The meanings of environmental justice in environmental education research: an analysis based on Brazilian theses and dissertations

Author(s)

Thaís Angeli

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Rio Claro. 2018-01-18.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Biociências. Rio Claro
• Defense date: 2017-10-30
• Advisor: Luiz Marcelo de Carvalho

Abstract

The present work, which is part of the Project Environmental Education in Brazil: analysis of academic production - theses and dissertations (EArte Project), has the following research objectives: to characterize the context of production of theses and dissertations of environmental education (EE) that problematize the concept of environmental justice, concluded in Brazil from 1981 to 2014 and cataloged in the Bank of Thesis and Dissertations of EArte Project and 2) to identify the significance and explore possible meanings on the relationships between environmental education and environmental justice, which can be constructed from dialogues with these texts. This is a state-of-the-art documentary research that is qualitative and oriented by the historical-cultural approach, including the act of research as a dialogical relationship between subjects, made possible by the language. The documentary corpus of the investigation is constituted by 23 theses and dissertations of EA in which questions related to environmental justice are problematized. Regarding the year by year distribution of these researches, we noticed that the first EE work that addresses the idea of environmental justice was published in 2004 and, from that year, the temporal distribution remained relatively stable, with a peak of works observed in the year of 2011. It can also be noticed that the Southeast, South and Center-West regions stand out in the academic production in EE that establishes relations with environmental justice. Regarding the postgraduate programs to which the analyzed works were linked, the majority belongs to the area of Human Sciences, particularly Education. In addition, the Research Group on Environmental Education, Communication and Art, coordinated by the researcher Michèle Sato, from the Federal University of Mato Grosso, was responsible for the production of several of the analyzed theses and dissertations, which is possibly related to the focus of this research group. As for the privileged educational contexts in the researches, it was possible to observe that there was practically no difference between the number of works developed in school context and the number of works developed in non-school context. It was also possible to notice some apparent tendencies in the objectives and intentions of researchers in EE when working with issues related to environmental justice, such as: the search for a formation focused on social transformation and environmental justice, the approach of the concept of environmental justice through the thematization of social and environmental conflicts and the concern with the construction and development of practices contextualized to local socio-environmental reality, in a way that contributes to socio-environmental transformations for the involved communities and for the constitution of individuals seeking social and environmental justice. In relation to the attempt to explore possible meanings related to the concept of environmental justice in theses and dissertations of EE, we used the methodology of the nuclei of meaning, from which we systematized four nuclei: Relations of causes and effects of environmental injustices, Relation between environmental justice and environmental preservation, Relation between environmental justice and processes of social transformation and Strategies for building environmental justice. From this analysis, we explore meanings about the relations between EE and environmental justice, pointing to possibilities and limitations of the educational process in the construction of environmental justice. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/20352-4 - The "Environmental Justice" in Environmental Education research: analysis of Brazilian theses and dissertations
• Grantee: Thaís Angeli
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master