Environment in the curriculum: representation and development in the Scottish physical and social sciences

Abstract

Scottish official curricular texts, including guidelines and examination papers, are analysed for representations of ‘self and the environment’. The environment is represented as fragmented when it is the curricular focus and is only ‘whole’ when it is background context; ‘human–environment relations’ are dualized; and the value of ‘environment’ lies dominantly in its use by humans (although there is a much less clear possibility that it might have inherent value). These representations lend themselves to the kinds of dominant and abusive relationships with environment that the same official curricular text hopes to counter. The assumed need for publicly shared understandings may drive this representation, through processes in which students understand environment by its ‘parts’, by generalized models of relationship, as being shallowly causal and progressively ‘other’, and not as contingent, local, or privately experienced. The desire for such a public world‐view may in turn be driven by historical efforts to use education to tackle social inequality. The purpose of undertaking such a detailed analysis is to create space for progressive and incremental curricular development rather than for revolutionary revision.

Keywords:

• assessment
• curriculum
• discourse analysis
• environmental education
• examinations
• tests

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank various anonymous referees, George Meldrum, Morwenna Griffiths, Pamela Munn, and Justin Kenrick for their contributions to this project. Also the Scottish Qualifications Authority for permission to reproduce figure 1.

Notes

1. This study is part of a wider project (Ross and Munn 2007) and will focus largely on science, geography, and the related sections of Environmental Studies.

2. I needed to ask to see the examiner marking‐instructions but all the rest of the source text is public domain.

3. Standard Grades remain the dominant examination syllabuses for Scottish 14–16‐year‐olds, although there are increasingly prevalent alternatives.

4. It is important to note that the above description is a general pattern in secondary schooling. There is a range of alternative qualifications that are growing in popularity (for an overview, see Scottish Qualifications and Credit Framework 2006, Scottish Qualifications Authority [SQA] 2006) and age‐stage restrictions have been removed, allowing younger secondary pupils to sit exams earlier in their school career—an opportunity that some schools are taking advantage of for some of their pupils.

5. A further sub‐division is also made as, for example, ‘atmosphere’ and ‘earth‐surface’ processes are separated throughout.