RGP Cycle Four Grantees and Projects

Mohammad Faoubar: The Sociology of Environmental Education and Ecological Justice in Secondary Education in Morocco

This research project is a critical and multi-disciplinary study of established curricula for environmental education in secondary classes in Morocco, the ways in which teaching such a subject could benefit Moroccan youth, and the ways the latter receive such information. It aims to evaluate the extent to which this method of education gives the learner the capacity to analyze and solve environmental issues. It explores the extent to which the current method of teaching and learning enables the Moroccan student to meet the objectives of environmental education. Students should not only be aware of nature and environmental justice, but they should also know how important it is to contribute to every aspect of their surrounding and face whatever threatens it (nature). This study also aims to investigate the existence of the concept of ecological justice in schoolbooks and environmental classes in order to explore intellectual trends, particularly the various environmental justice movements that appeared in the US, Canada and Europe. Those are particularly important given their theoretical and practical effectiveness in diagnosing and analyzing environmental and social issues.

Over the last century and since the beginning of the 1970s, international conferences have affirmed that environmental education based on teaching students the knowledge, exercises, and practices, and on informing them of the appropriate behavior and trends is one of the most important mechanisms of protecting the environment. By targeting the youth through the educational sector, which includes the country’s main demographic force represented by children and young men and women, these mechanisms allow them to acquire the principles and foundations of environmental education. Through schooling, they would adopt eco-friendly behavior and positions. The importance of this research lies in studying students’ behavior and teachers’ expectations regarding the environment, the school’s role in improving the situation, and the ways to use effective academic curricula to further engage Moroccans in environmental issues. Moreover, the project attempts to examine the extent to which Moroccan curricula meet perceptions of ecological justice, to develop a framework for the educational curriculum, and devise a training framework for teachers, thus insuring the learner’s immersion in their local environment. This would help the learner identify with their environment, which would make them more likely to protect it and contribute to its development.

A qualitative and quantitative approach will be adopted throughout the study. Two samples will be chosen: 40 geography teachers and 600 students. Two schools from Casablanca will be chosen and another two from Fez and Oujda. The study will be restricted to the academic institutions in the three capital cities: Fez, Casablanca, and Oujda, since they house the main economic activities and include an important demographic structure. Those factors influence natural and social environments within each city, which would provide the opportunity to simultaneously study the interactions of teachers and students with their environmental education and their local context.

It is undoubtedly crucial to determine how effective Moroccan school curricula are, especially when it comes to evaluating the relationship between the school and its local environment, and monitoring competences supporting those active in this sector. Adopting this approach requires a study of the education authority in Morocco and the existence of the concept of ecological justice or the lack thereof in Moroccan educational curricula. The objective of this research is to push curriculum-makers in Morocco to draw perceptions of ecological justice from the Moroccan intellectual heritage and uncover the principles that Moroccans adhere to in their relationship with their environment.   

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