Development and formation of ESE policy: learning from teachers and local authorities

Abstract

In this qualitative case study, we adopted theories of street-level bureaucracy and policy entrepreneurship to examine formation processes of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy at school and local government level. We focused on teachers’ and urban government ESE officials’ motives for initiating ESE programs, the support systems they have in place for developing them, and the ways they recruit or repurpose budgets for them. We identified three main motives that induced actors to initiate ESE programs: social, rebranding and environmental. Additionally, we identified three patterns of support that administrators provided in the implementation process: initiating, allowing and adopting. We discuss the connections between budget types, motives and support patterns. A major implication is that following ESE dedicated policies conceals the ESE implementation processes that formal education undergoes. ESE policy research will benefit from understanding local educational government structure and programs, and their role in shaping ESE policy in practice.

Keywords:

• Environmental and sustainability education policy
• local policy in environmental and sustainability education
• street-level bureaucracy
• educational policy
• urban environmental education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

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

Notes

1 The education system in Jerusalem serves three sectors: Palestinian-Arab, religious Jewish and secular Jewish, and ultra-Orthodox, each with its own culture and corresponding curricula. The Palestinian Arab and the ultra-Orthodox sectors are considered low socioeconomic status.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Amiran Scholarship granted by the Department of Geography at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Notes on contributors

Naama Sadan

Naama Sadan is a PhD candidate at the department of Geography and the Advanced School of Environmental Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a visiting student researcher with the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Iris Alkaher

Iris Alkaher received her PhD in science education from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. She is the coordinator of the graduate Master of Education program in environmental education and a lecturer in the faculty of science at the Kibbutzim College of Education in Israel. She is also a member of the college's Green Council. She currently teaches under-graduate and graduate students in the areas of biology and environmental education. Prior to her current appointment, she was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship at Virginia Tech, USA. As a postdoctoral researcher, she conducted research related to inquiry teaching and learning in higher education. Her research interests are environmental and biology education in higher education, research-based science in higher education, and sociocultural aspects of science and environmental education.