Chapter 5: Trends in Postgraduate Environmental Education Research
6.5 Implications of the research findings 161
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are addressed in Environmental Education through research, education and policy, environmental problems will persist in South Africa.
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Secondly, considering the impact of the past apartheid practices on people‘s attitudes towards the environment, policies should indicate how different categories of people should participate in Environmental Education issues in a way that will make them regard the environment as their own.
Thirdly, those policies that have to do with Environmental Education curriculum should not only spell out the importance of Environmental Education in all the four dimensions of the environment: biophysical, social, economic and political, but should be clear about implementation strategies as well. For example, some policies have indicated that Environmental Education should be an integral part of all education sectors and levels.
The findings from this study however indicate that this may not be happening as some higher education institutions in South Africa have not produced postgraduate Environmental Education research during the decade of transformation. As the main producers of new knowledge, higher education institutions should be provided with policies that will ensure that research is conducted towards the reduction of the issues of marginalization and the resultant environmental problems.
6.5.2 Implications for Environmental Education Practice
The findings from this study suggest that Environmental Education may still be mainly taught at school level. This assumption is based on the fact that more research in the two institutions focused on the schooling sector. For transformation to take place and to eliminate the remnants of marginalization in South Africa, Environmental Education, including all its four dimensions, should be taught to all people and in all contexts. This means that even the adults in both rural and urban areas need to be taught Environmental
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Education to be able to participate in addressing environmental problems and develop the attitude of ownership towards the environment. Research therefore can produce knowledge on how this inclusion of all categories of people in Environmental Education practice can be done.
Secondly, Environmental Education should not only be taught through certain subjects or learning areas at school and higher education level, but should be across the curriculum.
This way, all learners and students will be aware of their different roles in addressing environmental problems in this country. The focus of research on only a few subjects suggests that some subjects are still distanced from Environmental Education practice.
6.5.3 Implications for future research
It would be a loss in the Environmental Education area if the findings from this study, especially the gaps identified, would be ignored by future researchers. Informed especially by the trends with regards to research productivity, silences and gaps that were identified from the reviewed postgraduate Environmental Education theses, the following are the identified implications for future research in Environmental Education in South Africa.
First, because environmental problems are not limited to those areas where Environmental Education research was produced during the period 1995 to 2004, there is a general need for more production of Environmental Education knowledge from different regions of South Africa. There is still a need in some, if not all regions and areas for research that will assist people to integrate Environmental Education in their different
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sectors and disciplines. If this happens, environmental problems will be tackled at different dimensions and at different sectors. This way they can be reduced.
Second, those school subjects and learning areas that used to be distanced from Environmental Education, such as history, mathematics, business studies, to mention but a few, should be involved in Environmental Education future research to avoid the possibility of some learners growing up with the notion that Environmental Education is for a particular group of people in their communities. If this happens, both learners and educators involved in those subjects and learning areas will begin to understand the environment as multidimensional and to take their part in addressing the problems in the different dimensions where problems exist.
Thirdly, learners and parents and parents have not been much involved in postgraduate research from the two institutions reviewed in this study. They should be an integral part of future research to ensure that Environmental Education is for sustainable development.
If methodologies that are used in research encourage their participation, these people can be empowered with knowledge and skills to be able to deal with multidimensional environmental problems that they encounter in their everyday life. Through knowledge they can get from such participation, they can also learn to be independent, than relying on government subsistence.
Fourth, the issues of gender and racial differences were overlooked in the studies reviewed in this thesis. Future research should consider the importance of these aspects in addressing environmental problems in this country. Based on the racial and sexist
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discrimination which have shaped environmental issues in this country, black people in general and black women in particular were robbed of opportunities to learn about environmental issues. Research therefore cannot always be generalized to all South Africans, and the issues of race and gender should not be avoided in research. Women are the most affected by the issues of marginalization because social practices have placed them in a position of having to ensure that their children are provided with food and other needs even in the poor conditions under which they live. If these categories of people therefore, blacks and women, can be empowered with knowledge and skills through participation in research, their problems might be reduced.
Fifth, different institutions have used different methodologies, some of which do not involve the participation of people on the issues that affect them. The methodologies that are chosen in future should include those that encourage participation of communities that are affected by environmental problems so that these people are empowered in different ways that will make them deal accordingly with these problems.
Sixth, this study focused only on the two institutions which produced postgraduate Environmental Education research from the first phase of the PPER. This focus did not imply lack of postgraduate research in the second phase institutions such as UNISA and University of Pretoria, to mention but a few, but was due to the time limits for this study.
There is still a need for research on other institutions that were not included in this study so that a complete national trend in postgraduate Environmental Education research is identified and suggestions are provided towards the solution of environmental problems.
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Seventh, the research implications stated above can be considered by some future researchers, but the value and contribution of such research can be minimal if it is not adequately disseminated. To address this possible gap, there should be research that produces knowledge on how knowledge produced through postgraduate Environmental Education research can be disseminated to those people that were not part of the research process. If that happens, the findings from research can be used to address problems in all dimensions of the environment.