ERIC Number: EJ1130947
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-4622
EISSN: N/A
Immigrant Children Promoting Environmental Care: Enhancing Learning, Agency and Integration through Culturally-Responsive Environmental Education
Blanchet-Cohen, Natasha; Reilly, Rosemary C.
Environmental Education Research, v23 n4 p553-572 2017
This paper examines the potential of culturally-responsive environmental education to engage immigrant early adolescents. Our study suggests that environmental involvement can become a means and an end for children to bridge their school and home in agential ways. Drawing from a multi-phase study involving focus groups with children, parents, and teachers from three culturally-diverse schools in Montreal, as well as a green action research project, we examine children's role as environmental educators and ambassadors. The role of environmental ambassador allowed children to take on positions that departed from conventional parent-child social scripts, and enhanced the communication between school-student-home, between generations, and spoke to their sense of place. We contend that culturally-responsive environmental education offers a unique space for enacting democracy, knowledge creation and integration, but this opportunity is often squandered. Bi-directional, responsive, and consistent home-school-community-place relations need to be actively supported.
Descriptors: Immigrants, Environmental Education, Culturally Relevant Education, Teaching Methods, Focus Groups, Student Attitudes, Parent Attitudes, Teacher Attitudes, Student Diversity, Conservation (Environment), Student Role, Foreign Countries, Inquiry, Questionnaires, Social Responsibility, Action Research, Grade 4, Grade 5, Grade 6, Influences, Teacher Role, Interviews
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 4; Intermediate Grades; Elementary Education; Grade 5; Middle Schools; Grade 6
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada (Montreal)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A