Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Education
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University of Bath DOCTOR OF EDUCATION (EDD) Are There Inherent Contradictions in Attempting to Implement Education for Sustainable Development in Schools? Vare, Paul Award date: 2014 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 Are There Inherent Contradictions in Attempting to Implement Education for Sustainable Development in Schools? Paul Malcolm Barnes Vare A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Education University of Bath Department of Education March 2014 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. 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Signed on behalf of the Department of Education: ................................... 1 Table of contents Dedication 6 Acknowledgements 6 Abstract 7 Abbreviations 8 Chapter One: The Research Problem and Purpose 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.1.1 Education and the banality of ecocide 9 1.1.2 About this thesis 9 1.1.3 What this thesis is not about 10 1.1.4 A summary of the argument 11 1.2 Background to the research 11 1.2.1 My personal involvement with the topic 11 1.2.2 The sustainable schools project evaluation 12 1.2.3 Earlier assignments 12 1.3 The research context 13 1.3.2 Policy background 13 1.3.2 The research setting 14 1.3.3 Scope of this research 14 1.4 The research question 14 1.5 Theoretical background 15 1.5.1 Activity Theory 15 1.5.2 ESD 1 and ESD2 15 1.6 Other key concepts 16 1.6.1 Global crises – wicked problems 16 1.6.2 Sustainable development (SD) 16 1.6.3 Environmental education and ESD 16 1.6.4 Sustainable schools 18 1.6.5 Contradictions, problems and dilemmas 19 1.6.6 Emergence 19 1.6.7 Neoliberalism 20 1.7 Outline of Thesis 21 Chapter Two: Literature Review 23 2.1 Sustainable development: blind-spots and pitfalls 23 2.1.1 Blind spot 1: Anthropocentricism 23 2.1.2 Blind spot 2: The economic pillar 24 2.1.3 Blind spot 3: The culture deficit 25 2.1.4 Pitfall 1: The ‗future‘ orientation 25 2.1.5 Pitfall 2: Language 26 2 2.1.6 Pitfall 3: Framing the concept 27 2.1.7 Pitfall 4: The demand for fresh thinking: autopoiesis and co-evolution 29 2.2 Education and sustainable development in England 30 2.2.1 Some (pre-)historic milestones 30 2.2.2 Mass education takes shape 30 2.2.3 EE/ESD in national education policy 31 2.2.4 Diversity or incoherence? 35 2.2.5 EE/ESD and ‗good education‘ 39 2.2.6 Gaps and mismatches 40 2.3 Cultural-historical Activity Theory 41 2.3.1 Early beginnings 41 2.3.2 Activity Theory and learning 42 2.3.3 Second and third generation activity theory 43 2.3.4 Activity Theory and EE/ESD 45 2.4 Looking ahead 46 Chapter Three: Methodology 47 3.1 Theoretical framework 47 3.1.1 Competing ontologies and epistemologies 47 3.1.2 An emerging framework 49 3.1.3 Methodology: Cultural-historical Activity Theory 50 3.2 Process and methods 53 3.2.1 Phase 1: Literature review and false starts 53 3.2.2 Phase 2: From change laboratory to qualitative interview 55 3.2.3 The principal research instrument: semi-structured question schedule 57 3.2.4 Additional data sources 58 3.2.5 Phase 3: Data analysis 59 3.2.6 Dilemma analysis 61 3.2.7 ‗Trustworthiness‘ 63 3.3 The Sample 65 3.4 Ethical considerations 67 3.4.1 An ethical framework 67 3.4.2 Rigour 67 3.4.3 Responsibility 68 3.4.4 Respect 69 3.5 Impact of the research on interviewees 69 Chapter Four: Analysis 71 4.1 Dilemmas within activity system elements 71 4.1.1 The activity system object 71 4.1.2 Primary object-based contradictions in the perspective document 73 4.1.3 Tools and mediating artefacts 75 4.1.4 Primary tool-based contradictions in the perspective document 78 4.1.5 Secondary contradictions between tools and object 80 3 4.1.6 Division of labour 80 4.1.7 Primary contradiction in division of labour 82 4.1.8 Rules and culture 82 4.1.9 Secondary contradiction between rules/culture and other activity 87 system elements 4.2 Tertiary contradictions 88 4.3 Quaternary contradictions 89 Chapter Five: Discussion 91 5.1 The extent to which contradictions are recognised and rationalised 91 5.1.1 Unawareness 91 5.1.2 Powerlessness 91 5.1.3 Accommodation 1: Denial 92 5.1.4 Accommodation 2: Satisficing 92 5.1.5 Expansive learning 92 5.2 Implications for sustainable schools 93 5.2.1 Some practical implications 93 5.2.2 Theoretical understandings of positions on sustainable schools 94 5.2.3 Reflections on policy 99 5.3 Reflections on methodology 101 5.3.1 Using the Activity Theory framework 101 5.3.2 Dilemma analysis 102 5.3.3 ESD 1, ESD 2 and Activity Theory: A contribution to theory 103 Chapter Six: Conclusion 105 6.1 Outputs of this thesis 105 6.1.1 Research findings 105 6.1.2 Research methods 106 6.2 Further research 107 6.2.1 Beyond the thesis 107 6.2.2 Investigating Position 4 ‗diffuse‘ and Position 7‗good‘ education 107 6.2.3 Handing over the tools 107 6.2.4 Theoretical underpinnings of ESD 1, 2 and 3 107 6.3 Closing thoughts 108 References 109 Appendices Appendix I: Dilemmas identified by Berlak & Berlak 123 Appendix II: Summary information on the schools involved in this study 125 Appendix III: Notes on the interviewees and their interviews 129 Appendix IV: Statements on EE/ESD in Hansard 1968-2005 133 4 Appendix V: Rejection e-mails from proposed research settings 147 Vi: From the initial school setting 147 Vii: From the university setting 147 Appendix VI: Question schedule 148 Appendix VII: Consent form 150 Appendix VIII: Website analysis 151 Appendix IX: Sample schools‘ Ofsted data 152 Appendix X: Codes 155 Appendix XI: Perspective document 157 Appendix XII: Perspective document feedback results 159 Appendix XIII: Contradictions summary table 160 List of Tables Table 2.1: European perspectives on environmental politics 24 Table 2.2: A continuum of political and ideological positions plus conceptions of EE/ESD 37 Table 2.3: Potential overlaps between Activity Theory and EE/ESD 45 Table 3.1: Data gathered for this research 56 Table 3.2: Components of this research that enhanced trustworthiness 64 Table 3.3 Location and impressions gained from the second interviews 64 Table 3.4: Attributes of research sample compared with national statistics 65 Table 3.5: Details of the interviewees and sample schools 66 Table 4.1: Purposes, description and indicators of a sustainable school 72 Table 5.1: Summary of indicative characteristics of different conceptions or ‗positions‘ 97 of a sustainable school List of Figures Fig.1.1: The continuous policy process 10 Fig. 2.1: Interlocking spheres 27 Fig. 2.2: Nested systems 27 Fig. 2.3: Daly‘s triangle 27 Fig. 2.4: Oxfam‘s doughnut 27 Fig. 2.5: Inter-, multi- and trans-disciplinary working in sustainable development 29 Fig. 2.6: The development of ESD in the UK and some international milestone events 36 Fig. 2.7: Vygotsky‘s first generation Activity Theory model 42 Fig. 2.8: The general structure of the animal form of activity 43 Fig. 2.9: The animal form of activity ‗ruptured‘ by the activities of higher order animals 44 Fig. 2.10: A second generation activity System showing the four subsystems 44 Fig. 2.11: Third generation CHAT - Activity systems interacting 45 Fig. 3.1: Four levels of contradictions within the human activity system 51 Fig. 3.2: Research Timeline 54 Fig. 5.1: Schools and sustainability – preferred positions 95 Fig. 5.2: Preferred positions of sustainable schools placed on a matrix of ‗increasing 98 range of EE/ESD activities‘ and ‗increasing readiness to confront dilemmas‘ 5 Dedication To Winifred Joyce Vare (1922-2009) There you go Mum, I said I‘d do it. Thanks for everything. God bless. Acknowledgments If there‘s one lesson that runs through this thesis, it‘s that every achievement is a joint effort; I did not complete this work alone.