Priorities, identity and the environment: Negotiating the early teenage years

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the negotiation of environmental identity by 10 New Zealand students as they progressed from late primary school to junior secondary school. Interviews with these students and their parents focused on six theoretical perspective prominent in environmental education: significant life experiences, transformative learning, environmental literacy, values, action competence, and environmental identity. Thirteen major themes emerged, which are discussed in terms of two overarching findings. First, the deep-seated, composite and pivotal resonances between home and school influences in effective environmental education for sustainability (EEfS) learning are described, and suggestions are made for how this can be better taken into account. Secondly, a focus on the complex negotiation of the early teenage years suggests how promoting EEfS might occur more productively in secondary schools.

KEYWORDS:

• environmental identity
• secondary school
• significant life experiences
• teenagers

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to our 10 interviewees and their parents for their comprehensive and forthright conversations with us. We also express our gratitude to the staff of the two New Zealand enviroschools involved in this study, and in particular we thank our three principal teacher colleagues and coresearchers—Michelle White, Linda Watson, and Marianne Robertson—for their wisdom and their resolute encouragement.