The Dance of Structure and Agency—Socially-Critical Environmental Education in Primary Classrooms

Abstract

The understanding that it is not possible to sustain current human–environment relationships, due to the potential catastrophic social and environmental consequences of the unmitigated use of natural resources combined with exponential population growth, has led to global calls to transform the way human societies operate. Any journey of social transformation begins with the willingness and ability to question the philosophy upon which current cultural practices are founded. This requires the institutions that define and are defined by the predominant cultural values of a society, and which actively support the continuance of those cultural values, to question their role in society and to find ways in which to empower communities and individuals to re-assess the ways in which they act upon those values. The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005–2014) prompted educational institutions to question how they contribute to the continuance of well-established unsustainable human–environment relationships, and to find ways in which to empower educators to embrace the practices that would empower students to actively participate in social transformation towards sustainable living. However, the development of educational rhetoric–reality gaps during the implementation of programs that provide opportunities to question the role of education and facilitate new practices suggest that educational transformation is problematic, and that more-effective change processes are required. In order to better inform the process of educational transformation, it is essential to better understand the process of education. Research that is informed by the holistic view of social interaction provided by Anthony Giddens’ theory of structuration has the potential to reveal new understandings of teachers’ pedagogical practices, and to identify possible intervention points for assisting teachers to change these practices in order to reduce the development of educational rhetoric–reality gaps in the future.