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Our World, Our Futures:

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Exploring transformative environmental and global citizenship education in Maldivian and English primary schools

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Aminath Shiyama

Claire Lee

Fathimath Nasiha

Fathimath Shafeeqa

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‘educational questions are fundamentally existential questions, that is, questions about how we try to exist as human beings, how we try to live our life in and with a world that is not of our making and that is under no obligation to give us what we want or expect from it.’

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(Biesta, 2022, p. 9)

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Our World, Our Futures project

    • 7 researchers from The Maldives National University and Oxford Brookes University

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    • 7 primary school teachers in the two countries

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    • 4 themes:
      • Where we live
      • Something we’d like to change
      • Our future space, and
      • Making a change

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Methods

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                  • Classroom observations
                  • Interviews with children and teachers
                  • Artefacts
                  • Digital platforms
                  • Reflective thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2019)
                  • Dialogic analysis of visual material (Frank, 2012)

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Theoretical perspectives

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Dialogism (Bakhtin, 1981; 1986) Transformative Learning Theory (Mezirow, 1997; 2003)

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Theoretical Framework �Dialogic pedagogy based on work of Bakhtin � (1981; 1986)

    • Knowledge and meaning not defined in advance
    • Generative co-existence of multiple perspectives and ways of knowing
  • Development of a sense of self through encounters with the other (human/non-human)
  • Learning participatory not individualistic

Open-endedness

Encounters with the other

Situated meaning

  • Truths are partial and contingent
  • Responsivity, criticality, creativity

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Theoretical Framework �three dimensions of transformative learning theory by �Mezirow (1997; 2003)

Learning as a process

    • How people learn.
    • Explored through the curriculum innovations and pedagogical approaches

Learning outcomes

    • What people learn.
    • Explored through the learning students have acquired
    • The professional learning of the teachers in innovating the curriculum to integrate environmental and sustainable education.

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The learning conditions

    • How to best support their learning.
    • Explored through the classroom environment and the various teaching and learning arrangements.

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Teachers’ approaches

Problem 01

Problem 03

Problem 04

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Emergent findings:

Justice and sustainability

Intergenerational

Gender

Socio-economic

Planetary/interspecies

Link to analysis mindmap

Geographical

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Global citizenship

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Dialogic teaching

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Transformative learning

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Future thinking

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Outcomes

“I think that they’ve been empowered. I think it has transformed them. I think that they’d be very different people, say, if we’d spent the last five or six weeks doing a project on Modigliani…”

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“It’s the first time we’ve done actual real things from the world.”

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Wanting to ‘get it right’

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Synchronisation of project time lines

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Systemic challenges

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Challenges

“the worry that I wasn't doing the right thing with the project, or is it going in the right way that it's meant to?”

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“I didn't want to upload anything just in case, it was like way off the mark.”

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Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Empathy

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Understanding that change is possible

Global citizenship conceptual framework draft

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Empathy

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Understanding that change is possible

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Questioning and sharing of multiple knowledges

Unsettling certainties

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Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Dialogic Spaces

Managed, safe spaces for exploring ideas multimodally

Understanding that change is possible

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Global citizenship conceptual framework draft

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Provocation

Formative assessment

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Support

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Assessment of learning

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LEARNING CONDITIONS

Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Empathy

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Understanding that change is possible

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Questioning and sharing of multiple knowledges

Unsettling certainties

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Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Empathy

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Dialogic Spaces

Managed, safe spaces for exploring ideas multimodally

Understanding that change is possible

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Diverse knowledges (human/non-human)

Diverse ways of knowing

Critical consciousness

Transformative actions

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Global citizenship conceptual framework draft

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Diverse ways of knowing

Critical consciousness

Provocation

Formative assessment

LEARNING CONDITIONS

Support

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Assessment of learning

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LEARNING CONDITIONS

Diverse ways of knowing and meaning-making

Critical consciousness

Transformative actions

Motivation to make a difference/ be proactive

Emotional and Cognitive awareness

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Self Other

Empathy

Desire for more knowledge

LEARNING PROCESS

Understanding that change is possible

Positive Actions

Agency

Increased

Knowledge & Understanding

Questioning and sharing of multiple knowledges

Unsettling certainties

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      • Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination (M. Holquist, Ed., C. Emerson and M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.

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  • Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (V. W. McGee, Trans., C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Eds.). University of Texas Press.

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  • Biesta. G. (2022) World-Centred Education: A View for the Present. London: Routledge
  • Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806
  • Frank, A.W. (2012), Practicing dialogical narrative analysis. Varieties of Narrative Analysis, Vol. 2010, pp. 33-52.

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  • Mezirow, J. (1997). Transformative learning: Theory to practice. New directions for adult and continuing education (74) (pp. 5-12). https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230358485.0015

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References

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THANK YOU

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aminath.shiyama@mnu.edu.mv

clairelee@brookes.ac.uk

Fathimath.nasiha@mnu.edu.mv

fathimathshafeeqa@yahoo.com