Where to look and what to do? Blank and bright spots in research on environmental and climate change education

Introduction

In this editorial, I apply the concepts presented in Reid (2019) on blank, blind, bald and bright spots in research to review aspects of the foci of studies in Environmental Education Research since the early 2000s. I argue there are blank spots in the research community’s lines of research that emerge by reconsidering the scope of two seminal publications in this journal. The first was by Rickinson (2001), offering a review of the evidence base focused on students and their learning, while the second was by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002), addressing theories of behaviour and the role and impact of knowledge on pro-environmental behaviour. Both studies underscore the need for continuing, expanding and prioritising the theorising and conducting of empirical work in environmental education, especially for these times.

In what follows, I discuss what I see as important spots for future research. A special focus is on a key feature of the journal’s output this year on climate change and education (e.g. issues 5 and 6), but rather than repeat that, I argue for shifting the focus to framing the problem of climate change to a greater recognition of it being a typical large scale collective action dilemma (Jagers et al 2019). This focus highlights the fact that many individuals are unwilling to shoulder the short-term personal costs of acting in a pro-environmental manner, e.g.reducing consumption levels, to achieve long-term collective benefits such as a sustainable climatic situation for all (Dawes 1980; Kollock 1998). This is also often coupled with a reluctance to act on a voluntary basis (not knowing of other’s actions). This increases the demand for government intervention to coordinate behaviour and to reduce harmful environmental impacts. Yet in democratic societies, such interventions rely on citizens’ knowledge and support for collective pro-environmental measures (Mansbridge 2014).

Finally, I will address why multiple fields and disciplines are important for future research in environmental education (EE) and climate change education (CCE), using examples from my own programs of research throughout, to provide illustrations of my own activities, as well as those occurring nationally and internationally, that seek to address these blank and bright spots.

Blank spots - knowledge and participation

In ‘Mind the Gap: Why do people act environmentally and what are the barriers to pro-environmental behavior?’, Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) provided an overview of many of the models that had been used to explore and explain the gap between environmental knowledge and awareness, and behaviour up until the late 1990s. In broad terms, this can be characterised as researchers being primarily interested in investigating knowledge of natural science, e.g. climate change and the ozone layer, with a tendency to use national surveys, and assuming implicitly that science knowledge has a positive impact on behaviour.

Yet in terms of knowledge of causes and solutions, for example, Wals et al. (2014) stated in Science: ‘[while scientific education] might teach students how to monitor water quality, identify pollutants and understand technologies that can reduce pollution, environmental education would involve an analysis of circumstances and behaviors that caused the pollution, as well as identifying ways to clean up a river involving the local community, policymakers and industry’ (p. 583). Moreover, like Rickinson (2001, 207), Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) had argued earlier that while relevant knowledge is key: ‘It might be necessary to distinguish between different levels of knowledge. Clearly, people have to have a basic knowledge about environmental issues and the behaviors that cause them in order to act pro-environmentally in a conscious way’ (p. 250).

Furthermore, Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) illustrate how barriers to performing pro-environmental behaviour are caused by a wide range of internal and external factors. In this, they point out a significant aspect concerning knowledge and its role for pro-environmental behaviours: ‘It might be true that environmental knowledge and environmental attitude have a more powerful influence on people’s indirect actions than on people’s direct pro-environmental behaviors’ (pp. 258–259). Thus, indirect environmental action can refer to supporting decision-making on public transport or supporting similar decisions taken by the government, to enable the public to act in pro-environmentally friendly ways (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002, 258).

As I will argue below, research since then hasn’t necessarily paid enough attention to the ways various knowledges – in the natural and social sciences, arts and humanities – impact on pro-environmental behaviours, by pursuing such questions as: What kinds of knowledge, how ‘much’, and to what depth? Or more pointedly, what are students’ knowledge of the opportunities and barriers to various forms of public participation? In the next sections, I discuss the blank and bright spots of responding to these, as societal and environmental knowledge, to better understand the role that knowledge plays, for various purposes and with varying effects.

The societal

There is emerging evidence on the role of social science knowledge, and knowledge of the relation between the individual and the collective, influencing pro environmental behaviour such as support of polices (climate taxation). In Sweden, for example, I have been involved in various research programmes and projects focusing on the social sciences and environmental protection (Harring and Jagers 2017; Harring and Lundholm 2018; Harring, Lundholm, and Torbjörnsson 2017; Harring, Davies, and Lundholm 2017; Harring, Jagers, and Matti 2019; Ignell, Davies, and Lundholm 2017, 2019a; Sternäng and Lundholm 2012; Torbjörnsson and Lundholm 2019). Social science knowledge allows students to understand environmental problems and solutions - why do they exist and how can they be solved? It also gives them an opportunity to think critically about ways forward and choose direct and indirect actions, participating as citizens in decision making and action pathways (Davies 2006; Davies and Lundholm 2012; Lundholm and Davies 2013; Ignell, Davies and Lundholm 2019a). However, further investigations into this field will be important to both researchers – for theorising the role of knowledge and pro-environmental behaviour – and teachers, in critically engaging with the evidence base, given that evidence is sparse but promising.

The environmental

As highlighted by Reid (2019), the journal of Environmental Education Research brings in to focus research on both education and environment. Nature or environment, as we know, can be interpreted in multiple ways (e.g. Reid 2019, 159, 164–166). We still need to ask questions such as: What do we mean by nature or environment? And relatedly, what do we understand (or don’t), why do we need to understand it, what do we value in relation to nature and environment, and, why would we need to value either?

Key to my argument here, is the work of Gretchen Daily. Over 20 years ago, she published, Nature’s services. Societal Dependence on Natural ecosystems (1997), where nature is seen as services on which humans depend. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) provided important insights on the state of for example food production, nutrient recycling and flood buffering, while more recent reports from the TEEB project (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, http://www.teebweb.org.) show the multiple services we depend on and how they can be calculated in monetary value, working with or beyond notions of ‘natural capital’ (Åkerman 2005).

I believe this way of looking at, and understanding nature, especially in how and why we are dependent on it, and perhaps affecting how we value it, is a bright spot for research, practice and their development. Harring, Torbjörnsson, and Lundholm (2018, 124), for example, have discussed how the relation society-environment, and human dependence on the environment, can be part of environmental education in terms of how we may address values, and the way values affect behaviour. Further studies in this arena would benefit from consider multiple contexts for learning such as formal contexts (education), informal contexts such as science museums and exhibitions (see Lundholm and Plummer (2010, 485) on the exhibition ‘Manna – food in a new light’), nature centres and non-formal contexts such as resource management.

Equally, understanding climate change, and understanding which aspects are human or anthropogenically caused, is still a challenge for both teachers (e.g. Sezen-Barrie, Shea, and Borman 2019) and students (e.g. Shealy et al. 2019). However, this challenge is at the core of understanding climate change and how various solutions can be related to various sources of emissions, be they those of industry, transportation (as part of consumer goods) or agriculture. Importantly, a study by Jie Li and Monroe (2019) shows how this kind of knowledge development has a positive impact on students’ feeling of hope, as they will gain knowledge of solutions an individual and society takes, and can take. The authors write, ‘The details of climate science and understanding of the issue, however, may help affect concern, but may only increase hope if paired with a variety of potential actions and solutions to help foster students’ hope agency and pathways thinking at personal and community level’ (p. 948).

At a broader level, in their review of research on climate change education strategies, Monroe et al. (2019) identify the importance of addressing misconceptions as one of four dimensions in effective climate change education. Elsewhere, it has been shown that refutation texts are effective at promoting knowledge revision, and might be found to be most effective when ‘the misconception and the correct information are co-activated and integrated with causal networks that support the correct information’ (Danielson, Sinatra, and Kendeou 2016, 1). Danielson, Sinatra and Kendeou’s (2016) European study of climate change learning among college students investigated students’ co-activation, integration, and thus revision of knowledge through the use of textual refutations, analogies and graphics. Results showed that refutation text plus analogy, and refutation text plus graphic plus analogy, were the most successful in promoting revision (see too Sezen-Barrie, Shea, and Borman 2019). In addition, a recent US study on the use of refutation text for changing misconceptions of policies show important findings, that again underscore the importance of providing an evidence base for reducing misconceptions (Aguilar, Polikoff, and Sinatra 2019).

In Sweden, a large survey of students aged 15–16 by Ojala (2015) showed that the three major aspects influencing climate scepticism were, firstly, social norms – impact from parents and friends, and secondly, social powerlessness – distrust in institutions, low interest in societal issues and a feeling of not being able to influence personally. The third aspect impacting on climate scepticism was a negative attitude to immigrants and this finding was explained in terms of tolerance, in that students had difficulties coping with uncertainty and abstract thinking in regards to equality. This suggests to me that environmental education research should look beyond knowledge and cognition (cf. Lundholm and Davies 2013; Sinatra and Mason 2013) in future research (see also Busch, Henderson, and Stevenson 2019).

Participation – call for a wider meaning and multiple purposes

Concerning research on participation, Chawla and Cushing (2007) and Levy and Zint (2013) draw attention to a lack of insight into students’ ideas of public environmental action and governmental environmental management, compared with private-sphere actions. This echoes a wider, longstanding call in the field of environmental education research for scholars to move away from a focus on private-sphere environmentalism to a greater emphasis on understanding public-sphere environmentalism. For example, Chawla and Cushing (2007) have argued that ‘environmental education, as well as measures of behaviour in environmental education research, typically emphasize private sphere environmentalism at the expense of preparing students for public action’ (2007, 448). Levy and Zint (2013) addressed the need to specifically bring the political dimension into focus in environmental education research, ‘It is now up to EE and ESD scholars to examine the extent to which findings from other contexts hold for environmental political participation as well as to identify and study other factors that may be relevant’ (pp. 567–568). One form of public-sphere environmentalism is supporting government intervention in terms of environmental policies. However, support for such policy is often based on at least two things: first, whether people support the policy objectives (e.g. a healthier environment) and, second, whether they trust or perceive that the government can achieve the objectives of the policy or intervention (Mansbridge 2014).

Emotions – another blank spot

The focus on emotions in education has increased during the last 15 years. Learning and Instruction published a special issue in 2005 and the first Handbook of Emotions in Education was published in 2014 (Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia 2014). To my mind, the introduction of the handbook provides an excellent overview of this field, suggesting there are at least four different categories to consider; achievement emotions, topic emotions, epistemic emotions and social emotions (Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia 2014, 3). The authors stress that emotions relevant to education extend far beyond the perhaps common view of achievement goals, ‘Emotions related to the contents of learning and teaching, to the process of cognitively generating knowledge, and social interactions in the classroom are no less important’ (Pekrun and Linnenbrink-Garcia 2014, 3).

Scholars in environmental and climate change education have focussed on emotions, for example, Rickinson (2001), Rickinson, Lundholm, and Hopwood (2009), Lundholm, Hopwood and Rickinson (2013) and more recently Manni, Sporre, and Ottander (2017), Jie Li and Monroe (2019), Ojala (2019) and Ekström and Lundholm (2020).

In regard to climate change, Ji Lie and Monroe (2019) present valuable findings specifically focusing on hope. The authors conclude that students who have knowledge about climate change and understand the causes, perceive they can act in meaningful ways, and that society and individuals can act and make a change (be effective) feel hope.

As Reid (2019) highlighted in arguing for a broader literature base to the field’s inquiries about its educational aspects, a recent international comparative study investigating the impact of emotions on learning about climate change shows that students who believed that the justification about climate change requires critical evaluation of multiple sources experienced higher levels of enjoyment and curiosity, and lower levels of boredom when confronted with conflicting information (Muis et al. 2015). In turn, these emotions affected students’ learning strategies and learning outcomes, where students who experienced curiosity used a deep learning approach which had a positive impact on their learning.

In addition, emotions are important as mediators in attitudinal change, as shown in a recent study on genetically modified foods by Thacker et al. (in press). Monroe et al. (2019) equally identify the influence of social norms in deliberative processes around climate change issues:

There is also recognition among educators and researchers that how we approach climate change might be different from other environmental issues. Certainly, the complexity and uncertainty of the topic requires careful thought and attention, but even more than ethical controversies about hazardous waste placement or plummeting biodiversity, the topic of climate change seems to deeply resonate with held values, such that adults respond by protecting their group identity and way of life (p. 792).

In this, motivation and interest are probably seen as obvious and important for learning (cf. Pintrich et al. 1993), and Monroe et al. (2019) conclude that climate change education which includes personal and meaningful information, and engages and activates students, tends to have a positive impact on learning. Meanwhile, Ignell, Davies, and Lundholm (2017) investigated conceptual development of ‘price’ and the environment in an interview study. They found that the question of how things should be (‘what should be the price of this eco-friendly product?’) rendered more elaborated answers, and students showed a great interest in discussing the future, in relation to the present.

The various aspects influencing climate denial then, along with the challenge of understanding climate change as anthropogenically caused, calls for the role of re-visiting motivation and interest and other emotions as well as values in climate change education research (cf. Lundholm and Davies 2013; Monroe et al. 2019, 806; Sinatra and Mason 2013).

Addressing norms – a role for education and a bright spot

In the preceding sections, I have illustrated studies of knowledge, climate scepticism and social norms, and also emotions (interest and motivation) and social norms from wider work as well as my own. In this section, I will specifically focus on norms.

In the social science domains there are often competing bodies of thought about how societies and economies should be organised. Questions that are relevant to ask in these domains are ‘Should universities or water be provided to people without charge? Should the logging of forests be subject only to private interests?’ (Lundholm and Davies 2013, 301). So far, research including in and about environmental education has paid relatively little attention to change in conceptions about what is socially, economically and environmentally desirable. However, emerging evidence (e.g. Davies and Lundholm 2012; Ekström and Lundholm 2020; Ignell, Davies, and Lundholm 2017, 2019a; Lundholm 2018; Lundholm and Davies 2013; Philip 2011; Sternäng and Lundholm 2012) indicates the strength of experiences in shaping conceptions of what is ‘normal’ in social settings. These findings relate to studies on values, emotions and metacognition (Sinatra and Mason 2013) and ways that students understand and perceive the social and cultural setting (Halldén, Scheja, and Haglund 2013). In sum, they note that because of the strong influence of experience and everyday life on norms, education has an important role to play – highlighting what norms are, and how they vary with contexts – in groups, nations, over time – including how they change. And last but not least, how they influence our (imaginative and creative) thinking on how things could or should be.

Hence, investigating various solutions in the social sciences - political, economic, legislative and other – also relating to norms concerning how things should be, and why, is fruitful for future research. Additionally, solutions can be analysed from a normative perspective, addressing theories on justice, freedom and rights, thus providing students with opportunities to gain knowledge on how to analyse and elaborate on norms. Rights, freedom and justice are key concepts in one the most important sub-disciplines of political science, Normative theory or Political Theory. Recent studies in this area show that from a student perspective, and learning, such theories raise concern of value-laden perspectives and views on impartial teaching (Ekström and Lundholm, 2020).

What has been addressed above is not about different forms of deliberative discussions and teacher strategies for fruitfully monitoring them (e.g. van Poeck and Östman 2018) but a focus on developing and researching education, where students scrutinise and elaborate on solutions using multiple theories within various perspectives. This would be to use, for example, different theories of justice, and asking questions such as: Who determines who loses/who wins – which (socio-economic) groups? What environmental resources are lost/protected? In the short/long term? (e.g. Waldron et al. 2019). In such research, it would probably be fruitful to recognise multiple possibilities for cultural cognition and concern in relation to norms (Kunkle and Monroe 2019; Stevenson, Peterson, and Bondell 2019), but also use multiple research approaches and methodologies such as design-based research, researching together with educators (having experienced the challenges of CCE/EE and tried ways on their own), and research using experiments (Busch, Henderson, and Stevenson 2019).

A recent study on social science education specifically focussing on justice shows that learning about different theories of justice is important in order for students to develop analytical skills in reasoning about justice and fairness issues and move beyond discussions of own and others’ ‘opinions’ (Tväråna 2019). Interestingly, and importantly, pupils at the age of 8 were able to engage and use theories of justice when analysing societal issues.

Research in social science and social studies education concerning ‘controversial issues’ (Hess 2009) or ‘controversial topics’ has similar features to what has been outlined above. A recent study of economics students’ views on environmental policies and climate taxation shows that students found this to be politically controversial, but at the same time ‘basic’ knowledge of significance, and helpful for understanding both market failure and how governments can play a key role for change (Lundholm submitted). Insights from the field of controversial issues/topics shows how teachers can make deliberate choices for sustaining and maintaining fruitful discussions that support learning. Research on societal-environmental relations, and climate change and environmental education, could contribute to this field and mutual influence could be beneficial for both fields.

The research foci addressed above relate to citizenship (Sherrod, Torney-Purta, and Flanagan 2010; Parker 2015; Carretero, Haste, and Bermudez 2016) and the fields of civics, social science and social studies education and research. In relation to what is discussed here on knowledge, norms, epistemic cognition and sourcing, William Parker raises the following question in the introduction to the book, Social Studies Today (2015), ‘Furthermore, and connecting school learning to democratic citizenship, aren’t there serious consequences for democracy if high school graduates haven’t learned to distinguish between a claim that is supported by evidence, on the one hand, and one told to them by an author figure, whether a teacher, pastor or politician?’ (p. 13). While as Bentley, Petcovic, and Cassidy (2019, 878–879) argue, in a US context, being able to recognise a range of (‘ever-evolving’) types of climate change dissenter arguments and their effects is key not just to a citizenry subject to various attacks on anthropogenic climate change, but a credible notion of climate change literacy in schools and society in general.

Communication, media and epistemic cognition – bright spots

Finally, I believe a bright spot concerns research on media and communication systems at large: How do people view sources of information, what criteria are used for something to be trustworthy? In a democratic society such questions are crucial as democratic societies depend on the median voter to have sufficient knowledge of the nature of science when decisions, policy, and other measures are taken concerning the environment. Sinatra, Kienhues, and Hofer (2014) also point to an increasing need to address these issues, ‘As scientific problems increase in number and complexity, and as access to information from diverse sources increases, so do the challenges facing the public in understanding scientific issues’ (p. 123).

The growing research field of epistemic cognition (Green, Sandoval, and Bråten 2016) focuses on epistemic beliefs people hold, that is, their conceptions of the nature of knowledge and knowing. The field has generated increasing interest in the last 10 years and has also incorporated the psychological construct of motivated reasoning (Kunda 1990), which is crucial in order to understand why individuals do not easily change their understanding of phenomena although there is scientific evidence.

‘Motivated reasoning’ means that individuals seek information that confirms existing views and understandings (Sinatra, Kienhues, and Hofer 2014). Research in this field is conducted in multiple ways, working with various models and hypotheses, such as the influence of epistemic cognition on learning science itself (Sinatra and Chinn 2012), investigating the influence of emotions and epistemic cognition in the anti-vaccine debate (Tsuda and Muis 2018) and the influence of students’ epistemic beliefs on choice of policy measures for climate mitigation (Ignell, Davies, and Lundholm 2019b). Importantly, views of science influence the ways we interpret and understand scientific information. An absolutist stance of science (where knowledge is seen as objective, certain, and true, and information being either right or wrong) is problematic as people ‘may hear that 97% of climate scientists agree that the causes of current changes are human-induced and decide that scientists have yet to reach consensus, so the knowledge is uncertain’ (Sinatra and Hofer 2016, 247). Equally problematic is a conception of science being extremely tentative without objective means, i.e. a multiplist stance, as it may lead to a view of science as being about opinions, and contradictions and controversies between researchers.

Recently, Bråten, Brante, and Stromsø (2019) published a study on ‘sourcing’ with students in upper secondary school using a quasi-experimental design and show how instruction that focuses on developing students judgement of sources (evaluate trustworthiness) and compare sources had a positive impact on this competence. The authors write the following on why this competence is important (p. 496):

Because sourcing can be considered a foundational competence for the development of informed citizenship and participation in genuine democratic discourse (Bråten and Braasch 2017), no student should leave secondary school without understanding the value and importance of adaptive sourcing. For example, the increased use of social media as a source of information about important issues pertaining to people’s lives, as well as many people’s mistrust of traditional media channels, requires that individuals learn to take more responsibility for judging the relevance and reliability of information. The flow of misinformation about controversial issues, such as climate change and immigration, in most Western countries highlights the need to emphasize critical reading skills within curricula (Kahne and Bowyer 2017). Thus, teaching sourcing is not only a matter of improving students’ academic thinking and writing but also a matter of educating for democracy.

Another recent study by Flemming et al. (2019) investigated the problem of communicating tentative research as readers find it less credible (see above on the ‘multiplist’ stance). The study included four experiments to test how the negative influence of this misconception could be overcome. The results show that the use of a refutation text, explicitly addressing this misconception and view on scientific tentativeness, supported participants to overcome the misconception and affected behaviour.

The importance of multiple relationships, starting points, disciplines and interests

In 2011, I addressed the relationships between the individual, society and nature and why these are essential when trying to understand the role of various institutions and actors, and the relationship between society and environment/nature (Lundholm 2011). I argue that the relations between individual and the collective, and individual(s) and societal institutions, and the concepts of ‘social dilemmas’ or ‘collective action dilemma’, are central to understanding how climate change and environmental problems emerge and can be solved. The disciplines of economics, political science and psychology address these relations and concepts.

In my own country, Sweden, it is still a challenge to teach climate change in a multi-disciplinary way, although students would have an opportunity to gain important understanding of relations which creates hope (cf. Jie Li and Monroe 2019). Additionally, it is necessary that teachers in civics, social science and social studies see they have an indispensable role to play in addressing aspects of the politics, economics, and legislation surrounding environment and climate change, mapping the societal scene of actors and institutions in terms of where we could be headed, and decisions we could take!

As with all research, environmental and climate change education research can flourish by using multiple entry points beyond environmental educational research. This is highlighted by Reid (2019, 164), who quotes Scott (2009, 160) who addressed this aspect ten years ago:

Perhaps our next grant application as researchers needs to be with someone from outside our usual frame of reference, whether this is from another adjectival education, or someone from the educational mainstream, or from a different discipline altogether. At a time of greater recognition that interdisciplinary research is needed, this would seem sound anyway, and this links with the point I made earlier about the need for a combination of methodological approaches. This is surely the time for something different, and for a bit of risk.

I believe this point needs to be stressed more than ever and encourage future research to take the opportunity to engage with research and research findings from multiple disciplines, use multiple starting points and develop research with multiple interests and goals.

Cecilia Lundholm
Department of Humanities and Social Science Education,
Stockholm University, Sweden
[email protected]

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This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.