Teachers’ and future teachers’ conceptions of environmental education

Abstract

This study essentially falls under three of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda: 4-Quality education; 14-Protect marine life; 15-Protect terrestrial life. The study was carried out as part of the BIOHEAD-CITIZEN European research project, in which 19 countries participated. They developed a questionnaire on ecology and environmental education, which was validated and translated into the language of each country. The Portuguese questionnaire was administered to in-service teachers and future teachers of the 1st and 3rd Cycles of Basic Education or Secondary Education teaching Biology or Portuguese Language subjects. As in all the project countries, each sub-sample of teachers or future teachers consisted of at least 50 individuals. In addition to descriptive analysis, multivariate analysis and principal component analysis were used to identify three types of conceptions of the environment: i) ecocentric or preservation, ii) anthropocentric or use, and iii) sentimentocentric, which attributes feelings to living beings. Teachers and future teachers are clearly in favour of preserving nature (ecocentric conception) and genetically modified organisms (sentimentocentric conception). Teachers and future teachers in Biology are closer to an ecocentric conception, those in the Portuguese Language to an anthropocentric conception and those in the 1st Cycle to a more intermediate conception. As for the objectives of Environmental Education, the sample was more in favour of “Developing Responsible Behaviour” than “Providing Knowledge”.