Educational Practice in Education for Environmental Justice: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Irene Guevara-Herrero (), Beatriz Bravo-Torija and José Manuel Pérez-Martín
Additional contact information
Irene Guevara-Herrero: Specific Didactics Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
Beatriz Bravo-Torija: Specific Didactics Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain
José Manuel Pérez-Martín: Specific Didactics Department, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: The environmental crisis makes it necessary to reconsider the practices of environmental education (EE) and guide them towards a transformative perspective to promote critical reflection and the ability to make decisions in the face of complex problems, including a perspective of justice. Using the PRISMA systematic review protocol, this article analysed 49 classroom intervention published on international journals to identify the limitations when working on EE in early childhood education, primary education, and pre-service teacher training classrooms from an environmental justice (EJ) perspective. Considering the variables “contents”, “depth of the interventions”, “actions required of students”, and “resources”, the results show a predominance of interventions that promote content knowledge from an ecological perspective and demand actions far removed from reflection and participation, using self-made materials. By not encouraging students to reflect on environmental issues in a holistic way to change their behaviour, it was confirmed that they move away from systems thinking, critical literacy, and action competence. Therefore, there is a lack of integration of the EJ perspective in classroom practices. To achieve educational success in terms of social change for environmental protection, it is necessary to promote research work focused on the didactics of EE including a social justice perspective.

Keywords: environmental justice education; transformative environmental education; Science Education; early childhood education; primary education; pre-service teacher training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/7/2805/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/7/2805/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:7:p:2805-:d:1365322

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().