Local and global (f)actors in environmental and sustainability education policies: the case of New York City public schools

Abstract

Within an educational system increasingly focused on test-based accountability, how can a local education authority adopt an interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy? What local and global factors and actors shape and inform the creation of such a policy? In answering these questions, this article examines the formulation of ESE policy in the New York City Department of Education. Based on an analysis of archival documents and 20 expert interviews, the study draws on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and extends its application by adding global and social movement perspectives. In doing so this study find that external events enabled the initial enactment of the policy in 2009, while the practice and local pilots of ESE programs substantially informed the reformulation of the policy in 2012.

Keywords:

• ESE
• policy
• urban education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Teachers College Columbia University Dean’s Grant for Student Research, awarded in 2018.

Notes

1 Environmental and Sustainability Education in this study is used as an umbrella term for Environmental Education (EE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainability (EfS).

2 These declarations include the Tbilisi Declaration (1977), the Brundtland Report (1987), Agenda 21 (1992), the Earth Charter (2002), the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and the Plan of Implementation (2002), The Future We Want (2012), and the Sustainable Development Goals (2015).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Teachers College Columbia University Dean's Grant for Student Research, awarded in 2018.