Political tendency in ESE-practice: a typology for analysing how different teaching approaches about the political results in different educational content
Author(s):
Michael Håkansson (presenting / submitting) Leif Östman David O Kronlid
Conference:
ECER 2016
Network:
30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

30 SES 03 A, Emotions and the Political

Paper/Poster Session

Time:
2016-08-23
17:15-18:45
Room:
NM-A105
Chair:
Leif Östman

Contribution

The over-arching purpose is to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of particular ways in which pupils’ experience and learn from the political in ESE-practice.In this paper we present a didactical typology of what we call political tendency. The typology categorizes how different educational settings implicate political as educational content in different ways. The typology is empirically generated from an analysis of different teaching approaches – concerning content as well as manner of teaching – regarding the political. The need for such a typology is motivated by an increased argumentation about ESE as a political practice (Sund and Öhman 2014, Hasslöf and Malmberg 2014, Bengtsson and Östman 2013, Knutsson 2013, Van Poeck Vandenabeele 2012). Even though the political attracts an increasing number of scholars in ESE research; the field leaves many questions around a political ESE-practice unanswered.  This situation creates ambiguities and confusion, not least amongst teachers (Tan and Pedretti 2010). In Håkansson et al (2015) we focus on political moment as one kind of political tendency. In this paper we expand the analysis and identify further ways of approaching the political within ESE, which we label typology of political tendency. We take departure in the Wittgenstein-inspired work by Öhman & Östman (2008) where they present a typology of different manifestation of the ethical tendency in human lives.  (see also Wittgenstein, 1993). The theoretical approach used here implies that the political regards as expressions of a particular human tendency— the political tendency—that is observable in communication. Following Öhman & Östman (2008) we do not approach political as theoretically demarcated concepts, but rather as a feature of human thinking and behaviour—which we call political tendency. This standpoint states that there are no division between language, meaning and reality. Additionally, it is the human conditions that refer to situations when we make value judgements concerning issues of public concern that include conflicting alternatives and the judgement become political when the consequences emerge as inclusion and exclusion in relation to different conflicting alternatives. In that way, a typology of political tendency aims to clarify what we mean by the political within the context of ESE and how different teaching approaches implicate the political as educational content in different ways. 

Method

The typology is constructed through empirical analysis of video-recorded pupils’ interaction in a Swedish classroom in lower secondary education (pupils age 16-17). Analytically, we focus on learning that occurs in the deliberation where things are at stake, i.e. we are interested both in the privileging process and the result of this process in terms of pupils’ manners of handling conflicts. The analysis is done in three steps. The first step is to identify situations where the participants utter value judgement that has collective consequences. It is important to underline that political tendency should not be understood as a matter of only linguistics, i.e., what kinds of words that are used. According to Öhman and Östman (2008) a tendency can rather be regarded as a practical matter and something that amounts to what we try to communicate. In addition, words, facial expressions, and gestures assume their meaning in connection with the circumstances of the event (see Wittgenstein, 1953/2001 and 1969/1997). Consequently, in step two the meaning of expressed political judgements is analysed in relation to the specific circumstances. This step in the analysis can be described as a language game analysis (Östman 2010). The third step consists of a comparative analysis of the result from step two, where similarities and differences are focused and categorized in a typology of political tendency.

Expected Outcomes

The empirical analysis identifies four different teaching approaches that have different implications concerning how the political emerge as educational content. The result of this comparison can be seen as a part of the typology named political tendencies and consits of political moment, political reflection, political deliberation and political norms. Political moment concerns situations where the students are making an inquiry of immediate, strong emotional, and embodied experience of undecidability. As such the political moment strikes or haunts pupils’ rather than something that can be calculated, created or predicted in an ESE-practice. This also means that we cannot take for granted that pluralism in a classroom will automatically generate political moment among the pupils. However, in a logical sense and from experiences of teaching it is reasonable that pluralism can sometimes trigger political moments. Political deliberation is a practice where the procedural aspect and rational-cognitive arguments are emphasized. Most of the interactions at the videotaped lesson can be characterised as examples of political deliberation. We identify that the characteristic of political deliberation occupies the epistemological space of a political tendency. In political reflections the students are involved in a rational-cognitive, systematic and general inquiry and make conclusions about reasons for political actions and as such also occupy the epistemological space of the political tendency. Finally, political norms emerge when pupils’ are taught the correct way of handling a political issue. As such the typology covers epistemological-cognitive and emotional dimensions. We conclude to discuss educative opportunities offered in educational practices in relation to different teaching approaches of the political in ESE. The didactical typology developed first contributes with empirical examples from political ESE-practice, second an ambition to investigate and create knowledge of different ways political is expressed in ESE and third, to inspire to further empirical research of ESE as a political practice.

References

Bengtsson, S. L., & Östman, L. O. (2013). Globalisation and education for sustainable development: emancipation from context and meaning. Environmental Education Research, 19(4), 477–498. Hasslöf, H., Ekborg, M.; and Malmberg, C. 2014. Discussing sustainable development among teachers: An analysis from a conflict perspective. International Journal of Environment & Science Education, (9), 41-57 Håkansson, M., Östman, L. & Kronlid O, D. 2015. Living through the political in a pluralistic ESE-practice – exploring the educative in a political moment. Paper accepted for presentation at ECER, European Conference on Educational Research, September 2015 in Budapest, Hungary Knutsson, Benjamin. 2013. Swedish environmental and sustainability education research in the era of post-politics? Utbildning & Demokrati, Vol 22, No 2, p 105-122 Sund, L. and Öhman, J. 2014. On the need to repoliticise environmental and sustainability education: rethinking the postpolitical consensus, Environmental Education Research 20(5): 639-659. Tan, M & Pedretti, E. (2010) 'Negotiating the Complexities of Environmental Education: A Study of Ontario Teachers', Canadian Journal of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, 10: 1, 61—78 Van Poeck, K., and J. Vandenabeele. 2012. “Learning from Sustainable Development: Education in the Light of Public Issues.” Environmental Education Research 18 (4): 541–552. Wittgenstein, L. 1953/2001. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. 1969/1997. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. 1993. A lecture on ethics. In Philosophical occasions 1912-1951, ed. J. C. Klagge and A. Nordmann, 37-44. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett. Öhman , J., and L. Östman. 2008. Clarifying the ethical tendency in education for sustainable development practice: A Wittgenstein-inspired approach. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 13, no 1: 57-72. Östman, L. (2010). ESD and discursivity: Transactional analyses of moral meaning making and companion meanings. Environmental Education Research, 16(1), 75–93.

Author Information

Michael Håkansson (presenting / submitting)
Uppsala University, Sweden
Leif Östman
Uppsala University, Sweden
David O Kronlid
Uppsala University, Sweden

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