Teachers' perspectives on environmental education in multicultural contexts: Towards culturally-responsive environmental education

• Teachers from schools with significant linguistic and ethnic diversity participated.
• Teachers faced challenges in considering multicultural diversity as an asset in EE.
• A move towards culturally-responsive EE needs to build on local, external resources.
• Teacher capacity must include co-creating curriculum incorporating student diversity.

This inquiry explores teachers' perspectives on enacting environmental education in a Québec urban locale with high student diversity. Participating in focus groups and interviews, teachers from three schools discussed their experiences incorporating environmental education into their multiculturally-diverse classrooms. Challenges included value clashes, a lack of common lived experiences, and reconciling contradictory educational perspectives and political policies, which often placed teachers in paradoxical positions. Findings suggest moving toward practices of culturally-responsive environmental education that demand more than awareness but include interactive dialogue. Teachers need support from beyond the classroom and the capacity to develop curriculum facilitating the inclusion of students' culture.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide