Eco-Social Agency in Adult Education
Both ecological and social factors in Europe and in the world are raising concerns as vitality of ecosystems are in danger due to global warming and over consumption of natural resources. Climate change and societal changes and insecurities are globally shared concerns. These wicked problems arise many responses and feelings that need to be addressed with changes in attitudes, values, worldviews, actions, and learning. Wellbeing of our planet is dependent on our actions; therefore, we believe that adult education organisations and adult educators should take more active role in supporting transformative learning towards ecological on social responsibility.
In our small-scale Erasmus+ partnership, Adult Educators Supporting Eco-Social Agency, we want to learn, how we can best integrate eco-social sustainability and education into our trainings. We want to understand the needs and the challenges of both adult educators and adult learners in becoming active agents of sustainability transformations.
Our project is formed by KSL Study Centre from Finland, Símenntun from Iceland and Modern Didactics Centre from Lithuania. Project is trying to answer to following questions: What does eco-social sustainability and education mean in practice? How do adult educators see their role as transformative allies to our training participants? How do the participants of our trainings approach the huge challenges of our time? How do they see their role in it? What kind of support and learning would they need to become transformative actors?
Finding a shared understanding of eco-social education
One of the first objects of our project was to form a shared view of eco-social sustainability and education. This was achieved through both getting to know theoretical approaches as well as using experience and action-based learning methods to reach not just cognitive, but also metacognitive and epistemic levels of learning within the project.
Eco-social education is relatively new term and is close to the idea of education as Bildung. It emphasises need of transformation in thinking, learning, acting and ethical understanding to ensure wellbeing of not just humans but all the species and the whole planet. Ecological and social problems are intertwined and therefore solutions need to be holistic. This requires sense of responsibility, moderateness in all needs and respect towards the whole planet. Key competences are systemic and critical thinking, dialogue and orientation towards possible futures. The spatial, temporal and ethical dimensions of everyday life choices for the whole planet is emphasised especially in planetary social pedagogy (Salonen et al., 2023) that was used as a as a theory base in getting to know the concepts.
This theoretical background was reflected with values, methods of teaching, and future foresights in every project organisation and brought together with discussions and dialogue. Shared understanding, key concepts and project objectives were derived from these discussions.
Collecting information
For us to understand how to better support both our adult learners and teachers we needed to collect more information about the needs, challenges, and possibilities that adult learners and teachers face. A questionnaire was designed for adult educators who are working in or closely with the project organisations and 41 teachers answered it. Also, adult learners who part-take in project organisations’ courses were targeted with focus group interviews. Four interview groups, two in Finland, one in Lithuania and one in Iceland reached all together 19 participants.
Questionnaire to adult educators
Questionnaire for adult educators had four phases: introduction, questions about the awareness of eco-social issues and role of education in it, teachers’ own willingness to learn more about it and their pedagogical practices and finally their understanding and views of transformative learning and teaching methods aiming to it.
All the respondents in all three countries perceived awareness of ecological and social issues important and they agreed that they should be targeted in adult education. Taking responsibility of ecological and social issues was also seen important. Almost all the adult educators were interested or somewhat interested in learning more about sustainability and eco-social education although there was a slight decline compared to how important respondents saw the general awareness of the issues. There was an interest towards supporting adult learners’ eco-social agency and integration of eco-social content into teachers’ pedagogical practice but again this was seen slightly less interesting.
The closer the questions about eco-social education came to teachers’ own learning and teaching practices the willingness declined but was still considered a definitive interest in general. In every country there were teachers who already teach about ecological and/or social matters as part of their pedagogical practice, but not all. Responses show that social issues were tackled much more often than ecological or intertwined eco-social issues. When comparing the answers between countries, Finnish respondents seemed to be somewhat more willing to integrate eco-social content and supporting learners’ eco-social agency than Lithuanian and Icelandic respondents.
Transformative learning and need for support
Because eco-social awareness and action requires transformative learning the respondents were asked to answer what kind of teaching methods they use when they want to facilitate new kind of thinking. Different kinds of interactive methods, like group discussions, collaborative and action-based learning, dialogue, critical thinking and creative methods were in use which was a delightful finding for project participants. Respondents were also interested to know more about various teaching methods.
Questionnaire respondents were asked about the support they would need to integrate more eco-social content and methods aiming for transformative learning into their teaching practices. The answers varied from knowledge of the matter to concrete examples and study materials to more schematic discussions about the subject within organisation or with colleagues. This reflects the nature of eco-social education as something that needs to be affronted and discussed within individuals and teaching organisations. At the same time teachers’ need more tangible examples of intertwined eco-social issues and how to address them as well as even more encouragement to use teaching methods aiming for transformative learning.
Focus group interviews
In addition to gathering data from adult educators we wanted to better understand the needs of our training participants. This was done with focus group interviews which provided a rich material. Interviewed in MDC in Lithuania and Síementun in Iceland were individual course participants. Finnish KSL study centres’ courses are usually aimed for members and representatives of non-governmental organisations, and therefore interviews in Finland were tuned towards more organisational viewpoint. All the interviewed were adult learners who have had prior education.
Interviews has five phases starting from introduction to the project, relation to big ecological and social issues, sense of responsibility about the planet, impact that they are making and thoughts about education and learning as part of it. Each project country conducted the interviews and made summaries of most important findings which were then summarised and compared together.
Each interview provided a bit different outlook on the questions. Eco-social was associated with many different perspectives but the understanding of the intertwined nature of ecological and social perspectives were widely shared in each interview. Biggest challenges in the world were seen to be both ecological and social in nature like sustainability deficit including ecological, social and financial factors, over consumption and lack of awareness and action to name just a few.
Thinking about the future of the planet awakens many kinds of feelings such as worry and concern but also hope for the better future even though future doesn’t seem to be as predictable as it used to. When asked who should take responsibility to solve these problems it was widely shared that everyone is responsible but those who have power should be held more responsible. This includes politicians, wealthy elite, big private companies and those who live in democratic states capable of expressing their views. Interviewees saw the responsibility both on an individual level but also on community level.
In all three countries, one of the biggest possibilities for an individual to make an impact was to be part of a community and shared effort. Need of stopping and thinking, resisting the consumerism, prioritising and seeing visible results from these actions were also highlighted.
When asked has there been enough information about ecological and social issues almost all adult learners had had at least some. Most of them hadn’t participated in any formal or non-formal education about it but had acquired it for example from lived experience, media or younger generations. Especially Finnish NGO representatives experienced that they do have prior knowledge, and they provide it also to their members and to society. The emphasis was more towards knowledge in social matters but some focused also on ecological or intertwined eco-social issues. These interviewees emphasised that there is information about eco-social issues but there is too much of it, it’s scattered, and it would need to be in more digestible form and specific to the needs of the organisation, otherwise there is not enough interest, time, resources and willingness to act according to it.
Interviewees in all three countries were asked what needs to be learned next and both Icelandic and Finnish participants saw the strengthening of community and creating groups important to be able to learn and act together. Lithuanian participants highlighted applying existing knowledge to their personal lives to be able to come up with new ways to act and slow down. In all interviews there was a definitive interest to learn more and hear more about the things that are already getting better.
Lessons learned from the interviews
As a conclusion from focus group interviews, it can be said that participants had a good prior understanding of intertwined nature of ecological and social issues although there was an emphasis towards social aspect. Every individual and community was seen responsible to make a difference supported by participation of all sectors in society. Thinking about the future awakes many kinds of feelings that might be stressing and unpleasant and sharing them was experienced at least in some of the interview groups as a relieve.
The most important finding was that adult learners were willing to learn more, unlearn old ways of thinking, take responsibility and act accordingly. New learning needs to be provided in a small and digestible enough way to said individuals or communities.
Conclusion of the data collection and towards workshops
The data collection was successful, and we managed to get at least preliminary answers to many questions we have set out for our project. It can be concluded that adult learners are more willing to learn about eco-social issues and transform their ways of thinking and acting than adult educators may realise. In our research both groups do see planetary wellbeing and eco-social education important. There is an emphasis throughout towards social issues compared to ecological, but they were also understood interrelated.
To be able to address sustainability and eco-social issues targeting each learning group or individual, adult educators would need better understanding, time and space to reflect their own pedagogical practices. This requires teachers to revisit their values on personal and professional level together with their work organisations. They also appreciate concrete examples and tools to address the matters. Providing teachers training on pedagogical models, methods and means could help them to facilitate transformative learning aiming to the wellbeing of the planet. These tools should also require means to address different feelings that future evokes in learners. Both teachers but especially learners would benefit strengthened the sense of communality and co-operation. Together the problems might seem a bit more digestible and group effort more influential.
Based on data collection and results each participating partner will in collaboration with others plan and execute a workshop for adult educators who are working in or closely with said organisation. Conclusion from the data collection will be shared with workshop participants and each organisation will continue to deepen their knowledge and understanding of eco-social agency and how to best support teachers in their role as eco-social co-agents to adult learners. Workshops will be executed in all three countries in Autumn and the results of them will be shared later to this platform.
For more information, see the project card at Erasmus+ Project Results Platform.
References:
Salonen, A. O., Laininen, E., Hämäläinen, J. & Sterling (2023). A Theory of Planetary Social Pedagogy. Educational Theory 73(4), 615–637. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12588
