The role of students’ voices and their influence on adults in creating more sustainable environments in three schools

Abstract

This paper draws on the Sustainability Education in European Primary Schools (SEEPS) Project, which was an EU funded project examining approaches to sustainability education. As part of that project the team developed a case study approach to the individual country contributions to the overall project, which concluded by developing a model based on whole institution approaches to school improvement towards sustainability.. These case studies form the basis of this proposed paper. In the paper we will draw on the case study materials from a range of European countries to examine how learners perceive that their participation in school improvements towards sustainability are conceived and received by school administrators and teachers. The paper will try to develop a metaanalytical rather than descriptive account of the case studies in order to identify commonalities across the cases relating to the learner’s participation in decisions about learning.