Educational Practice in Education for Environmental Justice: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript addresses the challenges of environmental education through a systematic review approach aimed at investigating 'information on the state of knowledge in a given area.' While the topic is intriguing, further development of the manuscript is necessary.

1. The abstract requires refinement to better reflect the methods employed and the main findings. Currently, it needs more specificity and effectively conveys the main outcomes of the study.
2. The introduction provides a general overview of the research context but needs a clearer articulation of the gap in the literature regarding environmental education knowledge. Additionally, the authors' motivations for investigating this area and the added value of their study should be explicitly stated.
3. The Method section of the systematic review needs to provide more detailed information about the databases used, the timeframe, query settings, and criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of studies. I recommend referring to manuscripts discussing conducting bibliometric analysis and systematic reviews for guidance (e.g., DOI: 10.3390/socsci11090391, DOI: 10.3390/s23156932).
4. The results are well-presented, but they need indication of the sources of information supporting them. Including data sources is crucial for verifying accuracy and credibility and identifying potential biases.
5. The discussion section should contextualize the findings within the existing literature, addressing similar or opposing results from previous studies. It should also address the research questions posed and discuss the study's limitations, suggesting avenues for future research.
6. The reference list contains inaccuracies, such as referencing [5]. The correct reference should be "William B. Stapp (1969) The Concept of Environmental Education, Environmental Education, 1:1, 30-31, DOI: 10.1080/00139254.1969.10801479." The current reference listed is not found.

Addressing these points will enhance the manuscript's clarity, rigour, and credibility.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding corrections highlighted changes in the re-submitted files.

1. The abstract requires refinement to better reflect the methods employed and the main findings. Currently, it needs more specificity and effectively conveys the main outcomes of the study.

We have addressed your suggestion into account and modified the abstract to include more details on the method used and the main results of the study.

2. The introduction provides a general overview of the research context but needs a clearer articulation of the gap in the literature regarding environmental education knowledge. Additionally, the authors' motivations for investigating this area and the added value of their study should be explicitly stated.

In response to your comment, we have made explicit the gap in the literature on how systematic review have been conducted in the context of environmental education (lines 131-144). We have also incorporated the authors' motivation for researching this area (lines 145-151), considering the findings and challenges indicated in previous studies published in 2016 (Varela-Losada et al., 2016), which is consistent with our study period (2015-2021).

3. The Method section of the systematic review needs to provide more detailed information about the databases used, the timeframe, query settings, and criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of studies. I recommend referring to manuscripts discussing conducting bibliometric analysis and systematic reviews for guidance (e.g., DOI: 10.3390/socsci11090391, DOI: 10.3390/s23156932).

We welcome your comment and the recommended manuscripts. The method section has been thoroughly revised and appropriate modifications have been included to clarify the issues raised. As for the databases used, this systematic review was based on a selection of journals chosen for their representativeness and impact index, which is also common in systematic reviews in this field of study (Varela-Losada et al., 2016).  Regarding the query setting, the "or" nexus has been incorporated in the text as it was done during the search for articles. Finally, to clarify the criteria for inclusion and exclusion of papers, table 1 has been included.

4. The results are well-presented, but they need indication of the sources of information supporting them. Including data sources is crucial for verifying accuracy and credibility and identifying potential biases.

In response to your request, supplementary material has been included to verify the accuracy and credibility of the results, providing the sources of information analysed in this work.

5. The discussion section should contextualize the findings within the existing literature, addressing similar or opposing results from previous studies. It should also address the research questions posed and discuss the study's limitations, suggesting avenues for future research.

In response to your comment, modifications have been included in the discussion section.

6. The reference list contains inaccuracies, such as referencing [5]. The correct reference should be "William B. Stapp (1969) The Concept of Environmental Education, Environmental Education, 1:1, 30-31, DOI: 10.1080/00139254.1969.10801479." The current reference listed is not found.

Thank you for your comment. It is true that the journal Environmental Education exclusively lists William B. Stapp as the author of the publication. However, when accessing the full article, you can see that the manuscript is signed by “William B. Stapp et al.” At the bottom of the first page are listed all the members who attended the seminar where the objectives of environmental education were defined: "The definition and main objectives of environmental education presented in this document were developed at a graduate seminar of the Department of Resource Planning and Conservation, School of Natural Resources, University of Michigan. The seminar members were: Mr. Dean Bennett, Mr. William Bryan, Jr., Mr. Jerome Fulton, Ms. Jean MacGregor, Mr. Paul Nowak, Mr. James Swan, Mr. Robert Wall, and Professors Sparser Havlick and William B. Stapp".

Therefore, we have chosen to keep all authors in the reference.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This proposal is a systematic literature review "to define the existing limitations when working on EE in Early Childhood Education, Primary Education and Pre-service Teacher Training classrooms from an Environmental Justice (EJ) perspective"

The paper is centered on a very relevant international research topic, and presents a sound research. It follows the structure of a research papel, and it is easy to read.

However, there are some problems that should be solved:

- The concepts of literacy and ecological literacy should be clarified. The two concepts are used without explanation. And they are different.

- The selection criteria of papers are not completely justified. Why to use the JCR-SJR impact factor? What are the potential consequences of this choice for the conclusions of the paper?

- What are the reasons to use the categories ‘literacy’, ‘awareness-raising and sensitisation’ and ‘participation and action-taking’? Why are they more adequate than other categories? Is literacy used as a synonym of ecological literacy? Why not considering 'problem solving?'

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

There are some typing errors that must be reviewed.

Author Response

Thank you for your very positive assessment of the manuscript, and for your suggestions for improvement. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding corrections highlighted changes in the re-submitted files.

1. The concepts of literacy and ecological literacy should be clarified. The two concepts are used without explanation. And they are different.

In order to avoid misinterpretation of the terms "literacy" and "ecological literacy", the latter has been replaced by the concept "content knowledge". The term "literacy" refers to the continuous learning process. For example, for learning science (scientific literacy) or for the development of critical thinking (critical literacy). The term “content knowledge” is used to refer to purely informational educational interventions, which focus on conveying information about environmental problems.

2. The selection criteria of papers are not completely justified. Why to use the JCR-SJR impact factor? What are the potential consequences of this choice for the conclusions of the paper?

Thank you for your comments. To clarify the criteria for the selection of papers (a request also made by reviewer 1), we have included table 1. In addition, the reasons for using the JCR-SJR impact factor have been explained (lines 173-176).

This inclusion/exclusion criterion assumes partial knowledge of the subject matter. Therefore, as a future line of research, it is proposed to carry out a similar study using lower impact journals as sources. In this way, the results of both studies can be compared and a deeper understanding of the role of educational research in Environmental Justice Education will be obtained (lines 476-481).

3. What are the reasons to use the categories ‘literacy’, ‘awareness-raising and sensitisation’ and ‘participation and action-taking’? Why are they more adequate than other categories? Is literacy used as a synonym of ecological literacy? Why not considering 'problem solving?'

In response to your comments, we have made modifications to the text to justify the use of each of the categories, as well as their meaning (lines 1217-228). 

4. There are some typing errors that must be reviewed.

We regret the typing errors included in the previous version. We have revised the wording throughout the text and made the necessary changes.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would like to thank authors for very interesting research and to highlight the importance of the topic addressed in the study for the contemporary world – both research community and society. 

 

Introduction:

I would recommend authors to omit lines 27-30 – blaming Western country for our current state is not scientifically sound. 

Lines 129-132 : Please be more specific in the sentence about the focus of the study – it can not be said that there are no studies that relate the three mentioned elements.

 

The research question is explained as „whether and how environmental education has been implemented in educational practice.“ (line 135) but is it environmental education  in general or „education about environmental justice“  - please be specific.

 

Introduction section should end with summary of the paper sections – It is very hard to follow the paper without this concluding paragraph. 

 

Method:

I commend authors for clearly describing methodological flow and the fact that they followed PRISMA protocol – it really adds to the study. 

Anyhow, I have to express the concern with keywords used: ‘Environmental Education’,

‘Environmental Justice’, ‘Education for Sustainability’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’

and ‘Science, Technology, Society and Environment’. I believe that words such as „Education for Sustainability’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ and ‘Science, Technology, Society and Environment’ are very broad and not directly related to the researched question – I would suggest authors to explain the rationale for selecting these words since the number of not applicable papers is relatively high (14). 

I would also advise authors to describe what is perceived as the „intervention“.

Line 164 – What is the meaning of the sentence „The tool was used to identify what has

been addressed in educational research on Environmental Education“ – which tool?

 

Research

I have found tables and figures much more interesting than the text it self. I think that research done by authors is more valuable than explained – I would recommend authors to describe analysed categories  and subcategorized in more detail (not only to focus on extremes – very categorization is more important) – the research question is weather and how environmental justice is integrated in the education. 

More focus can be made on content of the "interventions".

Conclusions:

I believe that the statement expressed in lines 338-340 is not argued in the paper nor is something that is generally adopted by any declaration so it can be perceived a bit pretentious by authors. I would advise authors to answer their research question in the conclusion very precisely: 

1. In order to speak about „whether environmental education (or environmental justice education) has been implemented in educational practice“ – authors should have analysed the curricula over series of countries – the fact that there are papers about practices or interventions do not testify about overall education. Hence, I would recommend the authors to reformulate the research question.  

2. I believe that authors have provided interesting answers on how environmental education (or environmental justice education) has been implemented in educational practice“ and even what is learned. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

 Authors should be very careful with the terminology used in the research.

Author Response

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions highlighted changes in the re-submitted files. 

Introduction:

1. I would recommend authors to omit lines 27-30 – blaming Western country for our current state is not scientifically sound. 

In response to your comments, we have omitted the idea of blaming Western countries for the current crisis situation: "In this sense, our lifestyle and legitimised values have led us to this crisis situation [2], determined, among others, by accelerated climate change, the loss of biodiversity or the unequal distribution of water and food [3]".

2. Lines 129-132 : Please be more specific in the sentence about the focus of the study – it can not be said that there are no studies that relate the three mentioned elements.

To justify the gap in the literature (a request also made by reviewer 1), information on systematic reviews carried out in the framework of environmental education has been included (lines 129-144). Thus, none of them incorporates an Environmental Justice approach. We hope that this will make the rationale for our work more explicit.

3. The research question is explained as "whether and how environmental education has been implemented in educational practice.“ (line 135) but is it environmental education  in general or „education about environmental justice“  - please be specific.

We are grateful for their comment and regret that the aim of the study was not specific. The text has been reworded to clarify that the aim of the study is "to identify the constraints to working on Environmental Education in Early Childhood Education (ECE), Primary Education (PE) and Continuing Teacher Education (CTE) classrooms from an Environmental Justice perspective". We hope that this will not lead to confusion.

4. Introduction section should end with summary of the paper sections – It is very hard to follow the paper without this concluding paragraph. 

We regret that it was difficult to follow the paper without this paragraph. Your request has been addressed and this information has been included.

Method:

5. I commend authors for clearly describing methodological flow and the fact that they followed PRISMA protocol – it really adds to the study. Anyhow, I have to express the concern with keywords used: ‘Environmental Education’, ‘Environmental Justice’, ‘Education for Sustainability’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’and ‘Science, Technology, Society and Environment’. I believe that words such as „Education for Sustainability’, ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ and ‘Science, Technology, Society and Environment’ are very broad and not directly related to the researched question – I would suggest authors to explain the rationale for selecting these words since the number of not applicable papers is relatively high (14). 

In response to the request, we have included an explanation of why the authors have selected the terms "education for sustainability", "sustainable development goals" and "science, technology, society and environment" (lines 183-188).

6. I would also advise authors to describe what is perceived as the "intervention".

Thank you very much for your comment. We think it is relevant to our study to include this information. Therefore we have added a few lines on what we consider "intervention" (lines 192-193).

7. Line 164 – What is the meaning of the sentence "The tool was used to identify what has been addressed in educational research on Environmental Education“ – which tool?

In this sentence, the authors referred to the tool constructed in the previous work (Guevara-Herrero et al., 2023), which, in addition to categorising the works by type of study, they analysed what issues had been addressed in educational research on Environmental Education. Given that in this work only the categorisation by type of study, and specifically the interventions, are relevant, it has been decided to eliminate this sentence to clarify the information.

Research

8. I have found tables and figures much more interesting than the text it self. I think that research done by authors is more valuable than explained – I would recommend authors to describe analysed categories  and subcategorized in more detail (not only to focus on extremes – very categorization is more important) – the research question is weather and how environmental justice is integrated in the education. 

We regret that the objective of the study was misunderstood. To clarify this, the previous wording (“it is crucial to determine whether and how environmental education has been implemented in educational practice. This will enable us to identify limitations when working on Environmental Education in Early Childhood Education (ECE), Primary Education (PE) and Pre-service Teacher Training (PTT) classrooms from an Environmental Justice perspective”), has been modified, keeping the same idea, but trying to clarify it (“this review aims to determine how Environmental Education has been implemented in educational practice to identify limitations when working on Environmental Education in Early Childhood Education (ECE), Primary Education (PE) and Pre-service Teacher Training (PTT) classrooms from an Environmental Justice perspective”). In any case, the aim is to detect the limitations when working on Environmental Education from an Environmental Justice perspective in the classroom. Therefore, the results are described by looking at all frequencies in each category. 

9. More focus can be made on content of the "interventions".

Since “content” is one of the variables to be studied, section 3.1 describes in detail what content is addressed in the interventions analysed. The categories established for this variable reflect whether the interventions work on content related to the natural environment, environmental problems or solutions to environmental problems, while considering integrated perspectives (ecological, socioeconomic, ethical, health, etc.). This allows us to discuss whether the interventions are promoting systemic thinking, connecting the different components/perspectives involved in a given situation. However, if more specific indications are provided, we are willing to include specific suggestions in this section. 

Conclusions:

10. I believe that the statement expressed in lines 338-340 is not argued in the paper nor is something that is generally adopted by any declaration so it can be perceived a bit pretentious by authors. I would advise authors to answer their research question in the conclusion very precisely: 

• In order to speak about "whether environmental education (or environmental justice education) has been implemented in educational practice“ – authors should have analysed the curricula over series of countries – the fact that there are papers about practices or interventions do not testify about overall education. Hence, I would recommend the authors to reformulate the research question. 
• I believe that authors have provided interesting answers on how environmental education (or environmental justice education) has been implemented in educational practice“ and even what is learned. 

Thank you for your comments. Regarding the first of them, we would like to comment that the need for a systemic approach to work on environmental problems is included in the 2030 Agenda (page 2). However, the results obtained in the variable "contents" show a predominance of interventions that work on issues related to environmental knowledge or environmental problems from an ecological perspective, as opposed to other perspectives (socio-economic, ethical, health, etc.). Moreover, it is rare for these perspectives to be worked on in an integrated way. All of this leads us to infer that educational research does not promote the integration of the systemic perspective in classroom practices. In order to clarify these ideas, the text of the article has been modified (lines 370-378).

Regarding the second comment, as indicated above, we believe that the objective of the work has not been correctly understood, so it has been reformulated. In any case, the aim is to identify the limitations of working on Environmental Education in the classroom from an Environmental Justice perspective. To do this, it is necessary to know the characteristics of interventions in Environmental Education, taking into account publications in impact journals. We hope that with the modification the objective of the work will be clearer.  

11. Authors should be very careful with the terminology used in the research.

In response to your comment, we have revised the entire text, clarifying terms that could cause confusion and adding new ones to make it more precise. We hope that these modifications will improve the understanding of the ideas.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

The manuscript entitled “Educational practice in Education for Environmental Justice: a systematic review of the literature” is a very interesting and well written piece of work that is almost ready to be accepted for publication.

However, there are some issues that I would like to see more explicit and well discussed in Discussion part.

 

You started saying that within the Environmental Justice approach the contribution to the environmental problems and the distribution of consequences is unequal across communities. However you said nothing after your paper’s evaluation: did you find references to that inequality?

 

On the other hand, you said that environmental justice may be considered a tool for social change and referred that within the teaching of environmental education dialogue emancipation, critical and participatory citizenship should be addressed. How can you measured that? Interestingly you never refer on the use of commitment interventions that in other studies have shown good results for attitudes change (Barata et al., 2016).

 

You referred that when teachers choose to design their own materials, you interpreted it as a lack of didactic resources, or that the existing ones are not suitable for their students. Why this interpretation when recently has been shown that co-creation is a step forward in motivation and critical abilities development? Don’t you think that this could serve much better as a preliminar phase of environmental justice since co-creation is oriented towards critical thinking and dialogue?

 

Last, at the very end in your conclusions it would be better if you could address a kind of suggestions or guides that could be considered useful for environmental education practice, not only in terms of research. 

Author Response

Thank you for your review of the manuscript and your comments. Please find the detailed responses below and the corresponding revisions highlighted changes in the re-submitted files. 

1. You started saying that within the Environmental Justice approach the contribution to the environmental problems and the distribution of consequences is unequal across communities. However you said nothing after your paper’s evaluation: did you find references to that inequality?

We find this question very interesting, but it was not the aim of the study. For this, it would have been necessary to analyse the classroom interventions during their implementation and not the publication where the proposal is described. In this sense, the analysis tool does not allow us to objectively detect whether classroom interventions have addressed environmental problems by highlighting social inequalities.

2. On the other hand, you said that environmental justice may be considered a tool for social change and referred that within the teaching of environmental education dialogue emancipation, critical and participatory citizenship should be addressed. How can you measured that? Interestingly you never refer on the use of commitment interventions that in other studies have shown good results for attitudes change (Barata et al., 2016).

We find the question very interesting. Different studies suggest that activities developed within the framework of Transformative Environmental Education (dialogic, emancipatory, critical and participatory) promote changes in students' daily actions. Some examples of such work are mentioned throughout the manuscript: Uskola and Puig, 2023; Esquivel-Martin et al., 2023; Brocos and Jiménez-Aleixandre, 2022; Evagorou et al., 2020; Ardoin and Bowers, 2020; Herman et al., 2021. These are just one example, so other studies such as the one suggested (Barata et al., 2016) could be mentioned. In all of them, participants, in the framework of an assessment, respond under what they consider to be the appropriate response, which does not necessarily reflect an actual behavioural change.  This is because one of the great limitations of Environmental Education is how to evaluate a change of habit that lasts over time, without the student feeling evaluated and being able to act freely.

3. You referred that when teachers choose to design their own materials, you interpreted it as a lack of didactic resources, or that the existing ones are not suitable for their students. Why this interpretation when recently has been shown that co-creation is a step forward in motivation and critical abilities development? Don’t you think that this could serve much better as a preliminar phase of environmental justice since co-creation is oriented towards critical thinking and dialogue?

We agree with you that co-creation is a step forward in motivating and developing critical skills in learners. However, in the category "self-made materials" we have included activities developed with materials created exclusively by the teacher. Our interpretation of the lack of teaching resources or the quality of the existing ones is related to the results of previous studies, in which an analysis of sustainability activities in Spanish primary school textbooks has identified an abundance of activities with low cognitive demand on environmental issues such as recycling. This idea has been included in lines 407-412.

4. Last, at the very end in your conclusions it would be better if you could address a kind of suggestions or guides that could be considered useful for environmental education practice, not only in terms of research. 

Following your request we have incorporated modifications at the end of the conclusions pointing out methodologies, strategies and didactic resources that can be considered useful for the practice of Environmental Education. We have also referenced works that describe and analyse educational interventions that include some of the methodologies or strategies mentioned in the text.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed all my comments.