Environmental Education Research

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Environmental Education Research

Environmental Education Research is an international refereed journal which publishes research on environmental and sustainability education.

More at www.tandfonline.com/EER and for details on contacting authors for eprints
Follow on socials Environmental Education Research is an international refereed journal which publishes papers and reports on all aspects of environmental education. The purpose of the journal is to help advance understanding of environmental and sustainability education through a focus on papers reportin

g research and development activities. The journal also carries more diverse papers including, for example, conference reviews, retrospective analyses of activities in a particular field, critical commentaries on policy issues and comparative aspects of an environmental education issue. The criteria for acceptance of papers are that they are analytical and critical; that the ideas being discussed are transferable to other educational systems and cultures; and that they are accessible to an international audience. Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/EER

16/08/2025

Connecting education and persuasion: insights from cognitive structure among college students in a pollinator conservation course | Open Access
Shannon M. Cruz, David M. Keating & Christina M. Grozinger
Pages: 1616-1634 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2456703

Abstract
There are long traditions of research on the implications of cognitive structure for education and persuasion, respectively. Even though both are vital for understanding pro-environmental attitude and behavior change, however, these literatures have rarely been brought into conversation. As a preliminary step in this direction, the present study explored connections between cognitive structure and behavior change among college students participating in a semester-long course on bee conservation. Concepts central to students’ thinking about bee conservation were identified in two ways: via associative attitude networks and via semantic networks. Attitude network structure was fairly stable, but showed some notable changes due to class participation. Furthermore, both networks were partially successful in identifying concepts strongly associated with behavior change over time, though each also made incorrect predictions. With continued refinement, the results suggest that a structure-focused approach may have promise as a foundation for improved strategies to promote pro-environmental behavior change.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2456703

Photo by Mika Baumeister for Unsplash

15/08/2025

Authenticating the integration of the SDGs into a higher education fashion program | Open Access
Jenny Underwood, Rebecca Van Amber, Seth Brown & Renzo Mori Junior
Pages: 1601-1615 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2466109

Abstract
Integrating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into higher education programs, rather than treating them as add-ons, is essential for fostering genuine engagement with sustainability and driving transformational change across industries. However, evaluating whether the SDGs are meaningfully integrated into a program—and validating this integration—remains a challenge. This article presents an approach to authenticate the integration of the SDGs into higher education fashion curricula, using the Bachelor of Fashion and Textiles (Sustainable Innovation) at RMIT University, Australia, as the case study. Through cooperative inquiry, we employed a multi-level mapping approach to validate the SDG integration. This included a university-wide SDG mapping process using Elsevier’s SDG keyword approach, program-level analysis, and a course-specific evaluation based on staff self-assessments. Our findings revealed differences in what the University high-level mapping identified, compared to the program staff self-assessments. This provided a two-way validation for both the SDG mapping exercise and the curriculum. It also became a useful reflective tool for program staff, as it highlighted how courses within a program are interconnected through the SDGs. The approach is not only applicable within fashion education but could be applied to other programs and disciplinary contexts to authenticate SDGs integration and to support ongoing curriculum development.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2466109

Photo by Edward Howell for Unsplash

14/08/2025

Navigating complexity: teaching sustainability through wicked problems in higher education | Open Access
Emma Oljans & Martin Mickelsson
Pages: 1586-1600 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2468821

Abstract
This article aims to explore the integration of wicked problems into sustainability education, within the context of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Zimbabwe. As a complex health challenge, increased microbial resistance disproportionately impacts Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe. Engaging AMR in higher education institutions (HEI) requires a relational One Health approach, which integrates human, animal and environmental health through interdisciplinary collaborations. Using a participatory research workshop method, operationalising case vignettes, this study analysed discussions among participants on AMR education exploring how aspects of Biesta’s educational functions were expressed. Results showcase how holistic education can be developed through interdisciplinary collaborations using real-world cases, offering students broader perspectives and connections. Holistic education can enhance AMR awareness across HEI by including the complexities of wicked problems. This would support students developing key competencies of critical engagement, interdisciplinary collaborations and ethical reasoning, equipping them with expertise as future practitioners to address AMR. The article contributes by highlighting the need for contextual relevant engagements with wicked problems within HEI sustainability education, requiring interdisciplinary collaboration to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to wicked problems. The article’s approach aligns with holistic and post-normal education, expanding educational purposes beyond knowledge acquisition to critical engagement with sustainability challenges such as AMR.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2468821

Photo by Peter Kvetny on Unsplash

13/08/2025

Gaia-Pachamama: an educational theater performance to foster environmental consciousness
Wanessa Bomfim Machado, Ana Maria Landeira-Fernandez, Aline Silva, Erivaldo Fraga da Silva, Julio Alberto Mignaco & Francisco Prosdocimi
Pages: 1569-1585 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2435509

Abstract
This case study details the development, production, and performance of the theatrical play ‘Gaia-Pachamama: An Environmentalist Parable’, created during the first semester of 2022 as part of an integrated undergraduate and graduate course. The play was presented in the context of an outreach project, engaging professors and students of various ages throughout the creative process, from script conception to performance. It addressed issues related to environmental preservation, reverence for Amerindian culture, the indiscriminate use of pesticides, food consumption and human’s greed. By combining historical aspects, scientific knowledge, indigenous wisdom, and artistic expression, the play aimed to raise awareness and promote reflection on environmental issues. We demonstrated that university professors, researchers, technicians, and students in biological sciences possess creative and communication skills that can be developed in a 45-h course. The play was implemented as an active teaching-learning methodology, on which students became protagonists of their pedagogical process, with professors acting as mentors and facilitators. This method encouraged future teachers of basic education to develop activities integrating art, science, history, culture, body, and emotions. Our approach aligns with the concept of pleasure activism which advocates using joy and creativity as tools for social change.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504622.2024.2435509

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

12/08/2025

Trickster teaching and the anthropocene: disrupting the explicitification of pedagogy, people and planet | Open Access
Ramsey Affifi & Nathan Stewart Hensley
Pages: 1551-1568 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2434608

Abstract
In cultures committed to making everything explicit, calling for trickery in education seems suspicious. However, for better or worse, trickery is already prevalent in education. In particular, it quietly persists in assumptions it is possible and desirable to be explicit about many educational matters, including learning intentions, and knowledge of self and others. In this philosophical and autobiographical inquiry, we explore trickery’s role in disrupting and exposing this presumptive transparency, and in working with the educational possibilities that then arise. In parallel, we take note that the Anthropocene is an ambiguous and undetermined situation, which promises to trick whoever seeks secure diagnoses and prescriptions of what is at stake. There are therefore confluences between disrupting explicitification in classroom ecologies and ecologies of the broader world. Suspicious of habits that foreclose people’s ability to respond to events as they arise, trickery surfaces and engage ambiguities, contradictions, and potentials inherent in the invisible and assumed. Despite such antics, the trickster is no mere jokester. As she deals in duplicity, confusion, and concealment, she attends evermore carefully to sincerity, trust, and revelation, to the freedom of people and planet, and to the ongoing threats and promises of a perpetual return to harmony.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2024.2434608

Photo by Victor Sauca on Unsplash

11/08/2025

31(8) is now available at

https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ceer20/31/8

The current issue contains articles on the following

Trickster teaching and the Anthropocene: disrupting the explicitification of pedagogy, people and planet | Open Access
Affifi & Hensley
1551-1568 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2434608

Gaia-Pachamama: an educational theater performance to foster environmental consciousness
Machado et al
1569-1585 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2024.2435509

Navigating complexity: teaching sustainability through wicked problems in higher education | Open Access
Oljans & Mickelsson
1586-1600 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2468821

Authenticating the integration of the SDGs into a higher education fashion program | Open Access
Underwood et al
1601-1615 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2466109

Connecting education and persuasion: insights from cognitive structure among college students in a pollinator conservation course | Open Access
Cruz et al
Pages: 1616-1634 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2456703

Broadening the scope of intergenerational learning in environmental education | Open Access
Powell et al
1635-1657 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2486365

Transforming pedagogical landscapes in the Anthropocene
Kondo & Baars
1658-1673 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2471426

Crafting palettes of potential for a multispecies justice-oriented education | Open Access
Saari
1674-1690 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2475150

Diversifying tree-child relations: making the case for epistemological and methodological shifts in environmental education research | Open Access
Ambreen et al
1691-1705 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2462793

Problematisations of Sustainable Development: a decolonial perspective on education policies in Tanzania | Open Access
Mellingen & Kimaryo
1706-1720 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2484324

Sustainability and sustainable development goals in business higher education research
Nguyen et al
1721-1750 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2482743

Thesis Summary
Assessing disaster risk exposure and capacity gaps for resilience and sustainability within UNESCO-designated heritage sites in Africa
Eze
1751-1752 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2472970

10/08/2025

Environmental education and ethics among hikers on the Pacific Crest trail: a mixed-methods study
Marni Goldenberg, Keri Schwab, Anna Macklyn & Ruben Jimenez
Pages: 1-23 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2538022Abstract
This study explores the sources and influences shaping hikers’ environmental ethics and the implications of environmental education (EE) on their attitudes and behaviors. The study utilized a mixed-methods approach with 199 hikers at various Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) segments in California from Summer 2023 to Winter 2024, an eight-month period. Analysis of survey data tested how demographic characteristics predicted environmental conservation attitudes, as measured by LNT and New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scores. Demographic factors showed weak predictive power overall, but age, gender, and mileage were stronger predictors. The findings emphasize the importance of impactful childhood experiences, comprehensive EE, and media campaigns in fostering environmental stewardship. Qualitative results showed formative experiences, such as parents, peers, Scouts, natural disasters, media, and travel strongly contributed to environmental ethics. Notably, participation in Scouts was strongly associated with respect for nature and a understanding of LNT principles. However, nearly half of the respondents reported having received no formal EE in school, highlighting a critical gap in environmental curricula. Future research should evaluate and integrate these approaches to cultivate stronger environmental ethics across communities.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504622.2025.2538022

Photo by Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash

09/08/2025

Teaching controversial sustainability issues at the junior high-school level: an explorative study of teaching traditions and associations with ways of teaching | Open Access
M. Ojala, L. Östman, K. Van Poeck, S. Bengtsson, M. Håkansson & P. Hansson
Pages: 1-22 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2538031

Abstract
Education about controversial sustainability issues is vital for society’s ability to handle problems like climate change in a democratic manner. How teachers educate about these issues should, ideally, be evidence-based. However, teachers’ ideals and attitudes about education also play a role in how they teach. The aim of this questionnaire study with Swedish junior high-school teachers’ (n = 378) was to explore whether, and how, different teaching traditions – culturally shared ideals regarding education – are associated with reported ways of teaching – i.e. various concrete teaching practices – regarding controversial sustainability issues. Four teaching traditions were identified: A fact-based, - against values tradition was negatively related to, while a pluralistic tradition was positively related to, all ways of teaching, i.e. encouraging sustainable actions, rational reflection, perspective-taking, emotional awareness, and using conflicts for learning among students. A fact-based science orientation was foremost positively associated with promoting rational reflection among students. A normative tradition was positively related to encouraging rational reflection, perspective-taking, and emotional awareness. We also investigated differences between teaching traditions regarding gender and subject identification. We discuss the results in relation to theories and earlier studies about teaching traditions. Practical implications for teacher education and already-active teachers are elaborated upon.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2538031

Photo by Hartono Creative Studio on Unsplash

08/08/2025

Environmental education is needed, but schools are not ready yet: Korean teachers’ perceptions of environmental education in schools
Hyungson Ju, Namsoo Kim & Sun-Kyung Lee
Pages: 1-18 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2539479

Abstract
A nationwide survey was conducted for better understanding of the perceptions and practices related to environmental education by elementary and secondary school teachers. Along with this sample group survey, another survey was conducted on teachers in schools participating in the Korean Ministry of Environment’s environmental education support projects. Teachers who participated in these surveys agreed in general that it was necessary to expand environmental education in schools and had been covering and hoped to continue to cover various environmental topics in their classes. They also thought that, whereas objectives of environmental education were important in school education, sufficient preparations had not been made in their schools for achievement of these objectives. The results of the surveys showed differences in teachers’ responses between both groups. The study drew implications from the differences and suggested considerations for future support of environmental education practices.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504622.2025.2539479

Photo by Mathilda Khoo on Unsplash

07/08/2025

Outdoor environmental education: turning back to the environment at a time of climate and nature emergency | Open Access
Greg Mannion, Claire Ramjan, Stacey McNicol, Matthew Sowerby & Paul Lambert
Pages: 1-23 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2538030

Abstract
Outdoor experiences form a core part of environmental and sustainability education programming but the extent of provision and support is under-researched. This research links a reconsideration of outdoor environmental education (OEE) with survey data from school and early years staff about provision and professional learning in Scotland, UK. Analysis of the survey provides an in-depth view of outdoor duration, focus and locations of excursions, residential and non-residential trips into school grounds, local areas in 2006, 2014, and 2022. Whilst the duration of school provision has seen a reduction, in early years, provision had increased. Importantly, we show associations between increased provision and higher levels of professional learning and confidence. In the light these findings, we consider the need for a renewal of OEE more widely. We offer a theoretical consideration of the ontological bases needed to support a more relevant and place-responsive outdoor environmental educational at a time of climate and nature emergency.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2538030

Photo by 愚木混株 Yumu on Unsplash

06/08/2025

Measuring students’ perceptions of socio-ecological factors influencing their environmental attitudes and behaviors
Adil Youssef Sayeh, Hassane Razkane & El Ayachi El Baghdady
Pages: 1-32 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2534670

Abstract
The study developed a psychometric instrument called the Students’ Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors (SEAB), which measures students’ perceptions of the various micro-, meso-, and macrosystems that influence their environmental attitudes and behaviors. A questionnaire was distributed to 1028 secondary education students in two phases (Phase 1: n = 386; Phase 2: n = 642) and analyzed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Also, correlation and MANOVA tests were conducted to test the instrument’s validity. Results indicate that the five factors of the refined 14-item scale represent a good model fit (normal fit index [NFI] = 0.95, Tucker–Lewis index [TLI] = 0.99, comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.99, and standardized root mean square residual [RMSEA] = 0.02). Findings suggest that students’ perceptions of environmental education, school policies, home–school interactions, and broader socio-cultural influences play an important role in shaping their pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. The findings highlight the importance of considering the complex interplay within different socio-ecological systems in shaping students’ attitudes and behaviors and call for a broader understanding of environmental education that combines different social-ecological systems.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2534670

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

05/08/2025

Education and Learning for Sustainable Futures: 50 Years of Learning for Environment and Change | open access
T. Macintyre, D. Tilbury & A. E. J. Wals (eds) Routledge, 2025
Review by Douglas Bourn
1-2 | DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2532720

"As someone who has been actively involved in the education for sustainable development field for over 30 years, I found many of the themes identified resonated with my own personal experience. I remember the positive feelings there were after Rio and the opportunities created by Agenda 21. I also agree with observations in the volume about ways in which themes such as the Sustainable Development Goals have become embedded in the activities of many higher education institutions. What the volume also notes is the limitations of some of the key policy initiatives both at a national and international level. Whilst we should welcome policy makers engaging with the field, we also need to maintain our independent voice. There is a constant challenge, because of funding restrictions, of just following policy-makers’ proposals rather than critically engaging with them.

"As an academic who works with students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, how would I use this volume? It would be a key introductory text, because it enables the lay reader who wishes to begin their engagement with the field to have some sense of understanding its history. It is probably not the first publication one would read but for someone who wants to know more about how the field evolved it is a good starting point.

"...I welcome, in the concluding chapter, reference to Freire’s ‘pedagogy of hope’ which is something I have written about recently (Bourn & Tarozzi 2023). Such an approach can enable learners to move beyond the debates around ‘eco-anxiety’ and as the authors of this volume note, to strengthen people’s transformative qualities. The volume may be a slim one but it is packed with loads of relevant information and there is extensive references at the end of each chapter. There is also an accessible online tool that has been produced to enable readers to develop their thinking."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504622.2025.2532720

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