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The leadership role of teachers and environment club coordinators in promoting ecocentrism in secondary schools: Teachers as exemplars of environmental education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2020

William Smith Open the ORCID record for William Smith [Opens in a new window]
William Smith*
Affiliation:
School of Education, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. Email: william.smith.rmit@gmail.com
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Abstract

This study of Naessian ecocentrism and anthropocentrism in three environment club coordinators/science teachers, their colleagues and some parents at three secondary schools uses deep ecology and relational fields as primary frameworks for open-ended interviews. The findings reveal new insights into the affective, cognitive and behavioural characteristics of coordinators who enhance environmental education in their schools. The work presents preliminary data on leadership among sustainability coordinators who run environment clubs. It fills a gap in the literature by showing that in addition to environmental educators requiring knowledge and attitudes regarding sustainability practices, affective qualities like connectedness and love for the environment may be important to their success as sustainability exemplars. Teachers emerge as sustainability exemplars in a relational field to implement sustainability across the secondary curriculum, galvanise students, teachers and parents to connect to the Earth, and help students, teachers and parents move away from anthropocentrism. Findings suggest that if schools commit resources and time to the coordinator’s role, students experience significant benefits by becoming closer to the Earth and more empowered to act for the environment in ways consistent with deep ecology.

Keywords

teacher exemplarenvironment clubanthropocentrismecocentrismdeep ecologyeducation for sustainability
Type
Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 63 - 80
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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