Thesis Abstract

The importance of imagination in education has a significant history (Egan, Reference Egan1986, Reference Egan2001; Eisner, Reference Eisner1976; Greene, Reference Greene, Egan and Nadaner1988; Steiner, Reference Steiner1954; Warnock, Reference Warnock1976); however, scholarship is often theoretical, and the involvement of imagination in understanding sustainability is often overlooked (Jones, Reference Jones1995; Judson, Reference Judson2010; Stewart, Reference Stewart2009). Imagination has rarely been the subject of Environmental Education (EE) and research. Its nature is contested, and its workings can be concealed by formal notions of knowing and learning. Contemporary environmental philosophies argue that education can often contradict its aims through limited understandings of environment and knowledge (Orr, Reference Orr1991, Reference Orr1992; Weir, Reference Weir2008; Whitehouse, Reference Whitehouse2011). This thesis reconceptualises imagination as a way of knowing and learning in environmental terms. The study investigates the role of imagination in Education for Sustainability (EfS) contexts and critically analyses how imagination is involved in understanding sustainability for teachers and learners. The possibility of imagination as environmental knowledge, and as essential to resolving environmental problems, is applied in this research.

The guiding theoretical framework draws largely upon Australian environmental philosophies (Gough, Reference Gough1999; Matthews, Reference Mathews1991; Plumwood, Reference Plumwood1993, Reference Plumwood1999; Rose, Reference Rose1996), and qualitative and arts-based educational research (Barone & Eisner, Reference Barone and Eisner2012; Jones, Reference Jones2013; MacLure, Reference MacLure2013), as well as contemporary writings of material eco-criticism (Oppermann, Reference Oppermann2013) and the New Materialisms (Barad, Reference Barad and DeKoven2001, Reference Barad2003, Reference Barad2007; St Pierre, Reference Pierre2013). A New Materialist epistemological position considers all matter to have agency in knowledge making, so that knowledge is not confined to the human brain but embedded and discursive as all matter and the earth. In this thesis, EfS is framed by this New Materialist perspective.

The research design involves a combination of interviews and participant observation in a range of EfS settings across Victoria, Australia. To identify and understand imagination in these environmental education contexts, a coordinated palette of interdisciplinary perspectives and interpretations of imagination were brought together, such as the work of educational scholars Egan (Reference Egan2001), Dewey (Reference Dewey1902), and Vygotsky (Reference Vygotsky, Rieber and Carto1932/1987), as well as creative writers’ views, such as Malouf (1998) and Rowling (Reference Rowling2008), and contemporary research (Macknight, 2009; Stewart, Reference Stewart2009).

Seven interviews with self-identified EfS educators from a range of primary, secondary, and tertiary settings were conducted at their workplaces. The interviews discussed the educators’ pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning sustainability concepts. During the interviews, imagination was not referred to directly until the last open-ended question. Additionally, 14 weeks’ participant-observation research at a 5-Star Sustainable primary school examined how imagination occurs in a sustainability education program for students and teachers. Visual, audio and written data, interviews with educators and students, reflective notes, and a range of visual material were gathered.

A diffractive, narrative discourse analysis views the data as learning stories, and examines how imagination arises in EfS, how imagination is understood in teaching and learning, and the extent to which imagination works to construct and expand ways of seeing the world for students and teachers.

Findings indicate that primary, secondary and tertiary educators work creatively to facilitate understanding the environmental realities that constitute matter, resources, and systems. The analysis narrates how educators use images, stories and metaphorical thinking to facilitate students’ ability to imagine other perspectives, or concealed realities that are not immediately tangible or apparent. Findings highlight the ways in which children are encouraged to imagine their way into the lives of non-human entities, think backwards and forwards in time, and imagine bigger picture perspectives involved in migration and global systems, as well as smaller worlds at the level of nutrition, energy or biodegradability. Teaching and learning often involves metaphors and comparisons in order to communicate and build conceptual understandings. The use of photographs and other images evoked narrative responses and discussions; for example, educators and students constructed meaning through positioning matter as a storyteller with a life and a narrative. Imaginary perspectives were encouraged, such as asking questions about the feelings and perspectives of animals, resources, and objects themselves. As the analysis discusses the ways in which imagination contributes to students’ and teachers’ experiences and understandings in EfS, it recognises the complex, conceptual work of understanding the many dimensions of sustainability.

The thesis advances new understandings of imagination in EfS and provides a unique view of contemporary EfS practices. The imagination is reconceptualised as a way of knowing, learning, and understanding environmental knowledge, particularly in Australia. It argues that imaginative ways of knowing bring into being a concealed level of existence and relationships that are essential to understanding sustainability. This has important implications for the future of EfS and EE. Further advocacy and research is needed that considers imagination as a part of environmental knowledge to make educating students’ environmental imaginations a central consideration of EE theory, research and practice.