Do Environmental Education School Coordinators Have a Mission?

Abstract

Teachers who are specialized in environmental education (environmental education school coordinators1) can play an important role in empowering students to shape a sustainable future. In this study, the authors examined a group of Czech environmental education school coordinators. The authors aimed to clarify how they interpret their role at their respective schools, how they perceive their self-efficacy, and what they observe as benefits and barriers to their work as a coordinator. They conducted a qualitative study with focus groups and completed individual in-depth interviews with the coordinators. The results suggest that the coordinators view their work as a mission. The ultimate goal of this mission is to change the children’s behavior to make it more pro-environmental, and, at the same time, to establish this effort as a commitment of the whole school. The authors identified different forms of mission, described development in time and connected them with the perceived self-efficacy of the coordinators.