Mapping young students understanding and valuing of Sustainable development

1. Mapping young students understanding and valuing of Sustainable development - within the ecological, economical and social aspects of ESD Annika Manni, UmeåUniversity Supervisors: Karin Sporre and Christina Ottander May, 2011

2. Background • UN-decade of Education for Sustainabledevelopment (2005-2014) • The need for a new approach in education • Systems thinking and complexity(Hjort & Bagheri, 2006) (Wylie et al.,1998) (Jonsson, 2007) • Decisionmaking and action competence(Jenssen& Schnack, 2006) ( Dawidowicz, 2010) • Values and ethics(Öhman & Östman, 2008) (Rickinson & Lundholm, 2008) • Children’s voices(OMEP,2010) (Hartman et al., 2007)

3. Research questions: 1, How do young Swedish students’ understand and value the aspects of sustainable development and their relations? 2, How can the relationships between understanding and valuing SD be described?

4. The study • 209 young students, aged 10-12, Swedish schools • Comprehensivequestionnaire with open-endedquestions, 2010 • Phenomenographic approach • Contentanalysis - categories • Variations and relationships

5. The questionnaire • 81 different questions, 72 closed and 9 open-ended. • Open questions with picture support withineveryaspect of ESD as well as howthey are related all together • ”Whatdo you knowabout….? Howdo you feelabout that ? ” • Response in written text • ”Read as slowly as it takes the pupils to write” ( Hartman, 1986)

6. Results • 209 responses, openquestions • Rich and comprehensive material • Meaning-making moment ; ” that they got to express their own thoughts in a way they had not before”

7. Example: ”I know that big factories emit bad smoke, both we humans and animal get sick of the smoke, even flowers and plants. It is bad that some people throw waste in the nature”,

8. Example: ” In Africa children are working to make things that other then get rich of .I think that is really bad!”

9. Example: ”It is not fair, I think everybody should have equal amount of money. I am happy that I live in Sweden.”

10. Connections between aspects and how things affect each other are generally harder to describe. Still, some students do this in a quite complex way, e.g. ”When we manufacture something that shall be sold in a factory we destroy the nature. Air and water for both humans and animals are destroyed.”

11. Analysis of values Values or emotional expressions in everyaspect has beencategorized and are oftenshown as: • Emotions – spontanous, positive and negative • Moral reactions – good or bad actions, oftentaughtbehaviours • Ethicalreasoning – reflectionsabout morals, cause and effect Values are oftenshowntogether with morecomplexunderstandings.

12. Summary • Complex area with great variations in descriptions of the aspects of SD. • Swedish students aware and describeeveryaspect of SD, mostly in simple waysbutalsosomequitecomplex. • In the ecologicalaspect; mostlywithinbut with different complexity. • In the economical; mostlywithin and quite simple butalsosome relations with otheraspects. • In the social aspect; mostlywithin and veryemotional. • Relationships are as welldescribed, mostdifficultbetween all three. (Loughland et al. 2002, Wylie et al. 1998) • Understandings and valuesintergrated, even; rich of emotions = rich in complexunderstandings (Öhman & Östman, 2007, Lundholm & Rickinsson, 2008)

13. Implications Implications for teaching and learning: • Holistic and relational approach is needed • Integration of knowledge and ethics • Importance of the teachers’ awareness of students’ pre-understandings

14. Thanks for your attention!