‘It’s my responsibility’: perspectives on environmental justice and education for sustainability among international school students in Singapore

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes students’ perspectives on sustainable development, environmental justice, and concomitant environmental education programs at two international schools in Singapore. Data include surveys of over 250 students and 19 focus-group interviews with 300 students. In addition to having a detailed and nuanced understanding of the complexity of climate change and its impacts, most students acknowledged both the likely consequences of continuing resource-intensive industrialization and the growing and unjust disparity in carbon emissions between developed and developing countries. Many students also recognized that contemporary lifestyles rooted in overconsumption are not sustainable and proposed a variety of measures – both mainstream (i.e., discourage meat consumption and single-use plastic) and radical (population-control measures) – to curb consumption. While identifying some areas for improvement in their schools’ commitment to sustainability issues, students overall valued the ecological education that their schools provided them and to various extents recognized the privileges it has afforded them.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate Change
• environmental justice
• sustainability education

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge our collaborating school faculty, staff, and student participants in Singapore for their enthusiastic support for our work both before and during our visits. We would also like to thank the SUNY Cortland IRB Board for their guidance and prompt feedback throughout the approval process.

Disclosure statement

We have no conflicts of interest to disclose as no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct application of our research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeremy Jimenez

Jeremy Jimenez is an Assistant Professor in the Foundations and Social Advocacy Department at SUNY Cortland, where he researches and teaches courses concerning race, class, gender, and environmental issues in education.  He received his Ph.D. in International and Comparative Education from Stanford University (2017).

Laura Moorhead

Laura Moorhead is an Assistant Professor in Journalism at San Francisco State University, where she researches open access to knowledge, journalistic practices, and media literacy and environmental issues in education. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford’s Learning Sciences & Technology Design program.

Tova Wilensky

Tova Wilensky has a B.S. degree in Education and Social Sciences from SUNY Cortland. She currently works in the non-profit sector at Finger Lakes ReUse center in Ithaca, New York, where she is able to continue her environmental advocacy.