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This article was downloaded by: [University of Connecticut] On: 09 October 2014, At: 02:30 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rgee20 The contribution of geography teaching to pupils’ environmental education: Methodological considerations and issues for researching teachers’ thinking about practice Alan Reid a , Bill Scott a & Chris Oulton b a Centre for Research in Environmental Education Theory and Practice, Department of Education , University of Bath , Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK b School of Education , Worcester College of Higher Education , Henwick Grove, Worcester, WR2 6AJ, UK Published online: 10 May 2010. To cite this article: Alan Reid , Bill Scott & Chris Oulton (1997) The contribution of geography teaching to pupils’ environmental education: Methodological considerations and issues for researching teachers’ thinking about practice, International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 6:3, 222-233, DOI: 10.1080/10382046.1997.9965049 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.1997.9965049 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,

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Page 1: The contribution of geography teaching to pupils’ environmental education: Methodological considerations and issues for researching teachers’ thinking about practice

This article was downloaded by: [University of Connecticut]On: 09 October 2014, At: 02:30Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

International Research inGeographical and EnvironmentalEducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rgee20

The contribution of geographyteaching to pupils’ environmentaleducation: Methodologicalconsiderations and issues forresearching teachers’ thinkingabout practiceAlan Reid a , Bill Scott a & Chris Oulton ba Centre for Research in Environmental Education Theoryand Practice, Department of Education , University ofBath , Claverton Down, Bath, BA2 7AY, UKb School of Education , Worcester College of HigherEducation , Henwick Grove, Worcester, WR2 6AJ, UKPublished online: 10 May 2010.

To cite this article: Alan Reid , Bill Scott & Chris Oulton (1997) The contribution of geographyteaching to pupils’ environmental education: Methodological considerations and issues forresearching teachers’ thinking about practice, International Research in Geographical andEnvironmental Education, 6:3, 222-233, DOI: 10.1080/10382046.1997.9965049

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.1997.9965049

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information(the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor& Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warrantieswhatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions andviews of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. Theaccuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independentlyverified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liablefor any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,

Page 2: The contribution of geography teaching to pupils’ environmental education: Methodological considerations and issues for researching teachers’ thinking about practice

and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly inconnection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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The Contribution of Geography Teachingto Pupils' Environmental Education:Methodological Considerations andIssues for Researching Teachers' Thinkingabout Practice

Alan Reid and Bill ScottCentre for Research in Environmental Education Theory and Practice,Department of Education, University of Bath, Claverton Down. Bath, BA2 7AY, UK

Chris OultonSchool of Education, Worcester College of Higher Education, Henwick Grove,Worcester, WR2 6AJ, UK

This paper reports an on-going study in the UK regarding the contribution of geogra-phy teaching to pupils' environmental education when studying local issues. The studyinvestigates three areas: (1) geography teachers' conceptualisation of environmentaleducation; (2) how environmental education provision is affected by the disposition ofschools and the practices found within them; and (3) the dynamics of improving thecontribution of geography teaching to pupils' environmental education when pupilsstudy local issues. The paper discusses methodological considerations and issues forsuch research at length, emphasising the importance of choosing appropriate method-ologies and thoughtfully constructing research designs.

IntroductionRecent research in environmental education has identified many inconsisten-

cies between principles, policies and practice (for instance, see the examplesprovided in Mrazek, 1993; Posch, 1993; Robottom & Hart, 1993). The studyreported here has incorporated a variety of theoretical frameworks to investigateenvironmental education within schools, a key focus of which has been thetheoretical, ideological and practical factors which influence the final provisionof environmental education by geography teachers. The focus of the study is howgeography teachers make sense of their professional world, the knowledge andbeliefs they bring with them to the task of contributing to pupils' environmentaleducation, and how teachers' understanding of learning and the subject matterinform their practice when using local issues to contribute to pupils' environ-mental education (see Calderhead, 1996).

The study has drawn upon a variety of traditions in educational research toframe and focus the research questions, and has combined distinctive researchmethodologies involving the collection of both qualitative and quantitative datathrough a 'multi-methods' approach. The paper begins with a discussion of thecontribution of geography teaching to pupils' environmental education when alocal issue is the focus of learning. The paper continues with a discussion of theresearch process, and then, at length, discusses methodological considerations

1038-2046/97/03 0222-12 $10.00/0 ©1997 A. Reid et al.International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education Vol. 6, No. 3,1997

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Geography Teaching and Environmental Education 223

and issues arising from the research process. The paper concludes by introducinga range of preliminary findings concerning teachers' accounts of : (1) teaching andlearning strategies appropriate for environmental education when studying localissues; (2) the relationship between geography and environmental education;and (3) the constraining and enabling factors which determine whether acontribution to pupils' environmental education takes place.

Contributing to Pupils' Environmental Education when TeachingGeography

The factors affecting the provision of environmental education by geographyteachers are complex since, amongst other things, they include the knowledgeand understanding, awareness, enthusiasm and practice of the teacher. The goalof this study has been to infer and describe subject-specific conceptions,attribution beliefs, values and attitudes, rather than the nature of such beliefs,how they are formed, or how they may be changed. Consequently, the study setsout to capture data on teachers' thinking, investigating teachers' beliefs,knowledge and practice (see Clandinin, 1986; Elbaz, 1983; Fien, 1992; Pajares,1992) with regard to the study of local issues in their geography teaching. It alsoinvestigates other significant factors including the school's ethos and therealisation of policy; therefore, the context, structure, planning and the coordina-tion for implementing environmental education within the school have also beentaken into consideration.

The study of local issues is a feature of many school geography courses, andtheir potential for contributing to pupils' environmental education has beennoted by Corney and Middleton (1996:328) and Posch (1993:29). Studying localissues may involve education about the local environment, education for the localenvironment, education from the local environment and education in the localenvironment. Corney and Middleton (1993:328) note the possibility that:

such study, handled sensitively, allows students to generate their ownknowledge, and through this, their own understanding. Students areencouraged to develop different and possibly conflicting interpretations ofthe causes and possible solutions of environmental issues in their locality.

They go on to quote Posch (1993: 29) who states: 'the generation of localknowledge implies an integration of experience-based judgement with availableknowledge'. Since the pupils' diet of environmental education from the teachingof geography will vary in terms of quantity, quality and variety, environmentaleducation researchers ought to investigate the accounts of geography teachersconcerning the contributions which their teaching makes to pupils' environ-mental education.

A number of writers and researchers have identified a variety of environ-mental ideologies and different traditions in geographical education (see, forexample, Ballantyne, 1995; Corney & Middleton, 1996; Hacking, 1992; Huckle,1983, 1993; O'Riordan, 1981; Pepper, 1986; Sterling & Cooper, 1992). Theseconstructs interact with a variety of theoretical and practical factors in influencingthe contribution to pupils' environmental education by the geography teacher.Environmental ideologies and approaches to environmental education in

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geography vary with the different traditions in geographical education and haveformed an analytical framework for this research; a framework which undergoessubsequent re-evaluation through its 'goodness-to-fit' with data and explanatorypower in relation to teachers' thinking. Anecdotal examples of the interplaybetween ideology, tradition and other factors taken from the study includeaccounts of:

(1) a geography teacher who espouses an eco-socialist environmental ideologywho feels unduly constrained by an exam-orientated regional geographycourse and thus unable to replace current conservative practices with apreferred reconstructionist pedagogy;

(2) a people-environment type syllabus taught by an avowed environmentalcornucopian whose predominantly didactic teaching style usually down-plays the negative impacts of environmental conflicts on the Earth;

(3) a geography department that displays a high degree of uniformity overpreferred teaching and learning strategies, preferring field work — particu-larly residential field work—for its education in the environment but whichis consistently prevented from using these approaches by financial andbureaucratic restrictions; and

(4) a geography teacher who conflates managerial and gaianist ideologies andpractises a liberal education for the environment in teaching about sustain-ability issues.

The Nature, Phases and Scope of the StudyThe previous section of the paper has introduced various aspects of the

background to the study. The following section discusses the study in furtherdetail, situating the study in the broader fields of research in education andenvironmental education, and introducing the nature, phases and scope of thestudy.

Like educational research in general, recent environmental education researchhas been undertaken for different reasons, within different frameworks and withdiffering assumptions about (1) the nature of research activity itself; and (2) whatcounts as appropriate data and valid interpretation (Robottom & Hart, 1993).Conventional distinctions between research orientations may categorise researchas positivist, interpretive and critical. In order to frame and focus the researchquestions, this study is informed by a variety of traditions in educational researchand has drawn on and combined distinctive research methodologies involvingthe collection of both qualitative and quantitative data. The research techniquesand questions are derived from the orientations in educational researchmentioned earlier, on the grounds that 'multi-methods' are a valuable andnecessary approach to researching these complex areas. For instance, the synopticareas of this study include both the conceptions, ideologies and practices ofenvironmental education and geographical education, and teachers' thinking.Similarly, in combining techniques such as open-ended interviews with re-sponses to dilemmas and vignettes and reflections on observed practice (asrecommended by Pajares, 1992), the researcher may elicit richer and moreauthentic inferences about teachers' thinking.

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Geography Teaching and Environmental Education 225

The study was carried out in three separate phases. The first phase involveda literature review which informed a questionnaire survey of aspects ofgeography teaching, environmental education and the study of local issues. Thequestionnaire was also used to identify a cohort of ten geography teachers for thenext phase which involved two interviews. The first interview was semi-struc-tured using a variety of stimulus tasks; the second was a focused interviewprimarily based upon two sources: an autobiographical account of the contextfor their teaching provided by each interviewee, and that same teacher'squestionnaire responses from phase one. The third phase of the study, which iscontinuing, involves case studies of how geography teachers improve thecontribution to pupils' environmental education of pupils studying local issues.This phase is employing the previous and other methods, and is informed byRobinson's (1993) problem-based methodology.

The three phases of study, their purposes and the means for their investigationare as follows:

Table 1

Phase

1.

2.

3.

Purpose

Establishing an overview on teachers'thinking about geography teaching,environmental education and localissuesIdentifying a cohort of contrastingcases and establishing insights intotheories and practice of geographyteaching, environmental educationand local issuesContextualising such insights andidentifying possibilities for improvingthe contribution to pupils'environmental education throughstudying a local issueInvestigating how the contribution topupils' environmental educationthrough studying a local issue mightbe improved by the geography teacher

Means

The questionnaire and the firstinterview

The first interview

The second interview

Case studies

As such, the case studies in the third phase focus on a question along the linesof:

How could you [the geography teacher] improve the contribution of yourgeography teaching to pupils' environmental education through the studyof a particular [teacher-identified] local issue?

The flexibility in such a question draws on insights from Walker's (1995)research which was based, inter alia, on Robinson's (1993) problem-basedmethodology (PBM). PBM identifies a problem as not solely accruing from thegap between existing and desired practices (i.e. a negative problem since itincludes the undesirable), but also as a puzzle or challenge that needs to be solved

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(i.e. a neutral problem since it includes the possible). Thus the question assumesthat current practice is problematic but it presents a challenge through a goal tobe achieved. It is also informed by the view that educational research may helpsolve educational problems, hence the notion of improvement which adds acritical dimension to this study (see Robottom & Hart, 1993). In this study,through the evaluation of the merits of their teaching in practice, participants arefacilitated in making decisions about how best to approach their professionaltasks, which, in this case, focus on the contribution of their geography teachingto pupils' environmental education. This might be conceived to be the explicitlyeducative aspect of the study, for both researcher and practitioner (cf. Fien, 1992,1993). The later parts of phase two required the identification of suitableproblems for solving in phase three. Thus phase three, itself, explores strategiesfor solving a particular, suitable problem which was identified in phase two.

The first phase of the study used a convenience sample of secondary schoolteachers of geography in England and investigated the contributions that theirgeography teaching makes to pupils' environmental education. The eightycomprehensive schools selected for the study sample were from three regions ofEngland: the Bath area, Oxfordshire and Derbyshire. Subsequent dimensionalsampling for the second phase included experienced teachers from across therange of age and experience, and from different departmental levels (Cohen &Manion, 1994:88-89).

The following sections discuss the study in further detail, concentrating onmethodological considerations and associated research issues, and then report-ing the preliminary findings.

The Study: Methodological Considerations and IssuesFour broad observations were fundamental to this study: (1) the geography

teacher teaches geography that either implicitly or explicitly contributes topupils' environmental education to a greater or lesser extent; (2) the beliefsteachers hold influence their perceptions and judgements, which, in turn, affecttheir classroom practice; (3) teachers are sense-making, endowed with the abilityto reflect, describe and discuss their thoughts, feelings and actions; and (4) thereare many inconsistencies between teaching principles, policies and practice. Inorder to explore these observations, the study has drawn upon a variety oftheoretical frameworks to investigate the provision of environmental education,focusing on

how teachers make sense of their professional world, the knowledge andbeliefs they bring with them to the task, and how teachers' understandingof learning ... and the subject matter inform their practice.iCalderhead,1996: 709).

Yet for a variety of reasons, teachers may be unable or unwilling to representtheir knowledge and beliefs accurately. Hence, for purposes of investigation,reasonable inferences about teachers' thinking require evaluations of whatteachers say, intend, and do; such that teachers' verbal expressions, predisposi-tions to action, and teaching practices are all included in assessments of teachers'thinking (Pajares, 1992:327).

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Geography Teaching and Environmental Education 227

One of the key assumptions underlying this investigation is that teachers'practice is substantially influenced and may even be determined by their thinking(Solas, 1992), as opposed to, say, tradition, enculturation or crisis management.Hence a key issue in the study has been the investigation of an observation madeby Calderhead (1996: 719): teachers hold many untested assumptions that influencehow they thinkabout classroom matters and respond to particular situations; in this case,untested assumptions which influence the geography teacher's contribution topupils' environmental education when pupils study local issues. In articulatingtheir implicit theories, teachers disclose beliefs as well as knowledge, thepotential significance of which is noted by Pajares (1992:311):

beliefs are far more influential than knowledge in determining howindividuals organise and define tasks and problems and are strongerpredictors of behaviour [than knowledge].

Hence, part of the overall research aims of the study has been to describe therange of implicit theories that teachers hold about teaching geography thatcontributes to pupils' environmental education (cf. Ballantyne, 1992) in anattempt to understand and explain how and why the practices of teachers takeon the forms and functions that they do when contributing to pupils' environ-mental education through studying local issues (see Cooper & Mclntyre, 1995).

The following questions for this study arise from the aforementioned researchon teachers' thinking:

• How do geography teachers understand their contribution to pupils' envi-ronmental education within their school context?

• What are the associated areas of teachers' knowledge and beliefs?• What do teachers take account of as they plan to contribute to pupils'

environmental education in geography lessons?• What are the values that are implicit within their contributions to pupils'

environmental education?• How might geography teachers improve the contribution of their teaching

to pupils' environmental education through the study of local issues?

Questions such as these are indicative of the study's three main research areas:geography teachers' conceptualisation of environmental education; how envi-ronmental education provision is affected by the disposition of schools and thepractices found within them; and the dynamics of improving the contribution ofgeography teaching to pupils' environmental education through the study oflocal issues.

The purpose of this study of aspects of teachers' thinking is to make explicitand visible the frames of reference through which individual teachers perceive,process and practice geography teaching that contributes to pupils' environ-mental education; and it is clear that such questions can be approached from andwith a variety of research perspectives and strategies. Amongst the manycontexts within which the teacher dwells and operates, each teacher has apsychological context that is thought to be composed of a mixture of onlypartially articulated theories, beliefs, and values about his or her role, the subjectarea, and about the dynamics of teaching and learning (Calderhead, 1996).Nevertheless, it is widely recognised that to chart a human knowledge base in

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any area of professional activity is an ambitious and potentially endless task(Clark & Peterson, 1986). This type of research, of which the study reported hereis but one example, is made problematic by a variety of factors, one of which isthe need to access a credible and trustworthy form of the teachers' vast, and oftensomewhat idiosyncratic knowledge base, which itself is always complicated byits dynamic nature. A recent example that illustrates the significance of thisdynamic is the introduction in 1989 of a National Curriculum for schools inEngland and Wales with its impact on the teacher's knowledge base, which, inresponse to such curriculum innovations, has needed to be modified andrestructured (as with subsequent revisions to the curriculum (DfE, 1995; NCC,1990); see Roberts, 1995).

Do these investigations maintain the integrity of participants' perspectiveswhilst revealing them? A study such as this requires a method of data collectionthat stimulates and motivates participants to explore and make explicit thoughtsand feelings of a personal and possibly idiosyncratic nature that are notnecessarily the subject of routine conscious reflection. As Cooper and Mclntyre(1995) argue, those implicit theories which are the subject of these kinds of studyare normally covert and beyond immediate access to the researcher. Some ofthese theories are tacit and previously unarticulated by the teachers, others maybe consciously held and already well articulated by their holders.

In order to describe the distribution of conceptions of the teaching ofenvironmental education among teachers, and to compare teachers' implicittheories with their actual classroom practice, the initial stages of researchdepended heavily upon various forms of self-report by teachers. The centralmethodological issue concerns how to elicit and interpret credible and trustwor-thy self-reports about teachers' thinking in terms of knowledge and beliefs thatteachers act upon. This study proceeds on the assumption that verbal responsesto well-focused questions will be most likely to give rise to credible andtrustworthy data, i.e. data produced when a person is 'reporting on the contentsof short-term memory, that is, that which he or she is currently attending to'(Clark & Peterson, 1986:259). Less credible and trustworthy data will result fromprobes that are vague and general or that require respondents to use inferentialprocesses to complete or elaborate partially remembered information. Thus, theinterview schedules used in this study incorporated 'multi-methods' to capturereferences to concrete, recent examples of both teaching and teachers' thinking,which are typically context-specific. These were then probed and made subjectto teacher reflection.

Investigations in the field of teachers' thinking often comprise small-sampledescriptive research. Various techniques have been used in such investigationsto tackle the methodological issues mentioned above; they include journalkeeping, interviews, observations, think aloud, stimulated recall, questionnaires,group discussions, document content analysis, ethnography, policy capturing,and repertory grid techniques. (See Fenstermacher, 1994 and Fang, 1996 for areview of these methods and a discussion of validity issues.)

This study has employed a number of these techniques particularly during theinterview phases. For example, the first interview contained:

• a simple concept mapping task in which teachers 'brainstormed' on the

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Geography Teaching and Environmental Education 229

topic of environmental education, producing an array of concepts; thenindicating and discussing the relationships between them, and comparingtheir significance so that the nature of teachers' understandings of environ-mental education through geography could be examined; and

• a simulation task based on card sorting which used a contrived situation(learning scenarios for geography lessons) to elicit teachers' thinking aboutpractical teaching situations and how they are evaluated with reference tothe research aims.

The second interview was based on an autobiographical account (withsupplementary documentation, where appropriate) to describe teachers' teach-ing of environmental education through geography in their own words, in orderto reveal its real-life complexity (cf. Connelly & Clandinin, 1990). Along withother research techniques, a form of stimulated recall commentary was based onboth this narrative description, supplementary documentation and the question-naire in order to produce other sources of data from which to infer teachers'conceptions and ways of thinking about teaching that contributes to pupils'environmental education (see Munby, 1986).

However, the use of such methods is not unproblematic. For example, Yinger(1986) has argued that teachers may not have access to much of their thinking.Self-reports, either verbal or written, will be partial, and the research context mayplace teachers in situations where they may tend to produce post-hoc rationali-sations for their practice. Also, teachers' verbal reports can be seen as an amalgamof justifications, explanations, recollections and partial descriptions. They areoften contradictory, only partially clear, and even incoherent. To tackle thisproblem, Munby (1986) argues that research and analysis might employ a moresensitive, qualitative and ethnographic approach, with interpretation adoptinga linguistic analysis that categorises the language and concepts used in an attemptto uncover the kinds of conceptual frameworks that are implicit in teachers' talkabout their practice. Cooper and Mclntyre (1995) describe similar techniques forensuring their authenticity, i.e. the honesty of accounts of teachers' ownperceptions of recall and thinking. In responding to Fenstermacher's (1994)arguments concerning an apparent lack of validity in the use of these techniques,Munby and Russell (1996) advocate the notion of functional validity inestablishing the validity of reporting teachers' constructs. They propose thatresearchers should inspect the theatre of practice and see if the constructs havetaken the practitioner where he or she wished to go, primarily through arecognition of the authority of experience for their thinking and practice (asopposed to, say, reason or status).

Another broader question is how adequately can verbal propositions repre-sent thought and beyond? Arising from the multi-methods used, the researchinterviews indicated that some of the teachers' thoughts may have been moreappropriately represented in terms of images, feelings or metaphors as they weredifficult to express as propositions (see Wubbels, 1992). Moreover, visual guidingimages from earlier experiences might also have helped to make sense of (but actas filters and intuitive screens to) the data that is reported in the study. The issueof genre is pertinent at this point: the socio-cultural conventions which governresearch discourses may draw upon the gamut of my thologising, marginalising,

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celebrating, recapitulating and sentimentalising teachers' thinking. Calderhead's(1996: 712) advice is significant:

at this juncture: care has to be taken in both the elicitation and analysis ofverbal report data, and in interpreting the significance of the data,consideration must be given to what the data represents and the limitationson the extent to which it can provide an accurate description of teachers'thinking.

Preliminary Findings of the StudyThe interview transcripts have undergone an initial form of iterative compara-

tive analysis (see Cooper & Mclntyre, 1995:186) and a number of themes haveemerged from the study thus far. The following appear to have particularsignificance for deepening our understanding of the pursuit of environmentaleducation in schools:

• Teachers' accounts of teaching and learning strategies (TLS) appropriate forenvironmental education when studying local issues; e.g.(a) attitudes towards particular TLS and their perceived appropriateness

and successes, including (1) enquiry-based learning and fieldwork;and (2) teaching modes, whether transmissive, interactive, reactive,student-directed;

(b) TLS germane to controversial issues; and(c) the role of values and the role of political education.

• Teachers' accounts of the relationship between geography and environmentaleducation; e.g.(a) accounts of the scope for and nature of environmental education in

geography, and more specifically, through the study of local issues;(b) knowledge of and distinctions between the environmental and

educational aspects of environmental education and their relationshipwith geographical education; and

(c) the significance of (1) 'enquiry geography' and associated syllabuses;(2) teacher's professional development and perspectives; (3) theirsensitivity towards and participation in 'environment'-related activi-ties; (4) the relationship between content choice and educational aims;(5) actions and action competencies; and (6) critical episodes, experi-ences and images from their life histories.

• Teachers' accounts of the constraining and enabling factors which determinewhether a contribution to pupils' environmental education takes place; e.g.(a) examples from the school's context and the role of policy-making,

planning and implementation for environmental education;(b) the potentiality and value ascribed to the study of local issues;(c) accounts of preferred self-image, staffing, policy, time, community links,

resources and money as constraining and enabling factors; and(d) teachers' implicit theories and practices of change and improvement.

These themes are only indicative and certainly not comprehensive. However,they do illustrate the kinds of themes that are undergoing further investigation

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Geography Teaching and Environmental Education 231

in the third phase of the study such that the study might deepen ourunderstanding of the provision of environmental education by geographyteachers in particular schools.

Final CommentsOne outcome of conducting this study has been the recognition that teachers

place a high value on the opportunity to articulate their thinking, whether aboutconceptions, beliefs and /or personal theories embedded in their practice ofgeography teaching. We would agree with Cooper and Mclntyre (1995:187) that'the process of articulation enables teachers to obtain deeper understandings oftheir own practice than would be possible without such articulation'. Moregenerally, in addition to providing ways of thinking about the professionaldevelopment of teachers, research on teachers' thinking and practice has alsoprovided a range of methods that have come to be adopted in practical trainingcontexts, and has contributed towards a rationale for their use (Calderhead,1996). Cooper and Mclntyre (1995) claim that understanding the belief structuresof teachers and teacher candidates is essential to improving their professionalpreparation and teaching practices. An increase in our understanding of how andwhy the process of environmental education looks and works as it does mightalso be used to predict and influence what teachers do in the future, particularlythrough pre- and in-service teacher training programmes (see also Ballantyne,1992; Fien, 1993). To improve the nature of geography teaching practice, it isessential to establish and explore those factors that influence teachers' choice ofteaching and learning strategies. A corollary, which for many is an environmentalimperative, is how this will help to transform our understanding of teachers asagents of societal reproduction and change. A study such as this about teachers'thinking complements other research which investigates factors related to thenotion of the widespread experience of rapid socialisation into established,conservative practices, and their association with 'satisficing teaching behav-iour'. Teachers' beliefs may be taken-for-granted, deeply personal, unaffected bypersuasion, more inflexible and less dynamic than we expect them to be. YetPajares (1992: 310) has argued that 'teachers often teach the content of a courseaccording to the values held of the content itself. The preceding arguments haveclear implications for environmental education professional development pro-grammes, particularly if staff fail to recognise adequately the existence,perseverance and multidimensionality of participants' theories, particularlywhen the aim of many such courses is a change in teachers' thinking towardsadopting particular goals and practices of environmental education.

Finally, further reflection upon the research data suggest that the conceptionsthat geography teachers hold about the practices that constitute their environ-mental education do not fit as neatly as expected into established theoreticalframeworks, and that they may be more complex and eclectic than thosepreviously conceived by environmental education researchers. Reviewing thedata suggests a flexible and complex relationship between teachers' implicittheories and their classroom practice for contributing to pupils' environmentaleducation. To extend and reinforce an important point about teachers' thinkingin general (Calderhead, 1996):

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if teachers' implicit theories are contrary to those embodied in a curriculum,whether it be cross-cunicular or subject based; multi-disciplinary orinter-disciplinary, they are unlikely to bring the innovative aspects ofenvironmental education alive with great enthusiasm, thoroughness, orpersistence.

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