Exploring global citizenship learning and ecological Behaviour change through extracurricular activities

ABSTRACT

This research paper aims to examine the effects of extracurricular activities in building knowledge, skills and attitudes that attempt to develop ecological citizenship as a subset of global citizenship among middle school students. I focus on one extracurricular programme entitled ‘The Friends of Nature’ that was provided in a Moroccan private middle school. Adopting a qualitative research method approach, data consisted of interviews with thirty students from 7th, 8th and 9th grades and two teachers (social studies and life and earth science teacher), and were collected over the course of three months through multiple data collection tools, namely observation, student focus group discussions and teacher interviews. A series of environmental activities offered students opportunities to: identify environmental problems, promote education for sustainable development and improve their environmentally conscious behaviour, develop creative solutions, and take actions for preserving nature in their community. The data were analysed using a content analysis method. The results reveal that students demonstrated cognitive development in terms of human rights, citizenship rights and responsibilities, environmental sustainability. While the program developed attitudes of empathy, respect, solidarity, it failed to instil a sense of responsibility to act for the betterment of the world, thus being a global citizen.

KEYWORDS:

• Environmental education
• active citizenship
• extracurricular activities
• sustainable development
• participatory citizens
• Morocco

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hajar IDRISSI

Hajar IDRISSI prepares a jointly supervised PhD in Education and Human Development Studies from Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Morocco and the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, the George Washington University, USA. She has been a visiting doctoral student at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her main research interests focus on citizenship education policy trends; global citizenship education; curriculum and instruction; sustainable development; discourse analysis. ORCID ID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0352-8612