Absences and potentialities of environmental education in geography teaching: approaches in national postgraduate publications on youth and the environment

Abstract

Environmental issues permeate academic and media discussions in society, as they are important in planning the future of the planet. This study evaluated theoretical and methodological approaches of academic research that relate to the environment, youth, environmental education (EE) and the teaching of Geography. National publications were selected from the National Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD, Biblioteca Nacional de Teses e Dissertações), delimited by the descriptors “youth”, “youths”, and “environment”. In the seven selected studies, information such as general objective, approach and analysis methodologies, research instruments, population, scenario and common bibliographic references were identified. The research studies are related to the institutionalization and evaluation of public policies and EE programs, youth narratives and dialogues between populations. Their keywords allowed them to be grouped into four categories: subjects (youth, juveniles, children and activists); spaces (Brazil, rural and agricultural); themes (environment, environmental, socio-environmental, sustainability, sustainable and public policies); and investigative (participation, engagement, conferences, socialization and perception). The verbs of the objectives were “to analyze”, “to evaluate”, “to understand”, “to expose” and “to investigate”. The qualitative approach dominates the methodological organizations. The most used instruments were semi-structured interviews, participant observation and questionnaires. The analysis methods were narrative analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis and interpretative textual analysis. The populations observed were youth, teachers and adults, with a large dominance of youth. The main setting studied was the city. The need for continuity of EE actions was observed, which can occur through the political engagement of youth and mainly through the creation of forms of knowledge construction in school environments.