After a gap of many years, I am at the European Conference on Educational Research in Istanbul. The pull of this year's event was the first meeting of a new grouping: Research on Environmental and Sustainability Education [ESE]. Another anachrocnym, I fear. This group / network has emerged from a hybrid affair that really focuses on Health Education Research. Of course, seeing Health & Environment / Sustainability as inseparable has long been a cherished view of Danes and Swedes, and it's no surprise that they dominate this network. See here for details.
The theme of this first ESE meeting is: Contributions of Environmental and Sustainability Education to the European Educational Research Landscape. Here are the aims of the meeting:
1. to give examples and show the diversity of research made within this new, but fully fledged, research field of Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE). Examples from classroom studies, higher education, international comparisons, policy-studies on national and international level are mixed with outlooks regarding the development of the whole research field in international perspectives.
2. to show the quality of the research made through examples from projects using different types of quantitative and qualitative methods, and supported by well-developed theories with starting points in various traditions in educational philosophy.
3. to invite educational researchers from all over the world to join in open discussions of the future development of research in ESE. We propose to discuss how this new network can contribute to the development of ESE research, both generally, and within ECER, but also more specifically how we complement other international ESE networks.
This first symposium has two 90 minute sessions for research papers, as well as space for open discussion on how this new network can contribute to the development and maturation of the ESE research area. Presentations are from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. There are discussants, of whom I am one. Looking forward to it.
Note: As will be imagined, the term ESE was something of a compromise across interests and perspectives, and I hope we don't get bogged down with thinking too much about it. It's not quite the AERA special interest group on EE; but it's a good start.
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