefulness of analytic tools such as “critical pluralism” and “immanent critique” in relation to animals in education is discussed, as well as whose realities are represented in ESD, revealing contested spaces of teaching and learning manifested through an “enlightened distance” to anthropocentrism in-between compliance and change. The second purpose is to sketch a foundation of reflective practice for critical animal pedagogies, offering a critical theory-based form of resistance against recent posthumanist configurations of the “animal question” in education and beyond. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)
20 pages, 256 KiB  
Review
Ecological Citizenship Education and the Consumption of Animal Subjectivity
by Reingard Spannring
Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(1), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9010041 - 16 Feb 2019
Cited by 16 | Viewed by 6637
Abstract
The unfolding of the ecological disaster has led authors to reconsider the position of the human subject and his/her relationship with the earth. One entry point is the concept of ecological citizenship, which emphasizes responsibility, community, and care. However, the discourse of ecological [...] Read more.
The unfolding of the ecological disaster has led authors to reconsider the position of the human subject and his/her relationship with the earth. One entry point is the concept of ecological citizenship, which emphasizes responsibility, community, and care. However, the discourse of ecological citizenship often reduces the human subject to a critical consumer-citizen and citizenship education to the production of such a subject. The position outlined in this paper provides a more fundamental critique of consumption as a way of being in and relating to the world. In particular, it foregrounds objectification, commodification, and its impacts on human and nonhuman subjectivity and the possibility of care within a multi-species community. The paper brings animal-sensitive work in environmental education research and political theory into dialogue with a more general critique of culture and pedagogy in consumer society. From this perspective, ecological citizenship education seeks to liberate human and nonhuman beings from predetermined behavioral results and functions, and opens the time and space for the subjectification of human and nonhuman citizens within the complex dynamics of a multi-species community. With this proposition, the paper contributes to an ecocentric understanding of ecological citizenship education that builds on the continuity of life and subjective experience. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)

Other

8 pages, 877 KiB  
Brief Report
Refocusing Environmental Education in the Early Years: A Brief Introduction to a Pedagogy for Connection
by Alexia Barrable
Educ. Sci. 2019, 9(1), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci9010061 - 19 Mar 2019
Cited by 28 | Viewed by 12030
Abstract
The aim of this article is to introduce an effective, evidence-informed, and developmentally appropriate framework of practice for Environmental Education (EE) in the early years, with the ultimate goal being to achieve environmental sustainability. Initially, the author will briefly examine the current state [...] Read more.
The aim of this article is to introduce an effective, evidence-informed, and developmentally appropriate framework of practice for Environmental Education (EE) in the early years, with the ultimate goal being to achieve environmental sustainability. Initially, the author will briefly examine the current state of EE in the early years, contextualising it within a gradual shift from EE to the more encompassing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The article then proposes that there is a need for a refocusing of EE in the early years that has as a central goal—the promotion of nature connectedness, benefiting both the next generation of learners, as well as our planet. A four-point draft of a pedagogy for connection will be outlined that comprises sustained contact, engagement with nature’s beauty, cultivation of compassion towards non-human nature, and mindfulness. The latest empirical research from ecopsychology and developmental psychology will be used throughout in order to synthesise this brief initial draft of a pedagogy for connection. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecocentric Education)
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