The distinctive characteristics of environmental education research in Australia: an historical and comparative analysis.

Stevenson, Robert B. ; Evans, Neus "Snowy"

Any story of the history of environmental education research depends on who is doing the telling. Histories are grounded in particular people and places and times, and so not only will a history of environmental education research in Australia have different touchstones than in, say, Canada (Russell & Fawcett, forthcoming) or South Africa, but the history we present here will differ from that of other Australian authors or from one written for a different temporal space. Efforts to identify the touchstones or any uniqueness of a country's research, which invariably demands some kind of historical analysis, are similarly individual and socio-cultural constructions. Thus, our attempt to identify or construct an identity, unique or otherwise, for Australian environmental education research is confined to taking a snapshot of one of its potentially many histories.

There is also the challenge of deciding how to approach an inquiry into a history of a country's research and specifically, what might shape its identity in the field of environmental education research. Our first entry point into examining the characteristics or touchstones of Australian environmental education research was the premise that a uniquely Australian environmental education research identity might be grounded in a distinctive sense of place. The rationale, inquiry and explanation of the outcome of this first effort to identify such an identity are documented in an accompanying article in this special issue (Stevenson, this issue). Given that place was not a dominant characteristic of this first analysis of Australian environmental education research we turned to other approaches to interrogating Australian environmental education research. The approach, on which we settled, is to examine first, the specialist areas of focus (e.g., philosophies of environment, education or environmental education; discourses, policies, curriculum, teaching and learning) and second, the focus of debates within the Australian environmental education research community.

Areas of focus are reflected in the purposes and kinds of research questions that are seen as important. Scholarly debates also centre on a number of other issues. These include: the theoretical orientations and methodological approaches that illuminate our understanding of, for example, the historical, philosophical and pedagogical development of the field, the nature and interpretation of policies and discourses, the goals and effectiveness of different approaches to teaching and learning, the understandings and ideologies of teachers and learners, and the quality of outcomes of programs and activities. The field of environmental education has been a ferment of debate on many of these issues since the 1970s when the term came into vogue.

In an entry in the Sage Encyclopedia of Green Education, Alan Reid (in press) identifies five research frame(work)s that can be differentiated by the way in which they engage with debates in the field of environmental/sustainability education and focus research questions. These frames are summarised as follows:

1) Prepositional frame that draws distinctions between theories or practices of education about, in, through, with, for the environment and, more recently, sustainability. Research is "framed in terms of its priority and usefulness to focusing, broadening or advancing environmental education approaches and methodological innovation" (Reid, in press).

2) Currents frame that includes both those traditions historically significant in the development and shaping of environmental education (e.g., nature study, conservation education) and more recent emerging currents (e.g., bioregionalism, eco-feminist, sustainable development or sustainability). Research is "framed in terms of their [currents] fit with and support for invigorating local and wider approaches to framing and practicing environmental education" (ibid).

3) Reconceptualisation frame that explores and examines possible (re) conceptualisations of environmental education based on: (i) a philosophy, (ii) a context for intervention, or (iii) an inspiration or category of interest. This research is "framed in terms of what is expected in the 'rhetoric and reality' of a diversity of approaches to environmental education--such as what should be reproduced, contested, rejected, transformed or introduced" (ibid)

4) Paradigms frame that is characterised as positivist, interpretative and socially critical, or more recently, as post-paradigm approaches. Research is "framed in terms of the field's capacity to elaborate and articulate simple, complex and critical ways of understanding and reworking environmental education" (ibid).

5) Intersectional frame which focuses perspectives on the links between environmental education and other fields (e.g., with ESD). Research is "debated in terms of the frameworks within which environmental education is directed, imagined, developed and challenged" (ibid).

These frames can provide a way of understanding how research is conceptualised and contested or debated. For example, they can reveal how environmental education scholars view "how human-environment relationships are appropriately construed" and "environmental learning and teaching can usefully be conceived and practiced in and across a variety of settings, contexts, interests, and tensions" (Reid, in press). This last point about diverse settings and contexts also suggests the importance of exploring how research is contextualised, which is the second of four dimensions described by Reid in arguing that these debates illuminate how goals, programs/activities and teaching and learning approaches are "conceptualized, contextualized, developed and contested" (ibid).

The concern here is less with debates about developing goals, programs and approaches, and more with approaches to inquiry into such activities. Initially, therefore, our intent was to interpret the "developed" dimension in terms of how methodological inquiries are constructed. However, this dimension concerning the methodological framing--the research genres, paradigms or characteristics ( methodological, ontological, epistemological) that inform approaches to research (e.g., positivistic, naturalistic & phenomenological, critical, feminist, poststructuralist)--overlapped with conceptualisations, especially in the case of critical, feminist, and poststructuralist orientations.

Finally, the "contested" dimension involves expressions of disagreement by critiquing or challenging existing, often traditional or dominant, theories, discourses, policies or practices. The central question here is: What are the disagreements (and agreements) over language and discourse (including EE, ESD, EfS); practices and activities; ideas about relationships and structures; research paradigms and approaches. These include: (i) critiques of existing (dominant/institutionalised) practices, theories, traditions, and (ii) alternative theories, positions/perspectives, policies, practices. Again, we found that in identifying authors' conceptualisations, articles that critiqued existing positions also usually offered alternatives or reconceptualisations of the issue of interest. So we included reconceptualisations in examining this first dimension. For example, based on a survey of Australians' water saving understandings and practices, Murphy, Watson and Moore (1991) question learning models that assume knowledge leads to attitude and behaviour change. They then reconceptualise the relationship between knowledge and behaviour by drawing on a rational action model (Ajzen, 1988) which incorporates social factors in predicting behaviour.

Therefore, it seemed the nature of the debates could be sufficiently captured by the two dimensions of conceptualisation and contextualisation, while recognising that the methodological construction and contested dimensions of research would be illuminated within them. Thus, our research questions became: How is Australian environmental education research conceptualised and contextualised? To what extent does the conceptualisation and contextualisation of Australian environmental education research represent unique or distinctive approaches?

Conceptualisation and Contextualisation Defined

The two dimensions of this framework were defined as follows. In terms of conceptualisation, the area of focus and purpose of the reported research was identified as the first important element to be considered. Then two additional aspects were included under the umbrella of conceptualisation: (a) the theoretical positioning/ orientation or conceptual framework (explicit or implicit) that informs the research; and (b) any re-conceptualisation or way in which research offers a new or different way of thinking about environmental and/or educational philosophy, programs, curriculum, pedagogical and learning approaches or of the framing of research itself.

Contextualisation was defined to encompass whether the research is situated or grounded in: (i) a particular educational sector and level (formal--primary, secondary, tertiary; community/informal/non-formal); (ii) a local, regional, state, national or global context; and (iii) the biophysical, social/cultural, economic, and/or political dimensions of the environment.

This framework, in conjunction with other reviews of environmental education research (Reid & Scott, 2006; Hart & Nolan, 1999), enabled an exploration of such secondary questions as: What, if any, were the distinctive purposes, theoretical or methodological approaches evident in Australian environmental education research in the 1990s? Was there a distinctively Australian perspective on viewing or framing the human-environment relationship or conceptualising environmental education? What educational and social contexts and sectors were privileged? Other broader questions also could be asked, such as: What did Australian environmental education researchers see as important to research? What does an understanding of the above questions suggest for what Australian environmental education scholars were not researching?

Methods: Taking a Snapshot for Tentatively Categorising Australian Environmental Education Research

Journals provide a forum for intellectual debate and therefore the Australian Journal of Environmental Education (AJEE) offers a window into the foci and features of environmental education scholarly debate in this country. In order to address whether there are distinctive conceptualisations and contextualisations that define the characteristics of Australian environmental education research, we conducted an analysis of articles published in AJEE by Australian authors, for the decade of the 1990s. Owing to a double issue for 1999/2000 this represented an 11 year (rather than intended 10 year) period from 1990-2000. This period was selected to avoid the initial period of establishment and positioning of the journal (1984-89), and to provide an overlap for comparative purposes with an analysis of a sample of articles (from volumes 1, 4, 7 and 10) published in the journal Environmental Education Research (EER) over the 10 year period of 1995-2004 (Reid & Scott, 2006). It also coincided with a period of emerging new discourses internationally (e.g., ESD, EfS), and allowed for a comparison with a subsequent planned analysis of articles in the last 10 years of AJEE. Andrew and Malone (1995) conducted a review of the first 10 years of articles (1984-1994) published in AJEE, but essentially provided a synopsis rather than an analysis of the articles within four categories: (1) community participation and education, (2) conservation education, (3) literature/book reviews, and (4) philosophy/policy.

There were 67 articles identified out of 89 (excluding special sections such as Millenium Visions in the 1999/2000 edition and Stories from the Field articles) by Australian or Australian-based authors over the 11 year period covering 10 issues of AJEE. That 75 percent of articles were by Australian authors indicates that AJEE is essentially an Australian rather than international journal in terms of contributors. In comparison, only 40% of the principal authors in the four volumes of the British-based EER were European (of which obviously only a percentage were British). In 62 cases the principal AJEE author, not surprisingly, was from an institution of higher education.

First, we carried out a somewhat simple tallying exercise that was intended to enable a concrete comparison with an analysis of the first 10 years (1995-2004) of EER on three aspects: specialist areas of focus (related to conceptualisation of area of environmental education given primary attention); nature of data collected (e.g., empirical--quantitative, qualitative, mixed or non-empirical) which is loosely related to methodological conceptualisation or orientation; and educational sector or setting and level (related to contextualisation). The specialist areas and the distinctions among them used in the EER analysis (i.e., conceptually-related, specific programs or policies, general provision of EE/SDE, theoretical aspects/frameworks, and research-related) were not all clear to us and did not seem to capture all the areas of focus that we thought were important. So instead areas were identified inductively by coding them after reading each article rather than by any predetermined scheme.

As a result, the planned comparison with the EER 10 year analysis on specialist area of focus was no longer appropriate owing to the different categories that emerged from our analysis. Consequently, we sought an alternative review of environmental education research for comparison purposes. Hart and Nolan's (1999) extensive review of environmental education research from 1992 to1999 was found to offer a more comprehensive and appropriate basis of comparison for illuminating the distinctiveness of Australian environmental education research in relation to specialist focus and paradigmatic orientation.

A second analysis was carried out by separately categorising the articles using Reid's five frames. Reid's short article explicating these frames, possibly intentionally, left significant space for interpretation. Two of the frames (prepositional and intersectional) seemed relatively straightforward as key words and explicit comparisons could be sought. A third (currents) was apparently based on Sauve's (2005) elaborated conception of "currents". The remaining two frames (paradigms and reconceptualisation), which turned out to be our most common categorisation for the AJEE articles, required the most reading, reflecting, discussing, re-reading and reflecting. As paradigms involve ontological, epistemological and methodological considerations, we approached the text by searching in order (following Payne, 1995) for worldviews (ontologies), assumptions about what and how knowledge claims are justified (epistemologies) and finally, how research questions and knowledge production are approached (methodologies). One particular issue that emerged was that ontological considerations overlapped with the philosophical dimension of the reconceptualisation frame. This was resolved in our minds by determining whether the article was predominantly concerned with philosophies or worldviews, often evidenced by a more explicit discussion, apart from a methodological concern. Another issue within the reconceptualisation frame was the sub-category of "an inspiration or category of interest". This could be broadly interpreted to apply to almost any research article as researchers are usually inspired by a particular interest, especially given the wide array of examples provided by Reid (e.g., place, decolonisation, stewardship, ecological citizenship, ecocritical literacy, consciousness). As a result, although there were some cases where (re)conceptualising a specific area of interest was clearly the dominant concern, this category sometimes virtually became the (albeit useful) default when an article did not seem to fit the other two sub-categories within reconceptualisation--or the other four frames. The biggest issue of categorisation, however, was making a judgment about the dominant frame when aspects of articles were concerned with dimensions fitting another frame. In a few cases, where more than one frame was judged to be a significant focus then the article was categorised in more than one frame.

Finally, in addition to educational sector/level (a dimension in the EER analysis) two other dimensions of contextualisation were identified--scale (local, regional, state, national or global) and dimensions of the environment (associated with sustainable development or sustainability)--and the articles categorised accordingly. These additional two dimensions seemed important in light of local versus global debates as well as the different scale of environmental issues, and criticisms of environmental education focusing too narrowly on the biophysical environment and paying too little attention to socio-cultural, economic and political factors.

Further comments need to be offered on the challenge of categorising the articles. Given that authors are not often explicit about the framing of their studies and the dominant frame(s) they employed, categorising their articles was often, not unexpectedly, a struggle. Our own subjectivities (e.g., experiences, ideologies, preferences) no doubt influenced our efforts, especially perhaps our own proclivity to qualitative approaches. The first author is also known for a socially critical orientation, and arising from a long academic career in the United States, also had a concern about environmental education research in that country being dominated by an applied science, positivistic, and individualistic orientation. We do not know of course if the authors would categorise their work in the same way we have. So tables are provided which indicate how specific articles were categorised so that readers--and authors can make their own judgments. This categorising, or in Hart's (2003) words "naming and framing," exercise was intended as a synthetic search for a coherent meaning of Australian environmental education research in terms of its distinctiveness, if any, during the period of the 1990s. However, by treating the frames metaphorically as open doors with mirrors, we also hoped to open our categorical representations of Australian environmental education research to critical debate and for interrogating more recent research in the field (both in Australia and elsewhere), as well as enhancing the possibilities for future research (Hart, 2003). Therefore, we invite the reader to look "for new spaces that are not represented by [our] existing categories" (Hart, 2003, p. 246).

Conceptualisations of Australian Environmental Education Research

Areas of Purpose and Focus

The primary area of specialist focus of each article in AJEE by an Australian author was thematically coded. Seven major themes emerged with various subthemes identified within the two major or most common categories of philosophical or conceptual analyses and curriculum, teaching and learning (see Table 1). The seven themes that emerged were: philosophical/theoretical conceptions; language and discourse; social and policy contexts; relationships between theory and policy and/or practice; curriculum, teaching and learning; environmental knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes and behaviours; and research.

Philosophical/Theoretical Analyses

This comprised: (i) critiques of current or dominant worldviews or ideologies and/ or new or reconceptualised worldviews of human-environment relationships; and (ii) critiques or reconceptualisations of EE/ESD/EfS. Critiques of worldviews of the human-environment relationship included: the dominant technological culture and the simplistic notion of information transfer in the context of the problem of climate change (Russell, 1992); Western industrial society's "positivist, mechanistic and reductionist worldview" that has, at least in part, created the environmental crisis and has been reflected in a formal education system that teaches about the environment (Gunnell & Dyer, 1993); biocentric and anthropocentric worldviews inappropriately framed as dichotomous positions (Dyer & Gunnell, 1993); advocacy of more environmental regulation and better policies while pursuing the same goals of the growth of GNP (Trainer, 1994); and "pseudo-spiritualities in the form of non-legitimised indigenous wisdom" (Beringer, 1999/2000).

Reconceptualised human-environment worldviews that were argued by Australian environmental education authors were: the need for a "limits to growth" position which means altering lifestyles, values, patterns of settlement, resource use and environmental impact (Trainer, 1994); the concept of "malconsumption" as a means of personal meaning-making and "countering 'the empty self' as a consequence of the advertising and other industries (Hillcoat & van Rensburg, 1998); and the concept of ecospirituality, a western tradition of reclaiming the soul, as an alternative for reenchantment and ecological restoration (Beringer, 1999/2000).

Reconceptualisations of environmental education were argued as requiring: expanding the place of nature study (to the wider social and economic contexts), nature experience (to social and political engagement with the root causes of unsustainability) and developing responsible environmental behaviour (beyond its narrow individualistic focus to the individual and collective decisions and actions needed to create a sustainable world) (Fien, 1997); an exploration of the ways in which environmental education constructs and maintains particular ethical competencies and the need to be more concerned about the actual means used to encourage students to live in an environmentally sustainable manner (Ferreira); and "environmental progressivism" (after Dewey) as a potential ideological framework for sustainability in higher education (Thomas, 1999/2000). Teachers' conceptions and perceptions of environmental education were investigated by two authors (Jenkins, 1999/2000; Lang, 1999/2000)

Language and Discourses, and Social and Policy Contexts

Articles in these two categories involved analyses to develop an understanding of the nature and influence of discourses and macro-contexts respectively on environmental education or to reveal the extent of coherency of discourses or policies. Examples of discourse analysis were: differences in boys and girls' self--positioning in relation to discourses regarding their relationship with the environment (Barron, 1995); the conservation messages conveyed to visitors by a zoo's interpretive environments (Mazur, 1998); and the role of education in ecotourism discourse (Brookes, 1999/2000). Articles that focused on broader social contexts addressed the influence of the macro-context on environmental education policies, curriculum and teaching (Fien, 1992); explored the relationship between national economic and political priorities and environmental education policies and curriculum strategies (A. Gough, 1992); and critiqued the dominant technological culture and argued the need to debate "our relationship with technology" and to find "a new language and a new relationship with ecology" (Russell, 1992).

Theory-Policy-Practice Relationships

Over 10 percent of the articles explicitly examined relationships between theoriespolicies-practices and identified a mismatch or dissonance between theories/purposes/ goals of environmental education (or related fields such as sustainability education) and: school practices (Spork, 1992); teachers' theories of teaching and learning (Walker, 1995); professional development (Robottom, 1992); and current ideologies underpinning higher education (Dyer, 1997). Content analysis of curriculum documents also revealed gaps or mismatches between environmental/sustainability concepts and values and: the International Bacaalaureate's environmental studies curriculum (Maxwell & Metcalf, 1999/2000); the Victorian high school curriculum in which concepts of environmental significance were not identified as such, and socio-disciplinary concepts were not generally present (Fensham, 1991); and curriculum and policy that neglected discussions of gender and focused on individual action in environmental education (A. Gough, 1992). Another author emphasised the mismatch between teachers' circumstances and practices and the critically reflective demands of action research (Muhlebach, 1999/2000).

Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

Table 1 indicates the most common category of specialist area of focus was curriculum, teaching and learning (approaches and outcomes), with curriculum/program the most popular sub-category. The curriculum-focused articles comprised conceptual or content analyses (of the concepts, ideas and values) of school and university curriculum and programs, including critiques of missing elements or gaps as described above, and surveys of curriculum for school, university or professional programs. A number of the studies using surveys were essentially descriptive with the purpose of simply identifying the current status (nature and extent) of environmental education in various courses or programs (e.g., Sonneborn, 1998; Thomas & Olsson, 1998; Thomas, 1999/2000; Cosgrove & Thomas, 1996; Larritt, 1998).

A number of articles described, analysed, and/or evaluated interventions, such as the design of new programs or approaches, through the development of specific curriculum or programmatic activities. These included: a Landcare professional development program for teachers (Stadler, 1995); an intensive field-based inquiry experience in a land management course for community interest groups (Slattery, 1999/2000); a school and community environmental education action research project linking students and landholders through coordinated state-wide water sampling (Pfueller et al., 1997); an innovative new tertiary program in social ecology (White, 1992); a collaborative program to educate consumers to purchase more energy efficient products and motivate industry to provide "green' products (Sonneborn, 1994); and environmental education for deaf students (Lostroh, 1995). Three articles involved the development of curriculum guidelines: for schools (Fien, 1991), wildlife interpretation (Orams, 1994) and gender inclusion in senior secondary environmental studies (Whitehouse & Taylor, 1996).

Specific teaching and learning approaches or interventions that were investigated and reported were designed to use technology to develop environmental sensitivity (Geake, 1992), draw on the cognitive potential of photography and the visual mode for developing environmental thinking (Bergman, 1999/2000), engage the public in animal observation (Lindenmayer et al.) and use action research to improve a facilitator's skills using a "Council of All Beings" program (Kozak, 1995). Other authors who focused on environmental teaching and learning processes critiqued current approaches to: environmental interpretation which was argued should be replaced by an andragogical approach (Markwell, 1996); and teaching in university environmental studies departments which the authors believed needed to create a process of learning that sets up and lives out alternative values for consideration and debate (Gunnell & Dyer, 1993). Two authors provided conceptual critiques of the linear model of learning and change that assumes new knowledge leads to a change in attitude which in turn results in changed behaviour (Markwell, 1996; Mahoney, 1995).

There were very few traditional evaluations (of programs, materials or technologies) and only five reported studies that sought to assess or examine the learning outcomes of a specific program, activity or approach. One study investigated four factors to identify the extent to which primary school environmental education programs can facilitate intergenerational learning in the home and wider community (Ballantyne et al., 1998); while another examined the impact of an intensive experience of field-based scientific inquiry on adult participations in a land management course (Slattery, 1999/2000).

Other Categories of Focus

The surprisingly small number (6) of studies of environmental knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes or behaviours was targeted to either students or teachers through surveys or interviews. They included: Year 11 students' environmental attitudes and knowledge (Clark, 1996); high school students' attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and action regarding the environment which revealed that the majority displayed relatively low levels of knowledge of key environmental concepts, and were involved in little environmental action-taking outside of household activities (Connell et al., 1998); and the impact of ESD, specifically articulating broader social, economic and environmental concepts into the goals of environmental education, on tertiary students' environmental attitudes and behaviours (Cuthill, 1998). Two studies were concerned with the perceptions and understandings of environmental education of pre-service secondary teachers and in-service teachers respectively in order to understand how their perceptions could shape and limit their practice as potential or current environmental educators (Jenkins, 1999/2000; Lang, 1999/2000); while another study investigated reported learning outcomes receiving attention by primary schools (Clark & Harrison, 1997).

Finally, just three articles focused on and argued for particular methods or approaches to research. These were: community-based research that treats "research as participation in the critical appraisal of environmental situations" (Harris & Robottom, 1997); a phenomenological approach based on the ideas of the German nature philosopher, Johann von Goethe, as well as Nietzsche and Heidegger (Hoffman, 1994); and a dialogue between the two authors about the value of environmental life histories (Chenery & Beringer, 1998).

Nature of Data

The balance of conceptual and empirical methodological approaches to Australian research in AJEE is revealed by the nature of data reported in the 67 articles that were reviewed. Table 2 shows relatively similar proportions of empirical and non-empirical data. Empirical made up 48 percent of all research in AJEE and 55 percent in EER, while non-empirical comprised 52 percent in AJEE and 45 percent in EER. This suggests there are no distinctive characteristics in the balance of a conceptual-empirical basis for environmental education inquiry and debate by Australian researchers, at least in comparison to international researchers published in EER. More interesting are the types of empirical data collected. While in both journals mixed methods approaches which began gaining popularity in environmental education in the later half of the 90s (Hart & Nolan, 1999)--are relatively low, AJEE has an approximately equal proportion of articles using quantitative and qualitative data, but EER shows over double the number of qualitative sources of data collected and analysed compared to quantitative. However, it should be noted that the vast majority of quantitative studies in AJEE used only descriptive statistics whereas bi--or multi-variate methods of analysis were used (mainly by researchers in the USA) in the majority of quantitative studies in EER. Thus, although not unique, the nature of data collected, analysed and reported in AJEE seems more akin to European than North American environmental education research.

Areas of Argument and Debate

Drawing on Reid's five frames, the most common framing of inquiries and arguments represented in the selected snapshot of Australian environmental education research was through a paradigms lens (see Table 3). The most common paradigm or conceptual orientation for examining and developing arguments in relation to environmental education issues over the 11 year period was socially critical theory. A socially critical orientation has been defined by an Australian environmental education scholar as "founded on a belief in the need for education to play a role, along with other social institutions and agencies.... [by] promoting social justice, equality, and democracy through the 'thoughtful, ethically based, responsible and critical examination of social problems and active participation in developing a continually improving society' (Stanley & Nelson, 1986, p. 529)" (Fien, 1993, p. 22).

Given the dominance of socially critical conceptualisations of research, it was not surprising that critical questioning or critiques of existing environmental education practices and revelations of mismatches or disconnects between theories and practices emerged as a distinctive theme of the Australian research that was reviewed. In addition, critiques of prevailing orthodoxies offered by Australian researchers included theories or conceptualisations of environmental education. This is captured in the "reconceptualisation frame" being the second most common. All three of Reid's subcategories within this frame were represented by multiple articles. Philosophies new to the field (at the time) that were introduced included: Goethean phenomenological approach to environmental education based on the ideas of the German nature philosopher, Johann von Goethe (as well as Nietzsche and Heidegger) (Hoffman, 1994); a constructivist and holistic approach to teaching, termed "environmentalism/ green education" for which a set of characteristics are proposed, including a process of learning that engages students in debating values (Dyer, 1997); and the reframing of biocentric and anthropocentric worldviews as representing a continuum rather than a dichotomy (Dyer & Gunnell, 1993). "Contexts for intervention," as already implied by the previous discussion of specialist areas of focus, included such methods as public participation in animal observation (Lindenmayer et al., 1991) and using technology to develop environmental sensitivity (Geake, 1992), as well as activities such as a Landcare professional development program for teachers (Stadler, 1995), educating consumers to purchase more energy efficient products and motivating industry to provide "green' products (Sonneborn, 1998), and a land management course for community interest groups involving intensive field-based inquiries (Slattery, 1999/2000). Categories of interest included: ecological literacy, spirituality (Skamp, 1991; Beringer, 1999/2000), (mal)consumption lifestyles (Hillcoat & van Rensburg, 1998), and ethical competencies and commitments (Ferreira, 1999/2000; Slattery, 1999/2000). In sum, Australian research offered many reconceptualisations of environmental education based on an alternative philosophy, an intervention, or a category of interest.

Currents involved in the development and shaping of environmental education that were identified in the 67 articles included some associated with longer traditions in education and others of more recent or emerging currents from either the environmental or education field. Examples of the former were the progressive education of John Dewey and the social reconstructionist role of education. In the later case, environmental examples were ecospirituality, ecotourism and environmental photography, and education included experiential education through the use of dramatic role play and androgogical approaches to adult learning.

Examples of the intersectional frame, which involves an examination of the links between environmental education and related fields, included Fien's (1997) argument that a reconceptualisation of environmental education requires expanding the place of nature study (to the wider social and economic contexts), nature experience (to social and political engagement with the root causes of unsustainability) and developing responsible environmental behaviour (beyond its narrow individualistic focus to the individual and collective decisions and actions needed to create a sustainable world). Other intersectional studies sought "to explore whether education based on ESD concepts might form the basis for a practical and effective form of environmental education" (Cuthill, 1998, p. 54) and to examine differences between environmental interpretation and environmental education (Howard, 1998).

These analyses indicate that Australian environmental education research in the 1990s tended to focus on critically analysing what might be missing, misconstrued or misplaced in existing environmental education theories, discourses, policies or curriculum practices rather than on the outcomes (in terms of understanding, skills, beliefs, attitudes, values or behaviours) and effectiveness of current policies and practices. This reflects a sociological orientation to environmental education research rather than an interest in individual attitude or behaviour change, or psychological or cognitive processing phenomenon, thereby representing a clear contrast to research in the USA.

Contextualisation of Australian Environmental Education Research

The contextualisation of research can be examined on a number of dimensions. Issues related to contextualisation are the extent to which environmental education is situated in: local, regional, national, or global environmental concerns; and the biophysical, socio-cultural, economic, or political dimensions of the environment. In addition to these two dimensions of scale and environment, we also chose to investigate the focus of articles in terms of educational sector or setting (either formal with its sub-sectors of primary, secondary, higher education; or non-formal/informal).

Educational Sector Focus

Based on the period of articles reviewed, there was a predominance of attention to the formal education context in Australian environmental education research with well over half of all articles (37 articles or 55 percent of the 67 articles) being specific to either school or higher education (in approximately equal numbers). In comparison only eight (12 percent) of articles focus on non-formal or informal education (see Table 4). This scarcity of attention to informal and non-formal contexts is similar (nine percent) to the major journal in the field, EER, as revealed by the comparison with a sample of volume articles published in EER analysed over a 10 year period (Table 4). The limited attention to informal and non-formal education in both journals suggests this is an area of need for future research in the field. Overall, the representation of the different educational sectors and sub-sectors is very similar. The slight exceptions are secondary education, which has received almost twice the attention by EER authors compared to Australian authors in AJEE, and higher education for which the reverse applied, with almost twice the percentage in this sector by Australian authors. Despite the higher incidence of articles on higher education, pre-service teacher education was conspicuous by its absence. In summary, this comparative analysis implies that there is little distinctiveness about Australian environmental education research in relation to educational sector focus.

Scale

Table 5 shows the principal scale of focus for each article. Some articles were concerned with more than one scale, but for the purpose of the analysis we recorded the primary focus. More than half the articles (37 or 55 percent) published by Australian authors were primarily concerned with national or international issues, policies or practices in environmental education. Only approximately one quarter of articles (27 percent) focused on the local, a finding that is somewhat consistent with the lack of attention to sense of place or place-based research revealed by an analysis of the same set of articles (see Stevenson, this issue). It is also a reflection of the relatively high percentage of articles that were found to focus on general environmental education issues or those facing higher education which tend to be of national or global concern. The preponderance of articles on larger scale national and, particularly, global questions or issues suggests that environmental education research in Australia in the 1990s cannot be viewed as focused on parochial issues. On the contrary, an interesting finding is the low incidence (only six percent) of articles at the regional scale. This suggests that the emerging regionalism approach, for example to natural resource planning and management, had clearly not become a focus of Australian environmental education scholars in the 1990s.

Dimensions of Environment

With regards to dimensions of environment, we began by searching whether authors situated their research within a natural, built, urban or rural environment. We soon found that this categorisation was not particularly informative, as it tended to only capture the setting of the research and was generally only applicable to case studies. Instead, by framing the dimensions in terms of a focus on the biophysical and/or socio-cultural environment we were able to categorise most articles, with only a couple of the latter also addressing the economic or political aspects of the environment. The analysis revealed that close to half of the publications in the 1990s were grounded in the biophysical (49 percent) closely followed by the social/cultural environment (44 percent). The total number of publications in Table 6 (88 instead of 67) indicates that many articles addressed more than one dimension of the environment. Cross-referencing indicated multiple entries between categories as we found many articles concerned with the biophysical environment also often included social/cultural dimensions. Less common were socio-cultural articles that also addressed the political or economic dimensions (only two and one respectively). While biophysical studies explore ecological issues, social/cultural orientations are concerned with relationships within and between societies, cultures and communities of people.

The similar numbers of articles that focus on the biophysical and the social/ cultural dimensions of the environment (43 and 39 respectively) contradict a long standing critique by many that environmental education predominantly focuses on the biophysical. A less common dimension of the environment we identified is social/ cultural articles that also give attention to political or economic dimensions (only two and one respectively). It is surprising that this is an area which Australian environmental education researchers have overlooked given the popularity of a critical theory perspective which draws attention to political relationships and issues of unequal power relations.

To summarise the contextualisation of Australian environmental education research in the 1990s, there was a propensity for adopting a global perspective, with over one third (36 percent) of articles having such a scale of focus. This was followed by one in four authors situating their work in a local context. Thus, the global and the local received the majority of attention rather than the regional, state or national scale. Another distinction is the almost equal research attention to the biophysical and social/cultural dimensions of the environment. This finding, however, is not surprising in light of the dominant framing of research through a socially critical lens. Whether or not this--and the other findings discussed above--holds for other time periods in Australia environmental education research is open to further investigation.

What are the Distinctive Features of Australian Environmental Education Research and Why?

So what, if anything, appears to be distinctive or even unique about Australian environmental education research during the decade of the 1990s, as represented by publications in AJEE? Initially, based on an analysis of research published in EER during a partially overlapping time period, there appeared to be a lack of clear distinctions between environmental education research conducted by Australians and other nationalities when comparisons were made on the nature of data included and the educational sector focus. However, further examination (although devoid of similar direct comparisons) drawing on an inductive categorising process and Reid's (coincidentally, the current editor of EER) frames, uncovered some findings that suggested otherwise. First, there was a preference for philosophical or theoretical orientations to research, with over 30 percent of articles having this area of primary focus and 42 percent of articles concerned with the relationship between theories and policies and/or practices. The dominant theoretical argument was grounded (explicitly or implicitly) in a paradigms frame (represented by 48 percent or almost half the articles), especially socially critical theory which was employed (more than the other non-positivist paradigms combined) to frame critiques of current conceptions of human-environment relationships and of environmental/sustainability education. The second common framing involved going beyond critique to reconceptualisations. These involved either human-environment relationships or environmental/sustainability education from a philosophical or theoretical orientation, or more commonly from the perspective of particular categories of interest (e.g., ecoliteracy, spirituality) or specific curriculum interventions.

This pattern of socially critical being the most common orientation to environmental education research in Australia will not surprise those familiar with this scholarship. Significantly, this pattern would not be found in any other environmental education journal in the world. For example, a number of Australian and Canadian scholars (e.g., Gough, Hart, Jickling, Robottom) have argued that there has been a dominant applied science and positivistic approach to environmental education research in the United States that has focused on evaluating programs and activities to develop knowledge and skills and change individual attitudes and behaviours (see Hart & Nolan, 1999; A. Gough, 1997). A behaviourist and cognitive psychology orientation has dominated articles in the Journal of Environmental Education in the USA until relatively recently (with the appointment of a new set of editors, including Hart and the first author). In fact, the dominance of this singular approach to research, and rejection for publication of other research approaches, led to the founding of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education and was one of the factors that contributed to the establishment of EER.

The representation of different theoretical (and methodological) conceptualisations in any journal publication is influenced, as implied above, by the editors who serve as gatekeepers of the kinds of approaches that are viewed as acceptable or worthy of publication. A significant influence on this pattern of a paradigmatic and, specifically socially critical, orientation to research can probably be attributed, at least in part, to the editors of AJEE during this particular period of analysis. Socially critical oriented scholars were editors for most of this period: Ian Robottom (1990-95) and Annette Gough as managing editor of a team of four (1997-2000).

Other influences are likely to be identified by tracing "the genealogical power or cascade of influence (Fortino, 1997) of centres of methodological inquiry" (Hart & Nolan, 1999, p. 11) which could reveal sources (e.g., doctoral supervisors, sabbatical and conference linkages, project and publication collaborations), both within and outside Australia, of the socially critical orientation. For example, the intellectual hub of critical action research in the 1990s (and earlier) was Deakin University which established a joint masters program in environmental education, with a socially critical orientation, with Griffith University. Collaborations by Robottom at Deakin with Hart in Canada (e.g., Robottom & Hart, 1993) and Fien with Huckle in the UK illustrate the international cross-fertilisation of intellectual ideas. In other words, identifying any orientation as uniquely distinctive to a particular country (or university or individual) is highly problematic.

The Uniqueness of Australian Environmental Education Research in the 1990s?

The extent to which a nation's environmental education research might be unique can be illuminated by drawing comparisons from the review of international environmental education research conducted by Hart and Nolan (1999) which covered a similar period (1992-1999). These authors also inductively constructed a framing typology which interestingly had close parallels with the inductive categories of specialist areas of focus developed for this study, comprising six groups: three of which had a methodological focus (quantitative, qualitative and descriptive) and one each of an issues-based, metamethodological, and theoretical focus. A major difference in our approaches was Hart and Nolan's combining of methodology and substantive focus in their three methodological categories. On the other hand, their categories of quantitative and focused inquiries identified studies of environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviour which corresponded with one of our inductively derived categories. Their qualitative category included two sub-categories within case studies of curriculum practice and reform, and political and economic context issues, and one of their descriptive approach sub-categories was school curriculum research: these approximated our curriculum, learning and teaching, and social and policy contexts categories. Another sub-category of descriptive research was policy-related studies which could be partly related to our categories of language and discourse (which included policy discourse) and relationships between theory and policy and/or practice. Finally, their last two categories of metamethodological and theoretical discussions about environmental education research overlapped with our broader category of philosophical/theoretical conceptions.

Although, unfortunately for comparative purposes, an analysis of paradigmatic orientations was not carried out for the first 10 years of EER, Hart and Nolan's (1999) "paradigmatic analysis" did so as their last two categories listed above suggest. They concluded from their review of environmental education research in the 1990s that: Since Posch's (1993) review, research in environmental education has expanded internationally and become more methodologically diverse and sophisticated. Perhaps this is an indicator of a degree of maturity within this field. Whatever the case, the controversial and changing nature of educational inquiry with interpretive, critical, and postmodern turns, as well as deeper discussions about methodological, epistemological, and ontological grounding, carries the debate to new philosophical and metatheoretical levels. (Hart & Nolan, 1999, p. 2)

Australian research can also be characterised by methodological diversity, especially a non-positivist methodological pluralism as multiple examples were found of interpretive/phenomenology/hermeneutics, post-structural, feminist, and participatory action research methodologies. However, as already mentioned, the dominance of a socially critical theoretical orientation of Australian researchers during the 1990s to interrogating environmental education theories, policies and practices appears to be unique.

In summary, Australian environmental education research in the 1990s (acknowledging the limitation of this analysis to its representation in AJEE) can be characterised as having a distinctive focus on critical analysis, framed most commonly in a larger social and global context, of current (at the time) environmental education theories, discourses, curriculum policies and practices, particularly in relation to formal education. This focus on critical analysis was manifested in a concern for problematising, theorising and reconceptualising the goals, purposes, and underlying assumptions about human-environment relationships and the role and conceptions of environmental education. Such a focus was intended to reveal contradictions within and between theories, policies and practices, and to offer, through reconceptualisations, alternative ways of thinking about and, through specific curriculum or programmatic interventions, approaching environmental education. This focus on (re)conceptualising environmental education is also reflected in the second most commonly studied area being environmental/sustainability curriculum. In addition to the interventions mentioned, curriculum included content analyses of school and university curriculum documents and programs to examine their coherence with theoretical conceptions and to identify any contradictions or missing elements deemed important. In this way, Australian research could be characterised as maintaining and extending the debate about underlying assumptions, purposes and conceptions of environmental education.

Critiquing and theorising was treated as a higher priority for scholarship than assuming that the purposes and the conceptual and curriculum framing of environmental education were set and that the role of research was to simply investigate and evaluate methods or techniques for accomplishing unquestioned goals and intentions of environmental education programs and activities. For example, little attention was given to understanding or evaluating the outcomes and effectiveness of environmental education programs and teaching and learning practices or investigating environmental knowledge, skills, beliefs, values, attitudes or behaviours (consequently, it was not surprising that inferential statistics were rarely employed for data analysis in Australian research). Similarly, few studies focused on teaching and learning processes which even combined with learning outcomes received less attention than curriculum matters. Yet this lack of attention to pedagogical practices and learning processes is not unique to Australian environmental education research having been identified by Hart and Nolan (1999) and Rickinson (2001) respectively as a gap in environmental education research internationally. Interestingly, early childhood environmental education with its distinct focus on pedagogy has emerged since the time of these reviews to partially begin to address this gap, at least at that level.

Put simply, this critical and theoretical orientation could be framed as a concern for questioning and challenging environmental education orthodoxies. There was evidence of consistent efforts to theoretically (re)ground environmental education research, drawing most predominantly on a socially critical paradigm, although a diverse range of other conceptual frames and methodological approaches were also employed. It must also be noted that challenging orthodoxies did not extend to what might be viewed as a new orthodoxy in the Australian environmental education research context of the 1990s of socially critical theory (with the exception perhaps of Payne, 1995) or, with a couple of exceptions, to approaches to research generally. On the other hand, other Australian scholars (e.g., Ferreira, 2009; Walker, 1997), including some of the authors included in this analysis (e.g., A. Gough, 1999; N. Gough, 1999; Payne, 1999) have published papers elsewhere challenging this orthodoxy and/or creating bridges from the socially critical to feminist and postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives.

Implications of this Analysis

What are implications of this analysis for future research and reviews of research? First, it is important to note what was not being researched in environmental education in Australia in the decade of the 1990s. Several educational sectors that received little or no attention included informal and non-formal education, pre-service teacher education, special needs education, and vocational and technical education. Surprisingly, given the predominance of a socially critical theoretical orientation very few articles focused on the economic or political dimensions of environmental education, other than as a contextual influence on practice. Methodologically, rigorous theoretical analysis usually existed separate from empirical analysis and vice versa in the AJEE articles which may not reflect the absence of such research but be a function of the page limitations of this (and most other) journal. If these trends are evident in other publication outlets for Australian environmental education researchers (which were not included in this study) and have continued through the first decade of the 21st century (which is the subject of a planned future study), then these neglected substantive areas open possibilities for future research.

Second, efforts to interpret distinctive patterns of research agendas and trace the pathways (or genealogy) involved in the flow and exchange of theoretical and methodological ideas would be aided by extending the work on life histories of teachers (e.g., Goodson & Sikes 2001; Sikes, 1985) to that of researchers and research communities/ networks. Drawing on such approaches as actor-network theory and revisiting Fortini's (1997) cascade of influence could make a potentially useful contribution to enhancing understanding of the production of knowledge in environmental education.

Finally, the challenges of interpreting and naming and framing environmental education research encountered in this work also have implications for reviewing research. After Alan Reid presented his frames at a seminar at our university, we were intrigued to explore and understand them further. This analysis provided an opportunity to put the frames to work in tackling the task of trying to make some sense of a corpus of environmental education scholarship. What then has been learned, especially in using (or perhaps misusing) Reid's frames for arguments and debates within the field as an a priori categorisation? What might be reworked in using Reid's frames for future reviews, such as comparative studies of arguments and debates represented in other environmental education journals?

We concur with Reid (in press) that attention should be given to examining the sources, construction, representation and priority of issues and arguments in environmental education research. As part of attention to the construction and representation of arguments, the need to identify ontological (or worldview) assumptions as distinct from, but interrelated with, epistemological and methodological orientations (Hart & Nolan, 1999; Payne, 1995; Robottom & Hart, 1993) is reinforced by our experiences. Worldviews in environmental education extend to assumptions about education, the environment and (their intersection in) environmental education, as well as about research. Reid appropriately and insightfully identifies that environmental education debates drawing on the field of education involve (alternative and emerging) positions on: (a) purposes and histories of education; (b) how and where people learn; (c) role of local and wider contexts in shaping education and schooling; (d) links between education and the wider world; and (e) how education is researched and developed and how insights from research and practice contribute to the debate about education reform. Note that the first four concern positions on the substantive area of education, while the fifth relates to positioning research. His identification of areas of debate that draw on the environmental field focus on epistemological issues, including singling out the issue of climate change as collapsing epistemological differences. He then turns to substantive issues in the environmental field in stating that other aspects of environmental debate include: "modelling, impacts and experiences of threats to quality of air, land, water" and biodiversity; "carrying capacities, population levels, and globalization in relation to lifestyles, natural resources, and the biosphere". Yet here the focus is on particular issues rather on broader worldviews concerning human-nonhuman relationships. A reflexive position from our analysis would be to review environmental education research by explicitly unpacking and deconstructing researchers' ontological and ideological positions on education, environment (e.g., human-nonhuman relationships), environmental education and research (epistemological and methodological). Further, the addition of an axiological positioning to Reid's frames might be considered in order to also engage in debate about "(re)searching for value" and "representation (e.g. locating political/moral agendas)" (Hart, 2003, p. 242).

As suggested by an anonymous reviewer, an interesting recommendation from this work for journals to consider--that would enhance the above kinds of research reviews--would be to ask submitting authors to not only supply descriptive key words (as currently often requested, including by AJEE) but also to nominate the dominant framing of their work. This would enable the author's viewpoint to be transparent in the monitoring and interpretation of discursive trends. This notion could be extended to reviews of research offering reflexive accounts by authors sitting astride of reviewers' analyses, or better yet weaving together mutually constructed accounts (Lotz-Sisitka, 2003).

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank two anonymous AJEE reviewers for their insightful and helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

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Payne, P. (1999). Postmodern challenges and modern horizons: education 'for being for the environment. Environmental Education Research, 5(1), 5-34.

Payne, P. (1995). Ontology and the critical discourse of environmental education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education,

Reid, A. (in press). In Paul Robbins, Julie Newman, and Geoffrey J. Golson (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Green Education. Sage Green Series.

Reid, A., & Scott, W. (2006). Researching education and the environment: Retrospect and prospect. Environmental Education Research, 12(3-4), 571-587.

Rickinson, M. (2001). Learners and learning in environmental education: a critical review of the evidence. Environmental Education Research, 7(3): 207-320.

Robottom, I. & Hart, P. (1993). Researching environmental education: Engaging the debate. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press.

Russell, C., & Fawcett, L. (forthcoming). Introduction: Moving margins in environmental education research. In M. Brody, J. Dillon, R. Stevenson & A. Wals (Eds.). International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education. Washington, DC: AERA/Routledge.

Sauve, L. (2005). Currents in environmental education: Mapping a complex and evolving pedagogical field. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 10, 11-37.

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A list of the complete references for the 67 articles from Volumes 6-15/16 of the Australian Journal of Environmental Education that were reviewed is available from the authors.

Robert B. Stevenson ([dagger]) & Neus (Snowy) Evans

James Cook University

([dagger])Address for correspondence: Professor Bob Stevenson, The Cairns Institute and School of Education, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia. Email: bob.stevenson@jcu.edu.au

Author Biographies

Bob Stevenson is Professor and Tropical Research Leader (Education for Environmental Sustainability) in The Cairns Institute and the School of Education at James Cook University in Cairns. He was involved in EE curriculum and professional development in the Queensland Education Department and in the founding of AJEE before embarking on an academic career in the US for 26 years. He is co-editor of the Journal of Environmental Education and the International Handbook of Research on Environmental Education.

Snowy Evans finished her PhD in social-ecological resilience and education for sustainability in 2010 and is now employed as a Senior Research Officer at James Cook University, Cairns. Her research interests are in sustainability education particularly in connection to resilience and climate change at university and community level.

Table 1: Specialist Areas of Focus by Australian authors
in AJEE (1990-2000)

Philosophies/
theoretical
conceptions (n=21)

 --human-environment 10 N. Gough, 1991; Skamp, 1991; Blaikie,
 relationship 1993; Dyer & Gunnell, 1993; Trainer,
 1994; Mahoney, 1995; Everett, 1997;
 Hillcoat & Van Rensburg, 1998; Payne,
 1998; Beringer, 1999/2000

 --EE/ESD/EfS 11 Hoffman, 1994; Lostroh, 1995; Payne,
 1995; Dyer, 1997; Fien, 1997; Cuthill,
 1998; Howard, 1998; Ferreira, 1999/2000;
 Jenkins, 1999/2000; Lang, 1999/2000; M.
 Thomas, 1999/2000

Language & 7 N. Gough, 1991; Russell, 1992; Payne,
discourses 1995; Mazur, 1998; Barron, 1995;
 Ferreira, 1999/2000; Brookes, 1999/2000

Social & policy 4 Fien, 1992; A. Gough, 1992; Russell,
contexts of 1992; Fien, 1997
influence

Relationships 7 Fensham, 1991; A. Gough, 1992; Robottom,
between theory and 1992; Spork, 1992; Muhlebach, 1995;
policy and/or Walker, 1995; Maxwell & Metcalf, 1999/
practice 2000

Curriculum, teaching
and learning (n=32)

 --curriculum/program 17 Fien, 1991; Thomas, 1992; Thomas, 1993;
 content White, 1992; Orams, 1994; Sonneborn,
 1994; Stadler, 1995; Cosgrove & Thomas,
 1996; Whitehouse & Taylor, 1996;
 Larritt, 1998; Sonneborn, 1998; Thomas &
 Olsson, 1998; Muhlebach, 1999/2000;
 Lenzen & Smith, 1999/2000; Maxwell &
 Metcalf, 1999/2000; Slattery, 1999/
 2000; Thomas, Kyle & Alvarez, 1999/2000

 --teaching & 10 Errington, 1991; Lindenmayer et al.,
 learning approaches 1991; Geake, 1992; Gunnell & Dyer, 1993;
 Orams, 1994; Kozak, 1995; Markwell,
 1996; Dyer, 1997; Ballantyne et al.,
 1998; Bergman, 1999/2000

 --teaching & 5 Clark & Harrison, 1997; Pfueller et al.,
 learning outcomes 1997; Ballantyne et al., 1998; Cuthill,
 1998; Slattery, 1999/2000

Environmental 6 Murphy et al., 1991; Blaikie, 1993;
knowledge, beliefs, Barron, 1995; Clark, 1996; Connell et
values, attitudes or al., 1998; Cuthill, 1998
behaviours

Research 3 Hoffman, 1994; Harris & Robottom, 1997;
 Chenery & Beringer, 1998

Total * 80

* Note: The total in Table 1 is greater than 67 because
some articles fit multiple categories.

Table 2: Nature of Data in Articles in AJEE 1990-2000 by Australian
Authors (n=67) and Sample of Articles in EER 1995-2004 (n=102)

 AJEE

 No. No. % %

Empirical 32 48
 --Quantitative 13 19
 --Qualitative 11 16
 --Mixed 8 12
Non-Empirical 35 52
Total 67

 EER

 No. No. % %

Empirical 56 55
 --Quantitative 14 14
 --Qualitative 35 34
 --Mixed 7 7
Non-Empirical 46 45
Total 102

Table 3: Analysis of Australian Authored Articles in AJEE 1990-2000

Paradigms Frame
(n=32)

Socially Critical 18 Fensham, 1990; Errington, 1991; Fien,
 1991; Fien, 1992; A. Gough, 1992;
 Robottom, 1992; Russell, 1992; White,
 1992; Dyer & Gunnell, 1993; Gunnell &
 Dyer, 1993; Sonneborn, 1994; Trainer;
 1994; Muhlebach, 1995; Payne, 1995;
 Dyer, 1997; Fien, 1997; Harris &
 Robottom, 1997; Maxwell & Metcalf,
 1999/2000

Phenomenology 7 Hoffman, 1994; Mahoney, 1995; Chenery &
 Beringer, 1998; Connell et al., 1998;
 Mazur, 1998; Payne, 1998; Jenkins,
 1999/2000

Feminist 3 A. Gough, 1992; Barron, 1995; Whitehouse
 & Taylor, 1996

Post-structuralist 3 N. Gough, 1991; Barron, 1995; Ferreira,
 1999/2000

Reconceptualisation frame
(n=23)

 --Philosophy 5 Dyer & Gunnell, 1993; Payne, 1995;
 Markwell, 1996; Dyer, 1997; Thomas,
 1999/2000

 --Context of 7 Lindenmayer et al, 1991; Geake, 1992;
 Intervention Kozac, 1995; Lostroh, 1995; Stadler,
 1995; Pfueller et al., 1997; Slattery,
 1999/2000

 --Category of 11 Murphy et al., 1991; Skamp, 1991;
 Interest Blaikie, 1993; Walker, 1995; Everett,
 1997; Ballantyne et al., 1998, Hillcoat
 & Van Rensburg, 1998; Beringer, 1999/
 2000; Ferreira, 1999/2000; Lenzen &
 Smith, 1999/2000; Thomas et al., 1999/
 2000

Currents Frame (n=7) 7 Errington, 1991; Gunnell & Dyer, 1993;
 Orams, 1994; Markwell, 1996; Clark &
 Harrison, 1997; Bergmann, 1999/2000;
 Brookes, 1999/2000

Intersectional Frame 3 Fien, 1997; Cuthill, 1998; Howard, 1998
(n=3)

Prepositional Frame 1 Spork, 1992
(n=1)

Not categorised 6 Thomas, 1993; Andrew & Malone, 1995;
(descriptive) Clark, 1996; Cosgrove & Thomas, 1996;
 Larritt, 1998; Thomas & Olsson, 1998

Total * 71

* Note: Four articles fit more than one category.

Table 4: Comparison of Educational Sector/Setting in Articles
in AJEE (1990-2000) and EER (1995-2004)

 AJEE

 No. No. % %

General 22 31
Formal education 40 57
 --Primary schools 10 * 14
 --Secondary schools 9 * 13
 --Special needs 1 1
 --Higher education 16 23
 -Professional dev 4 6
Informal/Non-formal 8 11
Total 70

 EER

 No. No. % %

General 35 29
Formal education 67 55
 --Primary schools 25 21
 --Secondary schools 29 24
 --Special needs N/A 0
 --Higher education 15 12
 -Professional dev 5 4
Informal/Non-formal 19 16
Total 121

* Note: Three articles addressed both primary and secondary
education. Numbers and percentages for EER on formal education
sub-categories are greater than formal education category as several
articles counted in multiple subcategories.

Table 5: Scale of research by Australian authors in AJEE
(1990-2000)

 No. %

Local 18 27
Regional 4 6
State 8 12
National 13 19
Global 24 36

Total 67

Table 6: Dimensions of environment addressed by Australian
authors in AJEE (1990-2000)

 No. %

Biophysical 43 49
Social/cultural 39 44
Economic 1 1
Political 2 2
No specific dimension 3 3

Total 88

Note: Many articles addressed more than one dimension
of the environment.