Place-based education from three perspectives

Abstract

This article examines the perception of the Czech place-based education program School for Sustainable Development from the perspectives of the participating students, teachers, and representatives of the local municipalities. The study is based on an analysis of paired or group interviews with 47 students, 7 teachers, and 6 representatives. The findings show that while the teachers perceived the process of the students’ involvement in planning and conducting a community-based project as highly participative, the students’ opportunities to shape the process through making their own decisions were rather limited and the teachers kept control over important parts of the process to themselves. While the cooperation of the schools with their respective municipalities was appreciated by most of the respondents, several barriers have been identified. Participation in the project has likely increased the teachers’ self-effectiveness, developed the students’ interpersonal competence, and improved the atmosphere at the schools involved.

Abbreviations: PBE: place-based education; ENEC: European Network for Environmental Citizenship; STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics; SSD: The School for Sustainable Development.

Keywords:

• Place-based education
• community-based project
• students’ participation
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the EU project ‘CIVIS – Focused on Civic and Social Competence’ within the EU ESI funds, Operational Programme Research, Development, and Education, grant number EU: CZ.02.3.68/0.0/0.0/16_011/0000672.

Notes on contributors

Jan Cincera

Jan Cincera is an associate professor at Masaryk University, Department of Environmental Studies.

Barbora Valesova

Barbora Valesova has graduated from Masaryk University, Department of Environmental Studies.

Sarka Krepelkova

Sarka Krepelkova is a Ph.D. student at Masaryk University, Department of Environmental Studies.

Petra Simonova

Petra Simonova is a Ph.D. student at Masaryk University, Department of Environmental Studies.

Roman Kroufek

Roman Kroufek is an assistant professor at the Department of Preschool & and Primary Education, Faculty of Education, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem.