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<p>This article asks how the site-specific parameters of pro-environmental behaviour can be seen in educational doctrines and in the practices of science education, and what impact they have on the development of environmental citizenship. Environmental citizenship as an agent of change is key to sustainability transition. Our viewpoint is that a contextual resource doctrine provides a framework of people’s environmental values, meaning both the capacity to fulfil the requirements of the doctrine and the ability to critically reflect it by rational-scientific arguments. Thus, place-specificity and sense of place should be highlighted in citizenship science education. In order to explain the multi-scalar nature of learning requirements, we apply the idea of ‘trans-contextualisation’ in science education. In the article we use examples which are derived from university students’ favourite places reflecting sense of place as well as three cases, which start from the near secondary school students’ environment and discuss local environmental issues. In this study we used qualitative and quantitative research methods. The results show that by promoting contextually sensitive environmental citizenship through Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) in science education, we could accelerate the transition to sustainable future. If cultural traditions, anecdotal and local knowledge are not incorporated in the expert scientific knowledge, sustainability transition is constantly in danger for remaining an isolated activity in the shadow of resource realism.</p>
</abstract>

This article asks how the site-specific parameters of pro-environmental behaviour can be seen in educational doctrines and in the practices of science education, and what impact they have on the development of environmental citizenship. Environmental citizenship as an agent of change is key to sustainability transition. Our viewpoint is that a contextual resource doctrine provides a framework of people’s environmental values, meaning both the capacity to fulfil the requirements of the doctrine and the ability to critically reflect it by rational-scientific arguments. Thus, place-specificity and sense of place should be highlighted in citizenship science education. In order to explain the multi-scalar nature of learning requirements, we apply the idea of ‘trans-contextualisation’ in science education. In the article we use examples which are derived from university students’ favourite places reflecting sense of place as well as three cases, which start from the near secondary school students’ environment and discuss local environmental issues. In this study we used qualitative and quantitative research methods. The results show that by promoting contextually sensitive environmental citizenship through Socio-scientific Issues (SSI) in science education, we could accelerate the transition to sustainable future. If cultural traditions, anecdotal and local knowledge are not incorporated in the expert scientific knowledge, sustainability transition is constantly in danger for remaining an isolated activity in the shadow of resource realism.

Promoting Environmental Citizenship Through Local Socio-Cultural Traditions in Science Education

Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

This article asks how the site-specific parameters of pro-environmental behaviour can be seen in educational doctrines and in the practices of science...

Promoting Environmental Citizenship Through Local Socio-Cultural Traditions in Science Education

Published Online: Dec 30, 2021

Page range: 5 - 30

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2021-0013

Keywords
environmental citizenship, cultural variation, place-based science education, national resource doctrines, trans-contextualisation

© 2021 Simo Häyrynen et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Promoting Environmental Citizenship Through Local Socio-Cultural Traditions in Science Education

Published Online: Dec 30, 2021

Page range: 5 - 30

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/dcse-2021-0013

Keywordsenvironmental citizenship, cultural variation, place-based science education, national resource doctrines, trans-contextualisation

© 2021 Simo Häyrynen et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
environmental citizenship, cultural variation, place-based science education, national resource doctrines, trans-contextualisation