Citizenship Education for a Sustainable Future: An Exploration of Young People’s Attitudes towards Sustainable Citizenship in Northern Ireland

Author(s):

Jenny Wren River Banks (presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES G 12, Countries and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

09:00-10:30

Room:

340. [Main]

Chair:

Catarina Silva Martins

Contribution

This paper explores education’s role in building a more sustainable world, questioning whether citizenship education can contribute to the development of the capacities of young people to live as sustainable citizens in the necessary transition from unsustainability to sustainability. Critical theory is used as a theoretical framework. In terms of transition, critical theory contends that we must respond to new problems and the new possibilities for liberation that arise from changing historical circumstances (Bronner, 2011). Unsustainability has created circumstances to which new possibilities must be considered.

UNESCO’s ‘Decade of Education for Sustainable Development’ ended in 2014. The Bonn Declaration states that “education for sustainable development is immediately necessary for securing sustainable life chances, aspirations and futures for young people” (UNESCO, 2009, p1). However the question arises as to how this can be secured firstly, through ‘education for sustainable development’ as opposed to ‘education for sustainability’ and secondly, without connecting sustainability to citizenship in education. As Barry (2006) states, fundamental sustainability education taught in a local context with a global perspective encompassing the socio-economic and political dimensions to environmental issues is currently lacking.

The attitudes of young people are explored to examine the extent to which young people in Northern Ireland exhibit features of ‘sustainable citizenship’. Sustainable citizenship previously defined by Micheletti & Stolle (2012) appears to be influenced by sustainable development as defined in the Brudtland Report (Brundtland, 1987). The definition used in this research differs and is influenced by the concept of sustainability as defined by the World Council of Churches (1974). The definition in this research is that a sustainable citizen thinks about how their behaviour affects the environmental, social, and economic parts of the world and the people in it. A sustainable citizen is critical of how life is lived in order to change the systems that perpetuate unsustainable behaviour, similarly critical theory is concerned not merely with how things are, but how they might be and should be (Bronner, 2011). Below the aim, objectives, and research questions are outlined.

Aim:

To explore how young people in Northern Ireland connect sustainability and citizenship.

Objectives:

To develop, theoretically, the concept of ‘sustainable citizenship’
To develop a reliable and valid measure of ‘sustainable citizenship’
To examine the extent to which young people in Northern Ireland exhibit the features of ‘sustainable citizenship’
To ascertain how this varies at various levels: jurisdiction, school, and individual
To consider the implications of the findings for future research and for curriculum policy and practice

Research Questions

1. What factors influence the extent to which young people exhibit features of ‘sustainable citizenship’?

2. To what extent do young people understand sustainability in relation to its environmental, social, and economic dimensions?

3. How do young people conceptualise citizenship as it relates to sustainability?

In relation to the Research Questions 1, 2 and 3

• How is this mediated by young people’s identity (e.g. gender, social class, religion, ethnicity/cultural background, and their perception of local/global citizenship)?

• How is this mediated by young people’s interdependence awareness?

• How is this mediated by young people’s political and self-efficacy?

• How is this influenced by young people’s experience of education for ‘sustainable citizenship’ (e.g. in formal and informal educational contexts and through the media)?

4. What is the role of schools in developing young people’s attitudes and behaviours towards ‘sustainable citizenship’?

This research provides ways of assessing ‘sustainable citizenship’. This has the potential to be applied in other contexts and compared internationally. A nationally representative and in depth exploration of the issues surrounding sustainability and citizenship adds to existing knowledge of education’s role in building a more sustainable world.

Method

Contemporary critical theory, an anti-positivist and interdisciplinary approach, advocates methodological dualism (see Feyerabend, 1993). This is a progression from observation and prediction to the simultaneous use of interpretation (Feyerabend, 1993, Geuss, 1981); hence both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this research. The attitudes of 1136 14-15 year old students towards sustainability (environmental, social, and economic) and citizenship were explored with an online survey in 26 schools in Northern Ireland using stratified random sampling. This study drew on the children’s rights based approach used by Lundy and McEvoy (2012a) requiring researchers to use ‘children’s rights standards to inform research design’ (Lundy & McEvoy (2012a p6). One aspect of this approach is working with children as co-researchers in advisory groups, involving them throughout the research process (Lundy & McEvoy, 2009). Ten young co-researchers (14-15 years old) in a Peer Advisory Group (PAG) had their capacity built and were consulted at various stages throughout the research including survey design. The survey contained a mixture of questions. Firstly, questions designed for descriptive analysis such as ranking from 1-6 which group of people the respondents considered themselves to belong to, including European people, Irish people, people of the world, Northern Irish people, British people, and other group of people. Secondly, psychometric measures for regression including the ‘Nature Relatedness Scale’ (Nisbet, 2009), the ‘Competence for Civic Action Scale’ (Flanagan et al, 2007) and a new ‘Sustainable Citizenship Scale’. Thirdly, engaging dilemmas, modelled on the design used by Garcia et al (2012). Finally, open ended questions to encourage expression on a range of issues. In addition the PAG helped to include capacity building within the survey by assisting survey participants in forming their views, as done by Lundy and McEvoy (2012b). This included definitions of environmental, social, and economic sustainability, and local, global, and sustainable citizenship written with the assistance of the co-researchers. These strategies resulted in a survey that is potentially more accurate in assessing young people’s attitudes towards citizenship and sustainability. Focus groups with young people and interviews with teachers were carried out in six schools where multilevel modelling and regression showed the schools to have an impact how much of a ‘sustainable citizen’ students tended to be. The PAG assisted with creating focus group questions and interpreting results from open ended survey questions and focus group responses using thematic analysis to analyse and report themes within the data.

Expected Outcomes

The expected outcome of this research is a better understanding of how young people connect sustainability and citizenship in Northern Ireland. This research explores how living in and through this potential transition affects young people, in addition to examining the extent to which young people in Northern Ireland exhibit features of sustainable citizenship. Statistical analysis of the survey and thematic coding of focus groups and interviews ascertains how this varies at various levels such as jurisdiction, school, and individual, and whether this is influenced by factors other than education. Questions asked and answered included ‘what sustains young people?’, ‘why don’t young people behave as sustainable citizens?’, and asks whether one day ‘we will all behave sustainably’. In addition a scale was developed to measure the concept of sustainable citizenship. The research examines the learning processes, capacities, learning spaces, and conditions that support and facilitate citizenship education for a sustainable future as well as determining what conditions are conducive or inhibitive to promoting sustainable citizenship, both inside and outside of education. The terms sustainability and citizenship, in regard to change and the future are explored and critiqued. Sustainable citizenship, a concept with previously limited theoretical construction, is further developed through a literature review and empirical research. Finally the implications of the findings are considered for future research, for curriculum policy and practice, and for transferability internationally.

References

Barry, J. (2006) "Resistance is fertile: from environmental to sustainability citizenship", Environmental citizenship, vol. 21. Bronner, S.E. (2011) Critical theory: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press. Brundtland, G.H. (1987) World Commission on environment and development: our common future, Oxford University Press. Feyerabend, P. (1993) Against method (1975), Verso, London. Flanagan, C.A., Syvertsen A.K., & Stout M.D. (2007) "Civic Measurement Models: Tapping Adolescents' Civic Engagement. CIRCLE Working Paper 55." Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). García, T., Ordoñez, E., Preckler, M., Sainz, V., Pérez, E., Manjarrez, M.P., García, A.J., Maldonado, A. & Jacott, L. (2012) "From traditional to cosmopolitan views on citizenship education: A new instrument for evaluation", Available at https://metranet.londonmet.ac.uk/fms/MRSite/Research/cice/pubs/2012/2012_528.pdf [2015, 29/01]. Geuss, R. 1981, The idea of a critical theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School, Cambridge University Press. Lundy, L. & McEvoy , L. (2012a) "Childhood, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and Research: What Constitutes a ‘Rights-Based’ Approach?", Child and Family Law Quarterly, vol. 331, pp. 350. Lundy, L. & McEvoy, L. (2012b) "Children’s rights and research processes: Assisting children to (in) formed views", Childhood, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 129-144. Lundy, L. & McEvoy, L. (2009) "Developing outcomes for educational services: a children’s rights‐based approach", Effective Education, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 43-60. Micheletti, M. & Stolle, D. (2012) "Sustainable Citizenship and the New Politics of Consumption", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 644, pp. 88-120. Nisbet, E. K. L., Zelenski, J. M., & Murphy, S. A. (2009) “The Nature Relatedness Scale: Linking individuals’ connection with nature to environmental concern and behaviour” Environment and Behavior, vol. 41, pp. 715-740. UNESCO (2009) The Bonn Declaration, Available: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001887/188799e.pdf [2014, 22/04]. World Council of Churches (1974) Report of 1974 consultation on "Science and Technology for Human Development", Study Encounter no. 69, p.2.

Author Information

Jenny Wren River Banks (presenting / submitting)

Queen's University Belfast

School of Education

Belfast

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