Integrating character education and the values aspect of environmental and sustainability education: an interdisciplinary study exploring common ground, tensions, and feasibility

Thesis summary

Although fostering values is promoted within environmental and sustainability education (ESE), and a shift in values seen as essential for a sustainable future, many educators appear uncertain or conflicted about whether, or how, to approach values education. The intention of this pragmatic, interdisciplinary research was to explore what insights the field of character education (CE) might offer into teaching the values aspect of ESE. To accomplish this, three studies were conducted.

Study 1 (published in Jordan and Kristjánsson 2017) was a philosophical inquiry from an Aristotelian virtue ethics standpoint. The collaborative study integrated knowledge from the fields of ESE and CE to explore how virtue ethics can address sustainability.

Study 2 (published in K. E. Jordan (2022b) was an instrumental case study carried out at an independent, all-ages, holistic-oriented school in Scotland, exploring how the school carries out ESE. Data were gathered via seven teacher interviews, school observations, field notes and documents, and analysed thematically. The findings were then read through a CE theoretical lens to establish if ESE and CE integration took place at the school.

Study 3 (published in Jordan 2022a) was an email-based Delphi study, essentially a facilitated group discussion, exploring ESE and CE experts’ perceptions regarding the feasibility of integrating insights from ESE and CE. 12 experts constructed, then rated their agreement and made comments on 41 statements relating to ESE-CE integration.

Overall findings indicate existing common ground between ESE and CE via: school climate/ethos and role-modelling; service-learning; interdisciplinarity, real-world and holistic learning; taking a whole-person or head-hands-heart approach to education; the need to address the human-nature relationship; and the need to examine and redress the purpose of education, such as challenging instrumentalist and neoliberal approaches in education. The findings also revealed points of tension between ESE and CE: friction between the need for democracy and pluralism, and the normativity inherent in ESE and CE; and the perceived individualism of CE versus the communitarianism of ESE. In terms of the feasibility of future ESE-CE integration, areas of common ground and points of tension suggest possibilities for, and barriers to integration, respectively.

Funding

This work was supported by The Icelandic Research Fund under Grant number 141878-051.

Ethics statement

This study was approved by the University of Iceland and the Icelandic Research Fund regarding ethical considerations in the research. The case study school and Delphi experts provided written informed consent prior to enrolment in the study, and all case study interviewees provided informed consent verbally before participation. All participants have been kept anonymous.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this research are available from the author upon reasonable request.

Supervisors:

Ólafur Páll Jónsson and Stephen Gough

Conferring University: University of Iceland

Year of award: 2022

Correction Statement

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