School councils as an arena for pupils' participation in collaborative environmental education projects

Abstract

This chapter discusses pupils' participation in collaborative projects between schools and external actors in environmental education. The two case studies that are presented - from the Danish Eco School project, and The School Grounds Development Projects (run by Learning Through Landscapes) in England - are approaches to educational change in environmental education that take place within a school setting, and in both cases our interest is in the pupils' participation in school councils. The chapter focuses on the roles of pupils, teachers, and outside actors in collaborative projects, and the different, and sometimes inconsistent, understandings of the school councils as arenas for collaboration and participation. Keywords school councils, collaboration, pupil participation, environmental education, everyday actor © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.