The language children use when they talk about the environment opens a window into the societal norms and values that affect human – environmental relationship. Understanding how student´s perception of the environment can differ, based on sociocultural factors and experiences, is therefore of vital interest when developing an inclusive environmental education. To adapt environmental education to a specific cultural context thus requires knowledge about ways in which the environment is defined within that context. While research regarding conceptions and misconceptions of environmentally related scientific concepts is abundant, there are fewer studies covering student´s everyday ideas about the environment as a holistic concept, including both nature and society.

This study investigates how cultural factors shape children`s views of the environment in Sweden. In a geographical context it focuses our attention on children’s sense of place, that is, how people inhabit spaces. In an educational context the objective of the study is to examine the different discourse(s) that emerges in children`s drawings, texts and talks about the environment.  Specifically, we ask: what does the environment mean to children and what attachments, if any, do children have with the environment through their discourse about the environment? The research questions are focusing how the children visualize the present and the future environment in drawings, how they describe their drawings and how they explain the differences between the drawing of the environment today and the drawing of the environment in the future.  

Theoretically the research is based on a social constructivist worldview which helped generate research questions and will guide interpreting and analyzing of the data (Patton, 2002; Schwandt, 2000). Accordingly, the student´s views of the environment are regarded as constructions based on experiential events within the community they inhabit where language and interpersonal transactions mediate learning and understanding (Dewey & Bentley, 1949; Vygotsky, 1962).

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