Preservice teacher agency concerning education for sustainability (EfS): A discursive psychological approach

• Published in: Journal of research in science teaching Vol. 52; no. 4; pp. 560 - 573
• Main Authors: Martin, Jenny, Carter, Lyn
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-04-2015; Wiley-Blackwell
• Subjects: Australia; Case studies; Disadvantaged; Discourse Analysis; Discursive psychology; education for sustainability (EfS); Educational Research; Environmental attitudes; Environmental awareness; Environmental Education; Foreign Countries; Form Classes (Languages); Grammar; grammar of agency; Higher education; Journal Writing; Preservice teacher education; Preservice Teachers; Primary education; Reflective journals; Science Education; Science Instruction; Science teaching; Student Attitudes; Student teacher attitudes; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Teacher Education; Teacher empowerment; Australia
• ISSN: 0022-4308; 1098-2736
• DOI: 10.1002/tea.21217

In this paper, the authors utilise a discursive psychological approach to further explore agency and structure in science education research. The aim of the research is to understand how we can provide opportunities for marginalised students in preservice elementary teacher education in an Australian university to become agentic concerning environmental sustainability. Preservice teacher agency in this study is understood as the positioning of preservice teachers as responsible for their action. Responsibility can be indexed using grammatical devices including pronouns. Structure and agency are analysed as constantly remade through socially meaningful action and the smallest course of the analysis is the social act. In this way, the authors have treated agency and structure as a dialectic but avoided their central conflation. The findings emerged from the analysis of open ended reflective journals written by the preservice teachers related to taking action in their daily lives to reduce their ecological footprint during a semester-long science course. The authors select an instrumental case, Ecocarmie, to illustrate their findings and the potential of their discursive psychological approach for further research in this area. In their analysis, the authors show how Ecocarmie self-positions in the public domain of Tumblr as pro-environmentally engaged, drawing upon social and material resources and discuss the implications of their study for preservice teacher education in EfS. [Author abstract, ed]