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Special Interest Group

Education for Environmental Sustainability

A forum for academics, practitioners and policy makers to engage critically with the nature and purpose of EfES including curriculum, pedagogies, practice and policy.

The Education for Environmental Sustainability (EfES) SIG aims to encourage and support discussion, research, practice and scholarship focused on EfES in its broadest sense. The SIG provides a focus for this rich and varied research. The SIG supports research and scholarship across all subject specialisms (e.g. geography, science, English, history, art), sectors (formal and non-formal) and across all age phases (e.g. EYFS, primary, secondary, HE) concerned with EfES. At the same time, the SIG seeks to establish dialogue with and between other BERA SIGs, including ‘Children and Childhoods’, ‘Curriculum, Assessment and Pedagogy’, ‘Nature, Outdoor Learning and Play’, to draw together knowledge relating to EfES.

Research interests:

  • Environmental Education (EE)
  • Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE)
  • Climate Change Education (CCE)
  • Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
  • and other approaches to education connecting people and the environment. 

SIG aims: 

  • Create a community within BERA for dialogue, and to advance research practice and policy making in EfES;
  • Support collaborations between established and early careers researchers, practitioners and educators;
  • Foster research engagement through enabling inter/transdisciplinary discussion of new and complementary theoretical insights from other SIGs;
  • Explore changes and continuities in understandings of, and approaches to, EfES, including themes of inclusion, participation and ethics;
  • Further understanding of the nature and purpose of EfES including curriculum, practice and policy.

Education for Environmental Sustainability Newsletters

SIG Convenors

Profile picture of Lynda Dunlop
Lynda Dunlop, Dr

Senior Lecturer in Science Education at University of York

Lynda Dunlop is Director of Education for Environmental Sustainability at York, and a senior lecturer in science education. Her research is interdisciplinary, working across the social sciences, sciences and arts and humanities. Current studies...

Profile picture of Elizabeth Rushton
Elizabeth Rushton, Professor

Head of Education Division at University of Stirling

Professor Elizabeth Rushton is a professor in Education and the head of the Division of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling. Her research interests are in geography and science education, specifically the...

Profile picture of Amanda Anderson
Amanda Anderson, Mrs

Postgraduate Researcher (PhD) at Anglia Ruskin University

I am a PhD student at Anglia Ruskin University at the Faculty of Education – in Cambridge. My reserach is on ESE (Environmental and Sustainability Education) and my focus is Christian ESE providers. My research method is ethnography to look...

Profile picture of Lauren Hennessy
Lauren Hennessy, Ms

Research Associate at University of Bristol

My main area of interest is sustainable education and in particular the intersections with issues of social, racial and epistemic justice. I am interested in participatory approaches to research and education which centre young people.