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56 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 1, Spring 1996 Problematizing E

56 Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 1, Spring 1996 Problematizing Enquiry In Environmental Education: Issues of Method In A Study Of Teacher Thinking and Practice Paul Hart, University of Regina, Canada Abstract Although environmental education activity has increased greatly in Canadian elementary schools in recent years, very little is known about the nature of this activity or about the teacher’s rationale for inclusion in the school program. This paper addresses the question of how educational researchers find out about what happens in schools and why. Based on the notion research methods must be compatible with methodological and philosophical rationale, the paper examines first the compatibility of environmental education and teacher thinking research and second the appropriateness of narrative forms of inquiry for examination of teacher thinking and practice in environmental education. Using the epistemological claim that teachers’ knowledge is ordered by story and the methodological claim that stories are best accessed by conversations, the paper raises several issues of method concerning voice, language, and relationships. These issues, while common to several forms of qualitative and autobiographical method are particularly relevant to the debate in environmental education about the politics of method as well as the role of practitioners in goal setting and professional development. Résumé Bien que l'éducation relative à l'environnement (ERE) ait connu d'importants développements au cours des dernières années dans les écoles primaires canadiennes, nous connaissons fort de choses sur la nature des pratiques pédagogiques à cet effet ou sur les théories justificatives des enseignants quant à l'introduction de l'ERE à l'école. Cet Teacher Thinking and Practice 57 article traite des questions méthodologiques auxquelles les chercheurs sont confrontés lorsqu'ils tentent de décrire et d'expliquer ce qui se passe à l'école. Basé sur le principe de la nécessité d'une cohérence entre les méthodes de recherche et les fondements méthodologiques et philosophiques adoptés, cet article se penche d'une part sur la compatibilité entre l'éducation relative à l'environnement et la recherche sur les théories des enseignants et d'autre part, sur la pertinence de l'enquête de type narrative pour l'étude des théories et des pratiques des enseignants en éducation relative àl'environnement. Adoptant la prémisse épistémologique selon laquelle le savoir de l'enseignant s'organise sous forme d'histoire et la prémisse méthodologique selon laquelle la conversation est un moyen privilégié de révéler cette histoire, l'auteur soulève plusieurs questions méthodologiques concernant la voix, le langage et les relations en cours de conversation. Ces questions, bien que communes à plusieurs formes de méthodes qualitatives et autobiographiques, sont particulièrement pertinentes en regard du débat en éducation relative à l'environnement concernant l'aspect politique du choix d'une méthode de même que le rôle du praticien dans l'identification des buts et le développement professionnel. Environmental education has emerged quite recently as a topic of considerable interest to teachers. Only within the past thirty years or so has “environment” been considered seriously as a legitimate feature of social debate. And only within the last ten years has environment-related activity become a definite part of the school experience in many countries, including Canada. Although environmental education is not a school subject such as science or social studies, many topics ranging from recycling to school yard improvement have become prominent in school programs. Federal government initiatives such as Canada’s Green Plan as well as national and provincial Roundtables on Environment and Economy have reinforced the efforts of organizations responsible for educational programs such as SEEDS’ Learners in Action and Project WILD. Many Canadian provinces now have Conservation 58 Paul Hart Strategies which support education ministry activity to encorporate environmental education and sustainable development-related activities into school curricula and teacher education programs. There appears to be little to dispute the claim that this official government policy activity within Canada has served to legitimize and reinforce a large number of environment-related activities that occur everyday within Canadian school classrooms. The Teacher Thinking and Practice in Environmental Education Project1 was conceived as part of a larger program of research designed to study the phenomenon of environmental education in Canadian schools. Originally intended to examine teacher subject matter knowledge in collaboration with Joy Palmer in Britain and Ian Robottom in Australia, the Canadian study has evolved toward teacher thinking. It remains closely tied to Palmer’s research on the influence of primary school experiences on young children’s understanding of environment-related concepts and Robottom’s case studies of environmental education activity in Australian schools. However, given the nature and extent of environment-related activity within the context of Canadian schools, the absence of a direct curriculum mandate for this activity, and a lack of environment-related subject matter knowledge among Canadian teachers it seemed appropriate to begin work in Canada with a focus on the teacher. The Canadian study focused initially on elementary school teachers because most environment-related activity seems to occur in elementary schools, to be teacher-directed, and to have potential to influence the minds of young children quite significantly. Each of the members of our research team2 has become interested in why so many teachers are creating environment-related experiences for their students without a specific curriculum requirement. It seemed curious that teachers find time for environmental education in the face of a crowded curriculum where core subjects such as science often struggle for a fair share of school time. We wondered if other societal problems are afforded a similar degree of time and attention within Canadian schools. So, we have begun to investigate what drives or motivates teachers to engage young children in environment-related activities. The focus of this paper is the methodology and methods which we have chosen to examine teacher activity (i.e., thought and Teacher Thinking and Practice 59 practice) in environmental education in Canadian elementary schools. The methodology is intentionally qualitative and the methods interpretive by necessity but critical by intent. Our interest is in using our method of inquiry as a means of problematizing the debate about research methodology in environmental education. The steady move toward more qualitative forms of inquiry within educational research must be accompanied by critical debate about those forms of inquiry as well as their contribution toward improving thinking and practice in the field of education. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to discuss our methodological struggle as researchers, that is, to find a way to construct forms of inquiry that would help us understand the relationship between teacher thinking and practice in environmental education. Constructed as it is to address our own politics of method, the paper raises several issues that have confronted our attempts to understand and to help teachers understand the complex of thought and action associated with environmental education in Canadian elementary schools. Research Perspective Educational research can take a variety of forms depending upon the perspective taken and the questions asked. Research on teacher thinking has tended to be qualitative in nature (Day, Calderhead, & Denicolo, 1993; Pope, 1993) which is compatible with the research perspective of the new environmental paradigm or worldview (Reason, 1988, 1994). Relating this perspective to environmental education research, Robottom and Hart (1993) argue that different approaches to educational research do not simply represent different strategies for collecting data (i.e., different tools in the universal researcher’s tool kit) but rest upon and express different ways of knowing, different epistemologies, each of which subsumes and defines a corresponding set of assumptions about matters such as the nature of truth, the relationship between researcher and participants, and the role of values and ethics in inquiry. Each of these sets of assumptions defines a distinct set of research methodologies according to the values inherent within each underlying paradigm or worldview. Thus, each methodology represents a fairly distinct path to inquiry. Each is shaped by 60 Paul Hart different purposes, values, and standards, as well as different social and political perspectives on reality and on knowledge. Robottom and Hart (1993) have proposed, given their view of paradigm incommensurability (see Bernstein, 1983; Rorty, 1979; Skritic, 1990) , that certain forms of inquiry which are qualitative (i.e., interpretive and critical), participatory, and action-oriented, are theoretically and practically consistent with environmental education research grounded in ecophilosophy (Fox, 1990; Skolimowski, 1981). I would argue that these same forms of inquiry are compatible with certain views of teacher thinking research grounded in “inside-out” methods (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990; Pope, 1993). Because these forms of inquiry, unlike more traditional applied science educational research methods, include consideration of both human consciousness and political action they are at least capable of responding to moral and social questions about educational programs (see Beyer, 1988; Carr & Kemmis, 1986; Fay, 1987; Polkinghorne, 1983; Popkewitz, 1984) and, as such, are compatible with the demands imposed by research in the field of environmental education. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to reproduce the paradigm debate that has occurred recently within educational research (see Gage, 1989; Guba, 1990; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Husen, 1988; Jackson, 1990; Oberle, 1991; Smith & Heshusius, 1986), the basic problem is that applied science methods systematically and intentionally exclude “subjects” from critical consideration about the substance and method of the inquiry as uploads/Philosophie/ problematizin-inquiry.pdf