Environmental and sustainability education

The world faces numerous eco-social issues, including climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, intersecting with challenges such as poverty, war, exclusion, and extremism. Multi-faceted and intersectional injustices (e.g. intergenerational, racial, economic) persist in relation to the extent to which different communities have contributed to the current challenges and have access to resources to enable effective mitigation and adaptation to the impacts of environmental crises. Education (including formal, non-formal and informal education) has been widely recognised has having a key role to play in enabling and embodying a more eco-socially just and sustainable way of life.

Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) is a theme which has informed education research, practice and policy engagement at Stirling for over two decades and is aligned with and informs many of the other research themes (e.g. Children’s Rights and Participation and Curriculum Making) and research groups (e.g. Curriculum and Professional and Leadership Education).

Our research has been funded by organisations including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Royal Society of Arts, Leverhulme and the British Educational Research Association. Our work continues to be achieved through partnership with a range of national and international organisations including British Council, Learning for Sustainability Scotland, Learning through Landscapes, Scottish Natural Heritage and Scottish Government.

Through research focused on Environmental and Sustainability education, we seek to explore, explain and support educators to co-design adaptive, reciprocal responses at a time when environmental and sustainability concerns such as biodiversity loss and climate change demand new forms of relational curriculum making with/in place. Through our research and policy engagement we aim to better understand and enable policy making, which is intergenerational, justice-oriented and responsive to place.

Find out more about ESE

Get in touch

For enquiries, including those related to doctoral supervision, please contact Professor Greg Mannion and Professor Lizzie Rushton.