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Abstract
Sustainability education is increasingly practiced in early childhood, but a previous review of the literature suggests that there is little empirical research to provide the necessary foundation and critique. The current paper addresses the question of whether there has been an increase in empirical research in the field since this review, and if so, what are the theoretical and methodological developments informing this research. The method of the study is to review the literature in the field following similar processes to the previous review in order to provide a comparison. The articles identified were then categorized and evaluated according to their different theoretical and methodological orientations. The review found that there are twice as many articles as identified in the previous study and that these articles are now equally published in mainstream and environmental education journals. A meta-analysis of the articles using a typology of methodological orientations provided a basis for critique. Three major categories of theoretical orientation were identified as: Connection to nature; Children’s rights; and Post-human frameworks with varying degrees of theoretical engagement. It is recommended that new post-human frameworks recently applied in early childhood education research could usefully be connected to researching early childhood education for planetary sustainability.
Introduction
In a much-cited preliminary survey of Australian and international research journals over the 12-year period 1996–2007, Julie Davis (2009) identified a research ‘hole’ in early childhood environmental education (EE) and in education for sustainability (EfS). She found that early childhood education researchers had not engaged with environmental/sustainability issues and environmental education researchers had not focused their attention on very young children and their educational settings (Davis, 2009: 229). Despite the impetus provided by the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) (2005–2014) and themed national and international conferences on EfS in early childhood, Davis observed that the response in the field had been patchy. Although there was growing activity in EfS in early years education the field was lacking in the development of a research base to ‘understand, build upon, and critique these developments’ (Davis, 2009: 229).
The reasons identified for the patchiness of response were the traditional lack of attention to early years education resulting in a lack of resourcing compared with the school sector and the particularities of the early childhood provision. These particularities included the diversity and complexity of organizations and service types, structures, qualification regimes and governance arrangements, making it difficult to develop a coherent approach to the growing interest in EfS in the sector. Other factors Davis identified as contributing to the dearth of research on EfS/EE/ESD in early childhood included ethical concerns about research involving very young children and poor documentation of EfS/EE/ESD practices in early childhood services. It was proposed that the research ‘gap’ could be filled by encouraging research projects targeted specifically at the early childhood sector, providing dedicated research funding for EfS in early childhood, and undertaking research capacity-building for both new and experienced researchers in the field.
Since the time of Davis’ review several major international developments have influenced the profile of the field of education for sustainability in early childhood. OMEP, the Organisation Mondiale Pour l‘Education Prescolaire (World Organization for Early Childhood Education) delivered a major report in 2010 followed soon after by the report of the European Panel for Sustainable Development. The history of OMEP is important in the course it has followed. Starting in 1948 for professionals in the field of peace education after the Second World War, in 2008 Ingrid Pramling Samuelsson was elected World President, changing the focus more towards education for sustainable development (ESD). In noting that ESD had not formerly been on the agenda for early childhood, the need for this re-focusing was framed in relation to intertwined global environmental, social and economic problems:
The Earth’s limited natural resources are being consumed more rapidly than they are being replaced, and the effects of global warming upon ecological balance and bio-diversity are well known. Rising sea levels threaten millions in less developed nations. The implications in terms of migration, increasing poverty, the supply of food and upon human health and security are extremely serious (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2010: 4).
The document is premised on the UNESCO discourse of children’s rights that even very young children are capable of sophisticated thinking in relation to socio-environmental issues. They have the right to have a voice and the earlier ESD ideas are introduced the greater their impact and influence can be. The document notes that good practice in early childhood education integrates indigenous knowledge, sustainable living practices, basic human rights and learning through experience (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2010: 8). The authors claim that as an emerging field of practice, early childhood education for sustainable development is seriously under-researched and that ‘this must be remedied in order to build the field on an evidence base of critique, reflection and creativity’ (Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2010: 8).
The European Panel on Sustainable Development (EPSD) echoed many of the basic tenets of the OMEP report such as the rights of the child but with a focus on the value of investment return from early years education. Like the OMEP report, education for sustainable development (ESD) is defined more broadly than environmental education. ESD is concerned with the ‘three spheres of environment (including natural and man-made resources and ecosystem services), society (including employment, human rights, gender equity, peace and human security) and economy (including poverty reduction, corporate responsibility and accountability)’ (EPSD, 2010: 29). They too noted that ‘little attention has been paid by institutions to improve the accessibility and content of education for sustainable development in early childhood’ (EPSD, 2010: 7). Again, one of their key recommendations was that ‘More systematic research is required to identify, evaluate and promote existing good ESD practices in early childhood that integrate sustainable living practices, basic human rights and learning through experience and doing’ (EPSD, 2010: 23).
Also since the time of Davis’ 2009 review, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the leading international body on climate change science – has progressively released its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in separate publications beginning in 2013. The first of these publications, Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, reported on the evidence of rapid global warming associated with growing greenhouse gas emissions created by human activity, and on the impacts of global warming that have been observed globally since the mid-twentieth century. Rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and rising surface air and sea temperatures have led to ocean acidification, melting of glaciers, sea ice and snow, rising sea levels and altered hydrological systems. Drier areas of the globe have become drier and the wet tropics wetter. Extreme weather and climate events have become more common and are likely to become more intense and frequent (IPCC, 2013). The second IPCC AR5 publication, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, included a summary of the observed impacts of climate change on humans and other species so far. These include changes to many terrestrial, freshwater and marine species’ migration patterns, geographical ranges and abundance, and negative impacts on crop yields. Climate-related extreme events (heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires) have altered ecosystems, disrupted food production and water supply, and damaged infrastructure and settlements, with negative impacts on human health, wellbeing and mortality (IPCC, 2014: 6–8, 12). In this context of growing knowledge and awareness of the negative impacts of climate change and calls for urgent action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concerted efforts in education for sustainability, particularly in early childhood education, have arguably never been more important.
Given these new international policy contexts since Davis’ survey, it is timely to ask: Has the practice of EfS/EE/ESD in early childhood increased and improved, and: Has the research base grown sufficiently for us to know? To answer these questions, we revisited the same journals Davis surveyed, 5 years later. Like Davis’ survey, ours does not claim to be exhaustive but can reveal as much as Davis’ analysis did then of the current state of the field. We start with a ‘number crunching’ exercise, as Davis did, before going on to consider the changes we observe to have occurred over the past 5 years in theoretical and methodological developments in the field.
Updated survey of the literature
Method
We began our literature search with the same journals as Davis. Like Davis, we scanned their content pages and then the abstracts of promising articles. We also searched the journals internally, using the keywords ‘education for sustainability’, ‘education for sustainable development’, ‘environmental education’ and ‘early childhood’. The main educational databases (ERIC and A+ Education) were also searched using the same keywords, and we identified possible relevant articles in the reference lists of the collected articles. This search yielded articles that were in journals other than Davis’ sample, and we have recorded these in Table 1.
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Davis included environmental education articles concerned with education in the natural environment, e.g. gardening projects and articles about children’s and teachers’ environmental knowledge. Our survey includes articles on gardening projects or ‘nature education’ only if they made reference to ‘environmental education’ or ‘education for sustainability’. We also included all articles which referenced ‘education for sustainability’, ‘education for sustainable development’ or ‘environmental education’ in the body of the article or in its keywords including those whose content we thought did not match those descriptors. The article had to be about early childhood education or at least include the early childhood sector e.g. the research reported on in the article may have involved a group of teachers, only some of whom were early childhood educators.
While Davis’ concern was to identify research in early childhood environment/sustainability issues, she included articles in the US practitioner journal Young Children though she commented that these were only ‘somewhat relevant’ being mostly short, practical articles concerned with ‘hands on’ nature education, gardening projects and education in the environment. These articles could not be considered research articles but were rather anecdotal descriptions of programs targeted to the journal’s practitioner audience. Davis’ inclusion of the journal Young Children suggests that her survey had a broader focus than research and possibly also included articles of advocacy for EfS/EE/ESD in early childhood, descriptions of programs and curriculum, literature reviews and so on. We decided to include all of these in our survey, although more than half the articles we collected were based on empirical research.
Findings
Our survey period (5 years) is much shorter than Davis’ (12 years), so our comparisons are adjusted accordingly. Davis found 39 articles in 12 journals (out of her sample of 14) that gave consideration to young children’s environmental/sustainability education over the 12 years of her survey. We found 40 articles in 11 of the same journals over the 5-year period of our survey. This represents at least a doubling of the number of articles on environmental/sustainability education in these mainstream journals when we take into account the much shorter timeframe of our survey. However, this increase in numbers is unevenly spread across the journals and is almost entirely accounted for by only two journals, Environmental Education Research and the International Journal of Early Childhood. The International Journal of Early Childhood has been the standout journal for environmental/sustainability education over the past five years with two special issues on the theme of ESD prompted by the international developments we have outlined above: ‘The role of early childhood education for a sustainable society’, organized by UNESCO and Gӧteborg University (Vol. 41, No. 2, 2009), and the 26th OMEP World Congress in 2010 in which ESD was a major strand (Vol. 43, No. 2, 2011).
Davis’ sample of 14 journals comprised equal numbers of environmental education and early childhood education journals. In her survey, the number of articles dealing with environmental/sustainability education in early childhood education journals outnumbered the articles on early childhood education in environmental education journals by 22:17. This is still the case in our survey with articles about EfS/EE/ESD in early childhood journals outnumbering early childhood education in environmental education journals 23:17. These sample journals still seem to be the publications of choice for researchers in environment/sustainability education in early childhood, though there are occasional articles in other journals. This is unusual in the field of sustainability education where there is a marked absence in mainstream education journals, indicating a different level of engagement in early childhood education compared to school education.
The results of our review of the literature in early childhood education for sustainability indicate that there is a growing body of literature in the field. Davis used the terms environmental education (EE) and education for sustainability (EfS) interchangeably before settling on early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) which is now the standard term in the field. In this review we made the distinction between environmental education as education about the natural environment or conservation of the natural environment and education for sustainability (EfS) as referring to the broader United Nations agenda on sustainable development and its three interdependent pillars of social development, economic development and environmental protection. This broader understanding and approach is the one that is generally preferred and promoted in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. There remains a level of ambiguity about the relationship of environmental education and education for sustainability, however, with the terms used interchangeably in many articles. A meta-analysis of the articles reveals their underpinning discourses and offers a useful mode of critique.
Critical analysis of environmental and sustainability education research in ECE
A meta-level analysis was developed in order to provide a critical overview of the literature of sustainability education research in early childhood. The articles were categorized according to an adaptation of Lather’s typology of research methodologies (Lather, 2007: 164) with the addition of a Post-human category as a later paradigmatic development in qualitative research (see Appendix 1: Table of articles categorized by methodology). The categories of articles that included empirical research were grouped into Positivist/quantitative; Interpretive; Critical; and Post-human. The category of Advocacy was also included to account for the articles that do not have a specified data collection component, but include articles with significant methodological and philosophical analysis and others with practice-oriented field observations of ECE sustainability programs. Like any categorization, this was only a best-fit approximation with some articles potentially fitting two categories and others difficult to locate in any category. It is useful, however, in offering a critical overview of an emerging field.
The summary of research approaches reveals a great deal of interesting information about the nature of the methodologies, methods, and theoretical discourses that inform the field of sustainability education research in early childhood. Interestingly there is an approximately equal number of positivist/empirical, interpretive and advocacy studies. The positivist/empirical studies consist of a range of pre- and post-test methods, questionnaires and rating scales with a marked absence of theoretical framing. Some are underpinned by discourses of ‘connection to nature’ but this is implicit rather than clearly articulated in the articles. They are generally about research that is designed to measure attitudes to the environment or an outcome in relation to environmental education. An example that highlights the potential of this approach is the study by Hadzigeourgiou, et al. (2011) that compares two pedagogical approaches to teaching young children about the value of trees after massive forest fires in Greece. The study found by careful comparative testing that a storytelling approach was a more effective means of educating children in this context than the transmission of direct information.
The studies categorized as interpretive research are almost all informed by one or both of two dominant theoretical discourses in the field: ‘connection to nature’ and ‘human/children’s rights’. The discourse of connection to nature relates to environmental education research as opposed to the later development of education for sustainability which specifically includes the ‘three pillars’ of social, economic and environmental sustainability as interconnected domains. The discourse of human and children’s rights derives from the tenets of education for sustainable development developed in numerous United Nations initiatives, including the Brundtland Report (Brundtland and Khalid, 1987) and the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014). Both of these theoretical discourses have long histories in environmental and sustainability education and tend to lack theoretical analysis of the underpinning ontologies and epistemologies that shape them. Notable in the category of Interpretive research is the large multi-site study by Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie (Cutter-Mackenzie and Edwards, 2013; Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie, 2011, 2013), which is strongly theoretically informed by research in the area of pedagogies of play in particular the cognitive psychological orientations of sustained shared thinking and concept formation (Fleer, 2008, 2011; Siraj-Blatchford, 2007).
There is the greatest overlap between the Interpretive category and the less popular Critical category which is also revealing of some particular tendencies in the field. A number of the articles in the Interpretive category espouse critical paradigm theories of children’s and human rights but in the research activity itself they carry out routine interpretive data collection and analysis procedures characteristic of the interpretive paradigm. These include standard interviews and focus groups and the clustering of the data into analytic themes. This means that the methods of research are at variance with the philosophical underpinnings, especially in relation to participatory research approaches generally recommended in sustainability education research. Participatory research methodologies are located within the critical paradigm and their fundamental thrust is transformational change. They involve the participants in the design and implementation of the study and document the process of change as it happens throughout the research. A very clear example of such an approach is the study by O’Gorman and Davis (2012) which analyses early childhood education pre-service teachers’ responses to the use of a carbon footprint auditing tool introduced to them in their university study. The inclusion of two literature review articles designed to change practice in the field (Davis, 2009; Elliott and Davis, 2009) means that there are very few empirical articles in this category, however, the international impact on the field of the Davis (2009) article is testament to the possibility of changing practice in this way.
The final equally numerate category of Advocacy is a mixture of articles that argue for the inclusion of education for sustainable development in early childhood curriculum and pedagogies and articles that describe practices of environmental education for early childhood settings. These articles make important contributions to the field in their different ways but both are characterized by an absence of data collection and analysis that characterizes a systematic process of research. This is partly determined by the requirements and audience of particular journals with the journal Young Children being practitioner-oriented descriptions of pedagogical activities in environmental education and the International Journal of Early Childhood characterized by philosophical articles that argue for a particular approach to global practice. These are very much informed by the United Nations trajectory of ESD and associated human/children’s rights discourses. An outstanding example of these articles is that by Hägglund and Pramling Samuelsson (2009) that provides a strongly theorized analysis of different ontological positions in relation to the nature of the child as subject and its consequences for thinking about education for sustainable development.
The final category of Post-human is indicative of a far greater trend in the field than is indicated by the small number of articles cited here because we have chosen to follow Davis’ methods in order to provide a comparison. The post-human paradigm has risen to prominence in the past decade and even more recently has been taken up in early childhood educational research (e.g. Giugni, 2011; Hultman and Lenz-Taguchi, 2010; Lenz-Taguchi, 2010; Rautio, 2012, 2013a, 2013b; Taylor, 2013a, 2013b). These studies do not, however, specifically address issues of environmental or sustainability education and are therefore not included in this review. Those articles that are included are indicative of the potential of this new methodological trend in the field. The most notable of these report on the large multi-site study shaped by the Te Whāriki, the New Zealand treaty-based early childhood curriculum (Duhn, 2012a, 2012b; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996; Ritchie, 2012a, 2012b, 2013). This study is necessarily informed by the indigenous methodologies embedded in the curriculum framework but they also bring these Maori indigenous epistemologies into dialogue with new post-human theories. The post-human paradigm is characterized by in-depth ontological and epistemological theorizing designed to think beyond the intransigent nature/culture binaries in western thought. By bringing the indigenous and post-human trajectories into conversation in the analysis of this study, each is enriched to produce a more nuanced understanding of what it might mean in practice to think research relationally, ecologically and locally about global problems. The review of the post-human trend in the field of early childhood, however, is the subject of another paper.
Discourses informing research articles
The articles, as we have categorized them above, tend to be informed by one or more of three distinct theoretical discourses that influence the purpose of the research and its methodologies. We have named these categories Connection to nature, Children’s rights and Post-human frameworks according to the dominant framework/s evident in the article. These theoretical orientations cut across the methodological categories with some patterns emerging. For example, most of the research reported in the positivist/empirical framework and interpretive frameworks draw on the connection to nature orientation as do all of the practitioner focused articles in the Advocacy category.
The articles that are informed by Connection to nature discourses represent a continuing tradition of environmental education in which the fundamental aim is to connect children to the natural world, to teach them about its values and to act for its conservation (e.g. Chan et al., 2009; Gambino et al., 2009; Gulay Ogelman, 2012; Hadzigeourgiou et al., 2011; Kahriman-Ozturk et al., 2012; Lewis et al., 2010; Prince, 2010). These articles are embedded in local environments and places, with mainly small scale case studies with a focus on a single program or learning about a single species, such as evaluating children’s learning about bilbies (Gambino et al., 2009) or teaching the value of trees (Hadzigeourgiou et al., 2011). Many of these studies draw on the idea of a ‘nature deficit disorder’ in which children are believed to have become disconnected from nature due to the dominance of technological activities and the pressures of a risk-averse society.
All of this disconnectedness with nature is encapsulated in Louv’s (2005) ‘nature deficit disorder’. He believes that it can affect not only individuals but entire communities who lack oneness with the natural environment. One way forward therefore is to re-connect children to the natural environment and promote care for planet earth (Prince, 2010: 426).
In this framework, nature, or the environment, is regarded as separate from the human social world. There is a lack of theoretical depth with no examination of the ontological or epistemological bases of core meanings such as ‘nature’ or ‘the child’. A challenge for these studies is to connect to larger global issues, a connection that is most commonly made by reference to global discourses of ESD and the rights of the child.
Articles that draw on global discourses of Children’s rights espouse the belief that children should have a voice in relation to the major sustainability issues that impact on their lives (e.g. Caiman and Lundegård, 2013; Engdahl and Rabusicova, 2011; Johansson, 2009). Framed within ESD these studies focus on the intertwined social, cultural and economic global issues of sustainable development: ‘overpopulation, environmental damage, climate catastrophes, war and famine are no longer seen as uniquely caused by lack of knowledge among local populations, but linked to complex, global systems’ (Hägglund and Pramling Samuelsson, 2009: 53). This discourse promotes child-led research within the critical paradigm: ‘The citizenship of children of all ages should be recognized as well as their rights and responsibilities as agents involved in many day-to-day practices that are considered significant to achieving sustainable development’ (EPSD, 2010: 22). Few of these studies have followed the option of child-led research within the critical paradigm, however, and more often revert to standard interpretive methods of data collection and analysis. There is a strong tradition of advocacy, interrogating core assumptions through building up a case from other sources (e.g. Davies et al., 2009; Hägglund and Pramling Samuelsson, 2009; Pramling Samuelsson, 2011). The challenge for studies within this framework is to connect larger global concerns and policy frameworks to the materiality of local places through empirical and theoretical integration.
Studies drawing on Post-human frameworks focus on the need to find ways to move beyond the nature/culture binary in early childhood education research. There is a growing body of research applying post-human philosophical frameworks in early childhood education, however, only five articles from this body of research explicitly identified environmental or sustainability education, the critieria for this review. These articles include those that draw on indigenous understandings that view human sociality and the natural world as interdependent systems (e.g. Ritchie, 2012a, 2012b, 2013) those that draw on contemporary western philosophies to move beyond nature/culture binaries (e.g Duhn, 2012a, 2012b); and research within the tradition of critical animal studies (Bone, 2013; Timmerman and Ostertag, 2011). The majority of articles drawing on post-human frameworks derive from one large multi-site study of early childhood education practice (Duhn, 2012a, 2012b; Ritchie, 2012a, 2012b, 2013). This study was informed by the bi-cultural treaty based New Zealand national curriculum Te Whāriki (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996), revealing the continuing force of national curriculum frameworks in shaping the directions of early childhood education research and practice.
Several important special editions of journals have featured research within the post-human paradigm. Most noteworthy in the early childhood education field is a special edition on ‘Children’s relations to the more-than-human world’ in Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood (Vol. 13, No. 2, 2012). Although only one article in this collection explicitly addresses education for sustainability, arguably the paradigm presented in the collection is profoundly concerned with the sustainability of the planet. More generally, contemporary theoretical and empirical research in this new field has much to offer research about sustainability education in early childhood. This includes the potential of place as a linking theoretical framework (Duhn, 2012a; Taylor and Giugni, 2012) methods for researching the mutual constitution of young children with the natural world through the concept of intra-action (Hultman and Lenz-Taguchi, 2010; Rossholt, 2012); and practitioner inquiry using post-human frameworks (Giugni, 2011). These articles indicate the further potential of these frameworks but because they do not specifically address sustainability education, they are outside the scope of this review.
Influence of national curriculum
A number of the articles interrogate the role of national curriculum in shaping education for sustainability in early childhood education. A comparison of the ways in which national curricula shape research in early childhood education for sustainability can be seen in a comparison of the only two large multi-site studies reported in the literature. The articles arising from the multi-site study informed by the Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009) are underpinned by environmental education, as is the EYLF (see Cutter-Mackenzie and Edwards, 2013; Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie, 2011, 2013). In the Australian Early Years Learning Framework sustainability is located within ‘the environment’: ‘Environments and resources can also highlight our responsibilities for a sustainable future and promote children’s understanding about their responsibility to care for their environment’ (Commonwealth of Australia, 2009: 16). The EYLF recommends that to achieve this outcome early childhood educators should ‘Embed sustainability in daily routines and practices’; however, sustainability is relegated to Quality Area 3: Physical Environment in the national quality standards that parallel the national curriculum (Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority, 2013). Standard 3.3 states: ‘The service takes an active role in caring for its environment and contributes to a sustainable future’ which includes Element 3.3.1: ‘Sustainable practices are embedded in service operations’. Although this framing of the national curriculum and quality assessment has produced a rapid rise in attention to sustainability education, the understanding of sustainability learning is shaped by an understanding of ‘the environment’ as something outside of, and separate from, everyday human social life in places and communities.
The articles that have arisen out of the multi-site New Zealand study on the other hand are informed by the bi-lingual and bi-cultural nature of the New Zealand curriculum. The Maori words Te Whāriki refer to the weaving together of different strands in traditional Maori mats, a metaphor for the authentically bi-cultural and bi-lingual curriculum that underpins learning from birth to school age in New Zealand early childhood education. The curriculum emphasizes the critical role of socially and culturally mediated learning and of reciprocal and responsive relationships with people, places and things. It dictates that in early childhood education children should be given the opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of the cultural heritage of both partners to Te Tiriti To Waitangi, the Treaty of Waitangi. The curriculum reflects this partnership in text and structure with Part B of the curriculum in Maori language (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 1996: 31–38). Maori culture emphasizes the mutual interdependence of social and natural worlds, enabling both practice and research to move beyond western concepts of nature and culture as separate domains.
Conclusion
Since Davis’ landmark review identified the absence of sustainability education research in early childhood, significant contextual factors have impacted on the field. Reports from the international body of scientists into the impacts of climate change have emphasized increasing impacts of human activities on the fate of the planet. International policy frameworks have recommended the requirement of early childhood providers to engage in education for sustainability and for national curriculum to take up the challenge. This has resulted in an increase in practice in the field but the question remained as to whether there has been an increase in research that could provide ‘a foundation and critique’.
We conducted this updated review replicating the methods used by Davis in order to develop a comparison. At the first level of analysis we found that the numbers of articles in the field were proportionately double the research enumerated by Davis. We identified the spread in the journals where this research was published and the fact that unlike other sectors, early childhood education for sustainability was featured more frequently in mainstream ECE journals than in environmental or sustainability journals, thus having greater potential to influence the field as a whole. It was apparent from this first level of analysis that there is now a large enough body of research in the field to offer some guidance to practice and possibilities of critique. This critique is not of practice in the field, however, but rather relates to improving the research that underpins practice.
A meta-level of analysis using an adaptation of Lather’s 2007 typology of research enabled analysis of the methodological trends in the field and provided a basis for critique. This analysis suggests that the field is characterized by many unexamined methodological and epistemological assumptions that tend to determine the direction and methods of the research. Research within the interpretive paradigm was most common with many studies reverting to standard practices of data collection and thematic coding with little theoretical intervention into the meaning of their findings. Research across all the methodological paradigms tended to lack methodological rigor, although some notable studies were discussed as examples of good practice.
The underpinning assumptions that tend to shape the field as a whole were discussed in terms of the discourses of Connection to nature, Children’s rights and Post-human frameworks. Trends identified in this meta-analysis suggest that studies that follow the Connection to nature discourse lack theoretical rigor because of unexamined assumptions. Studies within the global discourses of Children’s rights tend to lack empirical grounding in local places and are characterized by advocacy rather than research that can provide evidence for practice. Post-human frameworks, while theoretically rigorous, were generally disconnected from the issues of education for sustainability and in this sense absent in the field of sustainability education as such.
While this is a newly emerging field of research, there is now a large enough body of research to begin to develop a robust critique in which the different research paradigms are able to interact and learn from each other. It is important that each maintain their own distinctive nature on which the quality of research depends but this can be further enhanced by acknowledging their differences and making unexamined assumptions explicit.
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Appendix 1. Table of articles categorized by methodology.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions for improving the quality of the article.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
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Author biographies
Margaret Somerville is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Educational Research, University of Western Sydney. Her research interests focus on questions of planetary sustainability using new post-human and indigenous frameworks and creative methods of research.
Carolyn Williams is a Research Assistant in the Centre for Educational Research. Her research interests are in the application of actor network theories to address environmental issues.