1
‘Environment’ and ‘sustainable development’:
investigating the content and social dimension of two
central environmental education concepts among
university students

Chatzifotiou, Z. Liarakou, E. Daskolia, M
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece

Introduction
This study forms part of a larger project which explores how Greek pre-
and in-service teachers perceive the concepts of environment,
environmental issues and sustainability. These concepts have a central
place in environmental education and they also put forward social,
political, cultural and economic foci. At the same time, though, these
concepts can take many different meanings reflecting technocentric,
ecocentic or anthropocentric approaches.1
Over the past ten years a great number of studies in environmental
education have focused on how in- and pre-service teachers view
environmental education and its practices.2 Many of these studies are
contained within a rhetoric which assumes the socially critical character of
environmental education as its ultimate aim, without though necessarily
investigating whether such a trait is accepted or understood by the
practitioners. Mappin and Johnson noted that environmental education is
not based only on natural science and conservation but it has also acquired
a more social and political perspective.3 Nevertheless, it is difficult to
distinguish how these social and political perspectives of environmental
education can be achieved in a subject-orientated school curriculum that is
delivered by teachers whose training is mono-disciplinary and their
environmental knowledge, values or concerns are elusive. This becomes
even harder if one considers the conceptually restricted connotations of the
term environment, which is most often equated with nature and its
conservation, ecology and the bio/natural systems.4 For example, a critical
analysis of 29 international documents relating to EE (guidelines,
recommendations, policies, etc.) has identified, among other trends, that
the environment is mainly perceived as a pool of resources, associated
with resource management where socio-environmental issues are rarely
addressed.5
Likewise, the term sustainability is also a concept that can be assigned
different meanings depending on various ideological approaches. 6
The concepts of environment, environmental issues and sustainability
contain inherent (a priori) ideologies and values that are not necessarily
taken into consideration when investigating environmental education
practices. The importance of having these concepts further investigated is

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shown as well by Le Roux and Ferreira who, while reporting on in-service
education and training workshops in the field of EE, highlighted the
complex interaction of social, political, economic, cultural and ecological
factors.7 They mention that when a socio-constructivist view of the
environment and its issues is taken, then prominent people like educators
have a responsibility to facilitate the socio-environmental changes.
Nevertheless, the study of Gayford indicated that teachers did not think it
was their responsibility to attempt to solve contemporary social, political
and economic problems.8
In our research the primary goal was to shed light on how pre- and in-
service teachers come to understand the concepts of environment,
environmental issues, and sustainability. That is what are their knowledge,
ideas, values and concerns when discussing these topics which are also
central to environmental education. Our project used a combination of
quantitative and qualitative methodology. Here, we present part of the
qualitative research with pre-service teachers (university students). A brief
summary of our survey study indicated that environment is perceived as
an important social issue but not the most important one when it was next
to other issues like unemployment, drugs, wars, criminality.9 Furthermore,
students were aware of the most well known environmental problems,
such as the ozone hole, acid rain, deforestation, pollution, etc. Similarly,
when they were asked to rate the significance of these issues the most
important ones were presented again in a similar order. The survey study,
however, did not enquire about the sources of information students had,
the way an environmental issue can become a social one or about the way
students rationalised social issues as most/least important. Thus, the
qualitative study reported here is an attempt to further explore the survey
results as well as to delve into students’ thinking of the above concepts.10
Its aim was to reveal such various meanings that university students may
assign to these concepts that are multi-ideology laden.

Methodology and Sample
In order to delve into teachers’ and students’ thinking of the above
concepts, a qualitative methodology was chosen with the use of focus
group as its main instrument. The focus group method is a flexible
research tool that allows greater interaction both between the researcher
and the participants and among the participants themselves.11The use of
the focus group method in educational studies is limited even though it
can provide useful insights.
We conducted four focus groups with students from the Department of
Philosophy, Pedagogy and Psychology of the National and Kapodistrian
University of Athens. Their degree qualifies them to become secondary
school teachers in modern and classical Greek language and literature. The
number of focus group (four) was deemed sufficient based on the
literature and on the fact that from the third focus group there were general

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themes running through the sessions.12 Students knew a little about the
research we were doing but were attracted to participate in it as they were
told that they can have a certificate of attending a social science workshop.
The sessions took place in the Environmental Education Research Centre
of Athens University.
Each focus group contained on average six to eight students who were of
similar age, socio-economic status and at the time they all lived in Athens
for their studies. All focus groups were recorded and were conducted by a
moderator who dictated a number of questions encouraging a conversation
and a facilitator who kept notes and made sure the tape recorder was
working properly. For the focus groups we used a total of six questions
with more than one leg at times. These questions helped the moderator to
maintain a structure in the conversation, keep its duration under two hours
but at the same time allow more questions to be asked as each focus group
demanded. The first question asked students to discuss issues that concern
contemporary societies. Then they were asked to state which issue they
thought was most important and how/why they concluded to a particular
issue. In all focus groups, environment was mentioned as an important
issue that is of concern to contemporary societies and this helped us shift
the conversation smoothly into the topic of environment. The focus groups
were transcribed and two different teams of researchers categorized
students’ replies in each question. Then the categories of each team were
discussed and compared against each other in order to conclude with the
final response categories. This process contributes towards minimizing the
subjective procedure of categorizing qualitative, ‘rich’, textual data.

Findings and discussion
The content analysis of the data was centred on four broad fields. The first
one examines whether students view the environment and environmental
issues as social issues. The second relates to the ways students use in order
to rationalise social issues as most/least important. The third one addresses
the various aspects that students assume the environment has; and finally
the fourth is about students’ awareness of sustainability.
As far as the first analysis field is concerned, what was revealed is that
students view environment and environmental issues as social issues. This
was also supported by the survey study we conducted with early childhood
education students in which ‘environment’ scored quite high (54.9%)
being third in students’ list of significant current social issues (the issues
that scored the highest, before environment, were unemployment (96.1%)
followed by drugs (75.2%).12 The focus group analysis showed that both
the environment in general and particular environmental issues (with
pollution being the most prominent) were mentioned as issues that
concern contemporary societies. Issues like pollution, environmental
topics, unemployment, drugs, education and criminality were readily
provided by the students who participated in all four focus groups. These

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were issues that were somehow expected to be heard because they are also
largely popularised through media and newspapers.
The second analysis field is about the ways that students use to rationalise
and prioritise social issues as most/least important. The survey
questionnaire here demonstrated that when students were given a list of 12
social problems asking them to rate the degree of their importance,
environment scored a lot lower (with a mean of 8.15) than other issues
such as war (with a mean of 3.40), poverty (with a mean of 4.86), hunger
(with a mean of 4.41), unemployment (with a mean of 5.03), etc. The
focus groups results gave unemployment priority followed by other social
issues like education, environmental destruction, social indifference and
inequalities. With the focus groups we had the opportunity to delve deeper
into students’ thinking of considering unemployment as most significant.
Students said that current circumstances (graduation due in a year’s time)
made them think of an issue that they will have to face in their lives
sooner than later. They felt that unemployment does not only deprive them
of a job but it also deprives them of further personal and emotional
development. Most students discussed the negative consequences upon
their lives of not having a job in general and of not having a job that they
are trained for. At the same time, they did make a further connection that
their school education and families have not necessarily orientated them
towards issues like the environment. In one focus group it was expressed
that it is difficult to put issues of such an importance in a hierarchy. Thus,
we differentiated the question a bit and asked them what factors play an
important role when judging the importance of an issue. Unanimously,
participants to this focus group mentioned the issues that have direct
consequences upon a large part of the population.
The third analysis field of this study showed that students equate the
environment either only with its physical aspect (e.g. nature, forests,
mountains, greenery, etc.) or both with its physical and social aspects. The
social traits of the environment have been defined by the students as
people and other living organisms that all live in a closed system and
everything is interlinked with and interdependent upon each other. One
student made a further connection stating that humans have lost a sense of
time and consequently a sense of future prospect as humans seem to live
only for the present without thinking the planet’s future existence. This
statement bears elements of the sustainability rhetoric but it has not been
further explored and discussed by that particular focus group.
Additionally, we asked how the environment becomes a social issue.
Students identified three major factors that contribute to this. These are: a)
education and the state’s provisions, b) advertisement and c) problems
whose impact is great upon humans and the society. Students mentioned
the lack of a comprehensive environmental culture in education and
society. They noted that people equate pro-environmental attitudes with
isolated actions like throwing rubbish into the bin or caring for animals.

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They acknowledged that there needs to be something more systematic
with hands-on approaches where all disciplines can contribute. They said:
“…we need some directional guidelines upon which we can base our
actions…even in social sciences…it is not necessary to have one school
subject that addresses the environment only…” or “…all environmental
problems involve society as well…it may be due to lack of appropriate
education that citizens are not able to understand that the problems they
cause themselves, will have ramifications on their own lives…”.
Students also thought of the advertising sector as having an effective role
in popularising environmental issues. One example had to do with
recycling. A student said: “…when I was in primary school recycling was
in fashion…it was heard in all TV channels…”. However, a further
discussion revealed that students also feel advertisement does not have
long lasting effects. Most advertisement spots seem to be erratic and
without continuity. Finally, they talked about the way environmental
issues influence the quality of their lives. They all agreed that most often
humans do not understand the gravity of a problem unless it ‘knocks their
doors’. One student brought an example from his region where it is
planned to have a landfill and mud from another area transferred in his
region. He commented how people opposed to it because they felt they
were reduced to second-rate citizens.
The fourth analysis field examined the students’ awareness of the concept
sustainability. Before we go further, it is necessary to make some
linguistic clarifications. In Greek language there are two terms used to
describe ‘sustainability’; one has an archaic origin while the other is closer
to modern Greek language. We initially posed the question using the
archaic form of the term as this is the term that tends to be established in
Greek official documents in recent years. The students of all four focus
groups had not heard this term before but they were able to deduce a
possible meaning when approaching it etymologically. The term is
composed of the preposition “aei” which means always and the verb
“fero” which means carry. They attempted definitions based on its
component grammar parts, only to end up with the idea that ‘something
always carries or is carried’. They did not make any connections with the
conversation we had had so far about the environment and they failed to
identify any instances where they might have heard the term.
Then we introduced the modern form of the term and students said that
this sounded more familiar but still they could not discuss what it was all
about. Again, students approached the modern term etymologically and
they were able to deduce that it had to do with life, with continuity of life,
with ecosystems and biodiversity. They traced this knowledge back to the
subject of biology in high school and to media.
At that point, it was evident that there was not going to be much
discussion about a term that students knew almost nothing about it. Hence,
we introduced the terms economy, society and environment. We explained

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that these three make up the basic components of the term sustainability.
We asked them to tell us if there were any relations developed among
these three and if yes, what were these. We asked them to do the same as
well on a piece of paper where they could give a schematic depiction of
these relations in an ideal world and in reality.
Students discussed how all these three elements are important and that
they are interlinked with each other. This means we cannot consider one
as better/worst than another. Some quotes indicative of this said: “I believe
that if any of these three elements changes, positively or negatively, then
all three are instantly influenced…” or “I think this question as to whether
there are links among these three is untimely because by now we have all
understood that everything is connected to anything on earth…”.
Students’ responses, when discussing the schematic depiction of these
relations in an ideal world, reflected similar replies and most of them
mentioned how all three elements are supposed to be interlinked with each
other. They said such things as: “…it is like a triangle where each element
influences the other…” or “I made a balance-scale…where there is an
absolute equilibrium between society and economy…hence the
environment is the ideal host...”.
Another response category highlighted an imbalance in the relations
developed among economy, society and environment with economy
always having the best place. Students mentioned such things as: “…we
gave more emphasis to economy and we by-passed society and
environment…thus we, humans are losing out…” or “…it has become an
end in itself…everything for economy…we have grown indifferent for all
the rest and we harm the environment and society itself…”. In the
schematic depiction of these relations in the real world, they mentioned
such things as: “…I put the environment on the bottom of this
arrangement and on top I put economy…” or “…there is a circle again
but economy rules. Economy influences the environment and not vice
versa…”. However, this imbalance was also expressed when students
were discussing the ideal situation and they put the environment first and
foremost. Thus, they said things like: “…the environment should come
first and foremost because we are born in it…it gives us oxygen…humans
must protect the environment…and step on economy to make our lives
better…” or “…first and foremost the environment should be influencing
the society…and the economy…”.
Finally, there were two viewpoints, one wrong and the other over-
generalised respectively, about the renewable energy sources. The wrong
one said: “There is a negative relation among these three elements…in
favour of economy, renewable energy sources are being used and these
stem from the environment. The result is that the environment is destroyed
and society the same…”. At the time it was mentioned no other student
contested it but it was not supported either by any other student. The over-
generalised view said: “Exactly because some forms of energy are

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depleted, society has created a programme that economises in these
sources and tries to find other sources as well”. Again, none of the
students contested it, agreed with it or took further this viewpoint.
Summarizing, all students perceived the environment as one of many
important social issues. They did not clearly state that environmental
issues are social issues but they certainly discussed their consequences in
social terms. This is so because environment has been partly in school
curriculum, in governments’ policies, in advertisements and it influences
human’s quality of life. Students also have personal experiences of the
physical and social environment blending together and impacting upon
each other. That is, environment has acquired some tangible traits that
students can see and talk about.
Sustainability, on the other hand, both as a term and as content has not
been familiar to students. Admittedly, these students were not identified as
having any particular environmental concerns. However, they were able to
converse about the relations developed among economy, environment and
society. They identified the strong links among these three elements and
expressed the imbalances that exist today as a result of human activity (e.g.
economy being the first thing in mind) or inactivity (e.g. lack of
systematic and holistic education). Based on language itself, students were
able to deduce what sustainability might mean. There seems to be a gap
though between what the actual language (the term) transmits and what
sustainability refers to. Participants to the study made some weak and
superficial connections relating the term sustainability to biology, life,
ecosystems and biodiversity. Society and economy seem to be absent
altogether. Thus, there is a need to popularise the term and what it stands
for.

Acknowledgements
The present research was backed by the research program
‘PYTHAGORAS’ of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,
Greece.

Notes

1) O’Riordan, Timothy, “Contemporary Environmentalism,” in
Horizons in Human Geography, ed. D. Gregory & R. Walford
(London: Macmillan).
2) Spellman, G. Field, K. Sinclair, J., “An investigation into UK
higher education students’ knowledge of global climatic change,”
International Research in Geographical and Environmental
Education 12 (2003): 6-17.
Boyes, E. Chambers, W. Stanisstreet, M., “Trainee primary
teachers’ ideas about the ozone hole,” Environmental
Education Research 1 (1995): 133-145.

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Corney, G., “Learning to teach environmental issues,”
International Research in Geographical and Environmental
Education 7 (1998): 90-105.
Summers, M. Corney, G. Childs, A., “Teaching Sustainable
Development in Primary Schools: an empirical study of issues for
teachers,” Environmental Education Research 9 (2003): 327-346.
Jeronen, E. Kaikkonne, N., “Thoughts of children and adults about
the environment and environmental education,” International
Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 11
(2002): 341-353.
3) Mappin and Johnson, Environmental education and advocacy:
Changing perspectives of ecology and education (Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
4) Flogaitis, Ε., Environmental Education (Athens: Greek Letters,
1998).
5) Sauve, L. Brunelle, R. Berryman, T., “Influence of the Globalised
and Globalising Sustainable Development Framework on National
Policies Related to Environmental Education,” Policy Futures in
Education 3 (2005): 271-283.
6) Huckle, J., (1996) “Realizing Sustainability in Changing Times,” in
Education for Sustainability, ed. J. Huckle & S. Sterling, (London:
Earthscan, 1996), 3-17.
7) Le Roux, C. and Ferreira, J., “Enhancing Environmental Education
Teaching skills through In- service Education and Training,” Journal
of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy 31
(2005): 3-14.
8) Gayford, C. ,“Controversial environmental issues: a case study for
the professional development of science teachers,” International
Journal of Science Education 24 (2002): 1191-1200.
9) Flogaitis, E. Daskolia, M. Liarakou, Z. Chatzifotiou, A.
“Conceptions of the environment and of environmental problems as
social issues among Greek students of early childhood education.”
Proceedings (under Press) of the 3rd World Congress of
Environmental Education 2006, Turin.
10) O'Brien K., “Improving survey questionnaires through focus
groups,” in Successful focus groups: advancing the state of the art, ed.
D. Morgan, (London: Sage, 1993), 105-118.
11) Morgan D.L., Focus groups as qualitative research (London: Sage,
1988).
12) Basch, C. E., “Focus group interviews: an under-utilised research
technique for improving theory and practice in health education,”
Health Education Quarterly 15 (1987): 411-448.
13) Flogaitis et al. 2006.

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professional development of science teachers.” International Journal of
Science Education 24 (2002): 1191-1200.
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Sustainability, edited by J. Huckle & S. Sterling, 3-17. London:
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environment and environmental education.” International Research in
Geographical and Environmental Education 11 (2002): 341-353.
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Changing Perspectives of Ecology and Education (Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
Le Roux, C. and Ferreira, J. “Enhancing Environmental Education
Teaching skills through In-service Education and Training.” Journal of

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Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy 31
(2005): 3-14.
Mappin and Johnson. Environmental education and advocacy: Changing
perspectives of ecology and education. Cambridge University Press,
2005.
Morgan D.L. Focus groups as qualitative research. London: Sage, 1988.
O'Brien K.“Improving survey questionnaires through focus groups.” In
Successful focus groups: advancing the state of the art, edited by D.
Morgan, 105-118. London: Sage, 1993.
Sauve, L. Brunelle, R. Berryman, T. “Influence of the Globalised and
Globalising Sustainable Development Framework on National Policies
Related to Environmental Education.” Policy Futures in Education 3
(2005): 271-283.
Spellman, G. Field, K. Sinclair, J. “An investigation into UK higher
education students’ knowledge of global climatic change.” International
Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 12 (2003): 6-
17.
Summers, M. Corney, G. Childs, A. “Teaching Sustainable Development
in Primary Schools: an empirical study of issues for teachers.”
Environmental Education Research 9 (2003): 327-346.
Summers, M. Kruger, C. Childs, A. and Mant J. “Primary School
Teachers’ Understanding of Environmental Issues: an overview study.”
Environmental Education Research 6 (2000): 293-312.

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