Environmental Education-related Policy Enactment in Japanese High Schools

Melissa Glackin and Kate Greer
Additional contact information
Melissa Glackin: Melissa Glackin is Senior Lecturer in Science Education, School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London, United Kingdom.
Kate Greer: Kate Greer is a Research Associate with the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London, United Kingdom. E-mail: kathryn.greer@kcl.ac.uk

Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 2021, vol. 15, issue 2, 165-185

Abstract: Over the past decade, Japan’s rich tradition of environmental education-related policy has shifted to encompass international discourse concerning global competition and education for sustainable development. In view of this shift, this article explores environmental education-related policy enactment from the perspective of high school teachers. In-depth interviews were conducted with 16 experienced teachers and were analysed using the environmental education-related conceptual lenses of Lucas (1972) and Stevenson (1987, 2007). The findings suggest that the current policy enactment in Japanese high schools features a narrow interpretation of environmental education that emphasises knowledge acquisition and overlooks the development of practical skills, attitudes or democratic citizenship. This case study highlights the necessity that, for a progressive environmental education to become established, policymakers must find a way to balance local knowledge with the demands of international organizations, paying particular attention to curriculum ideology, policy competition and the teachers’ voice in policy creation.

Keywords: High school; Japan; ESD; policy; enactment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09734082211031325 (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:sae:jousus:v:15:y:2021:i:2:p:165-185

DOI: 10.1177/09734082211031325

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Education for Sustainable Development
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().