Danish School of Education

Introduction: This session is a two part symposium on the topic of environment and sustainability in relation to educational policy development, enactment, and analysis. This format is modeled on similar formats used in other international conferences, such as the Association of American Geographers, where several sessions on the same focus are scheduled consecutively to provide an extended forum for sharing research and discussion on a topic (i.e., sessions scheduled next to each other in the same morning or afternoon). The first part of the symposium will focus on theoretical and methodological approaches to policy and policy research. Some key questions to be addressed include:- What kinds of understandings of policy and policy research are informing work in environmental and sustainability education?- Are there interdisiplinary approaches to policy research that can be useful for furthering critical education policy analysis?- What are the relationships between policy development and its enactment or implementation? - To what extent has the environmental education field researched policy development and/or enactment?- What might environmental education research have to offer to broader trajectories of policy study, for example via a focus on land and place? The second part of the symposium will then include examples of engaging such approaches in the study of sustainabilty in education policy in particular national contexts. Data and implications developing out of research studies in various countries will be shared and discussed, including commonalities and divergences in contexts and findings. This second session will have a discussant reflect back on session 2, including in relation to the previous session 1. Both sessions will include time for discussion following presentations.Objectives: .Methods: .Results: Educational Policy and Environment and Sustainability Part 1: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Policy Research (90 minutes)Paper 1 - How might critical policy sociology inform policy analysis and enactment in environmental and sustainability education (Bob Stevenson)Paper 2 - Critical place inquiry and education policy research (Marcia McKenzie)Paper 3 - On the politics of ESE/ESD policy: Strategies and opportunities for enviromentalist political action (Stefan Bengtsson)Paper 4 - New directions and priorities for ESE policy and policy research (Jonas Greve Lysgaard & Katrien Van Poeck) Educational Policy and Environment and Sustainability Part 2: Case Examples of Policy Contexts (90 minutes) Paper 1 - Trans-disciplinary ESD policy research in Flanders (Belgium) (Katrien Van Poeck & Jürgen Loones)Paper 2 - Diamonds are forever: Policy support for sustainability-oriented hybrid learning in the Dutch Diamond (Arjen Wals, Roel van Raaij, & Machtelijn Brummel)Paper 3 - Sustainability and critical policy research in formal education across Canada (Marcia McKenzie)Discussant - Alan Reid