This contribution provides an "outside" commentary on several of the articles provided in this special issue on environmental education and education in the context of sustainability in Denmark and Sweden. Although there is no uniform position or shared single outlook expressed in the articles in this special issue, there are some…

This response article written from "outside" the Swedish-Danish contexts of this special issue considers how we might highlight and make additional ecocentric meaning of some of the terms most frequently used in this collection. In the first instance my focus is on "meaning" but this is expanded to include other terms such as…

Presents the concept of action competence and argues that it should occupy a central position in the theory of environmental education. Discusses different kinds of action, identifies environmental actions, and draws a distinction between direct and indirect environmental actions. Identifies four problem areas which require further research.…

Uses the concept of parallelism to describe those educational cases which suffer from a lack of coherence between learning objectives and the practice of teaching. Argues that the problem of parallelism often characterizes some kinds of development work in schools including that in environmental education. Discusses reasons for the problem of…