Practising Environmental Citizenship in Egypt: Hopes and Challenges Encountered

Abstract

This article examines the work of pre-service teachers in a new environmental education course at an Egyptian faculty of education, when they are given the assignment to investigate and take action with respect to an environmental issue in their community(s). Their explorations take us from apartment houses, through the farming countryside, past roadside canals and to city store fronts. Using a theoretical framework provided by critical place-based pedagogy, we analyze their work in (re)inhabitation and decolonization to further identify the challenges to, and the supports for environmental citizenship in Egypt. The Arab Spring resonates as the political backdrop for the research.

Keywords

Environmental citizenship critical place-based pedagogy environmental education environmental issues in Egypt

Introduction

We live, breathe, eat, work, love and live our lives in places. Places are where we meet and interact with others in important and mundane ways (Eijck and Roth, 2010). Each of us experiences place differently; indeed, the experience of place is a complex interaction of location, time, culture and personal identity (Berry, 1992; Eijck and Roth, 2010: Gruenewald, 2003). Thus, it has been an intriguing and challenging collaboration for us as authors, to span the distance of time and space between the places we inhabit and where we work. Both of us are instructors at faculties of education and teacher preparation, and we share a passion for providing environmental education opportunities for our students; however, the first author’s place is in Egypt, while the second lives and teaches in Canada.

The intersection of our perspectives of place has been driven and informed by the work of passionate young teachers in training who are determined to take control of their future. As part of a new course in environmental education, students at the faculty of education at Beni-Suef University in Egypt were given the assignment to investigate and take action in response to an environmental issue in their community(s). Their explorations ranged from apartment houses, to farms, to roadside canals and merchant store fronts.

The questions we were led to ask were: Does the new course in environmental education have an effect on the students’ environmental citizenship in their local communities? In other words, can Egyptian students at a faculty of education practise environmental citizenship?

These in turn led to additional questions:

What environmental problems will students reveal in their communities?

Whom do the students hold accountable for these problems?

What are the challenges the students might confront in practising environmental citizenship?

What factors support the students’ practice of environmental citizenship?

In this article, we situate the project in the relevant literature, paying particular attention to place-based environmental education (PBEE) scholarship and to the state of environmental education teaching and learning in Egypt. We describe the work of the students, then, using perspectives provided by place-based critical pedagogy, we analyze their work to identify challenges to, and supports for, environmental citizenship in Egypt. The Arab Spring resonates as the political backdrop for the research. Finally, we offer our thoughts on using critical PBEE to address the environmental issues in Egypt and beyond.

Situating the Project in the Literature

… places are profoundly pedagogical. (Greenwood, 2013)

‘Place’ as a Construct

Places are shaped by those inhabiting them as much as the inhabitants are shaped by place; they are ‘primary artifacts of human culture’ (Greenwood, 2013: 93). Place is manifested through stories told through many voices; for some, place embodies social and biological identity, a ‘lived entity’ and a ‘continuously unfolding narrative of the experiences of the people inhabiting it’ (Ejik and Roth, 2010: 885). It seems inevitable that when viewed through the lens of environmental sustainability, place becomes a problematic construct: we realize that we are increasingly dismayed by what we see, and increasingly choose to ignore it.

… when we accept the existence of places as unproblematic—places such as the farm, the bank, the landfill, the strip mall, the gated community and the new car lot—we also become complicit in the political processes, however, problematic, that stewarded these places into being and that continue to legitimize them. (Gruenewald, 2003: 627)

There is a fundamental relationship between the exploitation of people and the exploitation of their environments (Evans, 2012; Gruenewald, 2003) that must be acknowledged. As Bullard (1993: 23) points out, ‘the environmental crisis can simply not be solved effectively without social justice’.

The common call to ‘Think globally, act locally’ urges people to consider the well-being of the entire planet when making personal decisions. The global ‘place’ is everywhere, but it is nowhere in particular; it is placeless, and in this lies the danger. We can only act with effectiveness locally, in the place that we inhabit (Greenwood, 2013).

Place-based Education

The construct of ‘place’ has found its own pedagogy in PBEE, and is considered a type of environmental education (Woodhouse and Knapp, 2000). In her very comprehensive typology of environmental education, which describes 15 ‘currents’ or foci for environmental education, Lucie Sauvé (2005) places PBEE within the Humanist/Mesological Current. This current, within the stream of environmental education, flows at the junction of nature, landscape and culture ‘with all its historical, cultural, political, economic, emotional and other aspects’ (p. 18). PBEE takes into account human activity that emerges in the ‘milieu’ or ‘in the middle’ of landscape (hence the naming of the current), whether rural, urban or somewhere in between. According to Sauvé, the Humanist/Mesological Current, and thus PBEE by association, offers the possibility for an intervention model, whereby the initial stage is that of exploration of the ‘inhabited environment’ with subsequent actions to improve that environment. ‘…the accent often being placed on developing a sense of belonging to a specific environment as a precondition for a sense of responsibility to it’ (p. 19).

Thus, unlike traditional education pedagogies that separate students from place (Gruenewald, 2003), PBEE is based directly on the study of a specific local place. PBEE is situational and ecological; it is multidisciplinary, experiential and participatory; PBEE provides students and their teachers with a perspective that goes beyond preparing for work; it connects people to each other and to the places they inhabit; and, it strengthens and supports community (Woodhouse and Knapp, 2000; Zachariou and Symeou, 2008). Moreover, PBEE promotes the capacity of students (as citizens) to think critically about community issues (Gruenewald, 2008), to make wise decisions and to act on them (Glasson, 2011; McInerneya et al., 2011; Smith, 2002).

In Ontario, Canada, place-based education has entered school curriculum by way of mandated environmental education that supports teaching and learning about the environment, in the environment and for the environment (OME, 2009) using inquiry-based pedagogy. This version of PBEE links students to both natural and urban environments and provides opportunities for exploration both inside and outside the classroom (about and in the environment). In addition, beyond a passive study of place, PBEE, as directed in Ontario, supports taking action to improve place/community (for the environment). Inquiry-based teaching and learning encourages exploration of topics of specific local or individual interest and can encompass explorations that are teacher-directed, student-directed or a combination of these. To bring further focus to student/teacher inquiry in PBEE, McInerney et al., (2011: 12) suggest the following questions:

What is the quality of our local environment—the air, water, soil, native flora and fauna? What might we do to conserve our environment and resources to achieve a more sustainable future?

Who gets to make the decisions in our community? Whose voices are largely unheard? What might we do to achieve a more democratic society?

The PBEE model described here provides a robust foundation for the work of students and teachers in environmental education, as well as the eventual analysis of that work.

Further to inquiry, however, when PBEE educators offer their students opportunities for socio-environmental action, learning is deeply enriched. The derived benefits include: the creation of safe spaces for taking risks; learning to build respectful and trusting relationships with community members; making meaningful contributions to community; and, expanding understandings of local and global issues (Schusler and Krasne, 2010: 219).

Critical Place-based Pedagogy

Increasingly, critical thinking has become valued as both a pedagogy and a skill for student development, so it is no surprise to find critical thinking wedded to PBE. Having as its goal an eco-social transformation, Critical Place Based Pedagogy (CPBP) turns its focus on issues within situated contexts (Gruenewald, 2008; Stevenson, 2008). Greenwood (2013: 95) calls it ‘an emergent and generative educational theory that is responsive to the cultural and ecological politics of place’. Two overarching ideas weave through CPBP: (re)inhabitation and decolonization. To (re)inhabit means to relearn to live in a place that has been treated badly or ‘injured’ in the past. ‘Wherever one lives, reinhabitation will depend on identifying, affirming, conserving, and creating those forms of cultural knowledge that nurture and protect people and ecosystems’ (Gruenewald, 2008: 319). Decolonization is a recognition that things are not right and that change must occur:

… From an educational perspective, it means unlearning much of what dominant culture and schooling teaches, and learning more socially just and ecologically sustainable ways of being in the world. (p. 319)

Environmental Education in Egypt

Environmental education at all levels of schooling has gained the attention of researchers in Egypt since the 1980s. In 1981, Farag indicated that environmental education aims were not being considered in science curricula (chemistry and biology) in Egyptian secondary schools, and chemistry and biology teachers were not environmentally aware. Egyptian pre-service teachers’ understanding of environment, as measured through their level of environmental literacy, was found to be low (Hassan et al., 1990). However, Shohdah (1992: 105) showed that science teachers were more aware of environmental problems than other subject teachers such as those teaching Mathematics, English, Arabic and Social Sciences, and attributed this result to the teachers’ specializations.

The environmental education programmes for pre-service science teachers at a number of Egyptian universities have been shown to be somewhat effective in teaching basic concepts, but have largely been ineffective in eliciting pro-environmental behaviours (Abbass, 2005; Abd-El-Salam, 1991; Al-Tanawey and Al-Sherbeiney, 1998; Ismaeil, 2004; Othman et al., 2012). Environmental courses may have some effect on the students’ achievement of environmental concepts and critical thinking, but they had no effect on students’ environmental behaviours, nor did the courses appear to change students’ attitudes towards environment. Abbass (2005: 103, 106–107) attributes the lack of pro-environmental understanding and behaviour to the lack of students’ ‘practicum and activities’ as well the absence of effective teaching strategies.

In response to the weakness of higher level environmental education courses, Al-Tanawey and Al-Sherbeiney (1998) proposed a programme in environmental education based on self-education through the use of instruction modules that focused on environmental concepts. Al-Saied (2007) proposed an environmental education programme based on enrichment activities such as reading texts and researching environmental problems.

However, the above researchers mainly used scales and/or questionnaires that did not indicate students’/teachers’ actual behaviours and actions with respect to environment. In other words, the validity of the students’ responses is unclear. Second, teacher educators did not develop the environmental education courses actually taught at their universities, they merely suggested programmes at the research level. Third, the researchers used teaching/learning methods that did not enable their students to interact directly with their local environments, that is, they did not adopt place-based education approaches that might actually impact students’ environmental behaviours. This per se represents a theory–practice gap in teacher education programmes in Egypt.

The Arab Spring in Egypt

The systemic weakness inherent in Egyptian environmental education programmes takes on particular relevance for this study as it took place shortly after the political upheaval known as the Arab Spring. Dallmayr (2011: 643) describes the uprising in Egypt as a groundswell towards democratic renewal that was taken up by a preponderance of young people ‘transforming them from passive victims into autonomous agents of radical democratic change’. Among its outcomes, the Arab Spring in Egypt presented an opportunity to change the socio-environmental education discourse. In a time of political transformation, sensitivities towards other possible transformations became imaginable, as citizens re-visit their communities. The act of rising up added momentum to overcome the ‘action paralysis’ (from Uzzell et al., 1995: 177) that stalls so many socio-environmental sustainability initiatives.

Research Methods

Context

The study was conducted in 2011 at the Faculty of Education, Beni-Suef University, in Upper Egypt, with pre-service primary education students (PESs) enrolled in an environmental education course. The course, developed and implemented by the first author, was based on the belief that thinking critically about the environment in which one lives should be integral to one’s education. The coursework enabled the PESs to explore and take leadership roles in local environmental issues, rather than to focus mainly on transmitting general knowledge about the environment. Traditional environmental course topics teach about environmental problems but do not provide for practical applications of that learning through a place-based framework.

The PESs, as individuals or as groups, were required to investigate and take action in response to an environmental issue in their community(s). The PESs were guided in their tasks on a weekly basis by the first author in order to assist in mapping the process of activism towards the environmental issues the PESs chose to study. By the end of the academic year, the students submitted their assignments, fieldwork and reports comprising of photos and videos.

The research sample included all of the 38 female students enrolled in the department of nursery in year one in 2011 (this department only accepts females).

Data Collection

Data collection occurred in two phases: (i) in their fieldwork, the PESs used their mobile phones to record video clips and photos of the environmental issues they wanted to study and conducted semi-structured interviews with community members. Some video recordings are poor, that is, low sound and some photos were inverted; (ii) the first author, as the instructor, conducted semi-structured interviews with the PESs to discuss the results emerging from their fieldwork and reports. The first author transcribed and then translated recorded data and text from Arabic to English.

Method of Analysis

Discourse analysis was used not only to interpret the meaning underpinning the words used in the data collected, but also to understand the role of the discourse within which the students were engaged in social interactions in their communities.

Brown and Yule (2003) emphasize that language serves two views: (i) transactional view, whereby it allows people to transmit information; (ii) interactional view, wherein language is used to establish and maintain social relationships. Since written language is generally used for transactional purposes (Brown and Yule, 2003), discourse analysis was used in analyzing data resulting from interviews the students conducted during their fieldwork.

Discourse analysis focuses neither on words as linguistic objects, nor on the referential function of these words, rather it attends to the phenomena that are constructed discursively, that is, what people under study are doing with these words (Wood and Kroger, 2000). Discourse analysis focuses on what the language is used for (Brown and Yule, 2003), and on ‘the social actions accomplished by language users communicating within social and cultural contexts’ (Barker and Galasi´nski, 2003: 63). This does not imply that discourse analysis ‘comprise(s) a set of techniques for conducting structured, qualitative investigations of texts’; rather it ‘involves a set of assumptions concerning the constructive effects of language’ (Phillips and Hardy, 2002: 5). Thus, the researcher using discourse analysis needs to understand the contexts within which the discourse has occurred, so that s/he can interpret this discourse accurately. S/he needs to consider reference, presuppositions, implications and inferences that ‘indicate relationships between discourse participants and elements in the discourse’ (Brown and Yule, 2003: 35).

Data Analysis

The PESs enrolled in the environmental education course at their faculty of education formed seven groups of varying sizes, with individuals who came from the same communities and who shared common interests. We begin by introducing the groups and the environmental problems they chose to address, then we look in more detail at the work of each group individually, in terms of their awareness of environmental problems, their beliefs around the locus of responsibility for the problems, and most importantly, each of the group’s acts of environmental citizenship. The issues tackled by each group present in microcosm the issues of environment that Egypt faces as a country.

What Environmental Problems will Students Reveal in Their Communities?

The PESs were asked to determine the environmental problems from which their local communities were suffering. Based on their environmental knowledge and sensitivities, they identified water pollution, garbage and the wasting of environmental resources as major offenders. More specifically, the Hope Group determined that water pollution in their village was the main environmental problem and referred to it as ‘the disaster’. Two groups, one named Let’s Clean Our Street, and the other Let’s Clean our Building, looked close to home to find the streets on which their houses were located and the buildings themselves, were littered with rubbish. The group who called themselves My Faculty–My Environment–My Home passionately addressed the wasting of resources in their school:

…we thought about our Faculty which we consider our HOME! ... In fact, we have been upset by what we see at our Faculty every day. The students here … present many examples of wasting our environment through their irresponsible behaviors.

The Save Ourselves (SOS) group was concerned about the accumulation of rubbish in their village and its disposal. Another two groups identified issues that they felt are systemic in Egypt, that is, agricultural practices and water sourcing. The group named What do you know about pesticides used in planting? made their determinations based on personal and factual information ‘…pesticides have been used excessively in Egypt causing dangerous diseases such as cancer. [My] father and uncle died of cancer…’ Last, the Future Group responded to media reports about availablility of water from the River Nile in Egypt, declaring it ‘one of the most urgent environmental issues that every Egyptian citizen has to take part in’.

In fact, the topics chosen by each of the groups above read as a summary of the major environmental problems in Egypt: water pollution, soil contamination, accumulating garbage and wasting of environmental resources (Al-Henawey, 2006; Al-Najdey et al., 2002).

Whom Do the Students Hold Accountable for These Problems?

The submitted reports, based on interviews with local community members, reveal the perception of PESs regarding responsibility for environmental problems. In total, 22 PESs claimed that both people and government are responsible for causing environmental problems, while 11 PESs attributed environmental problems solely to the Egyptian government, and five PESs considered that only the people living in the communities where they conducted their fieldwork were responsible.

More specifically, the SOS group claimed that garbage pollution in their village was the responsibility of both the village residents and the government as represented by the village local council. They reasoned that the residents had indeed claimed their right to garbage collection, but the council had abandoned its role to remove such garbage. The Hope group found a similar situation in which they attributed water pollution to ‘bad human behaviours, i.e., throwing wastes and rubbish in water…and the absent role of the local government represented by the Local Village Council’.

The Future group, which tackled water supply issues, claimed that both people and government are responsible for wasting water in both public utilities and private shops. They found that people are generally unaware of the urgent importance of rationing water and further, that the government does not enforce its own environmental laws. The Pesticides and Planting group attributed soil pesticide contamination in their village, and in all of Egypt, to the absence of government controls.

Those groups that looked at problems associated with rubbish, generally identified residents’ bad habits and their general lack of awareness of environmental/pollution concerns. Finally, the My Faculty–My Environment–My Home group studied issues of misuse of the utilities available at the faculty, such as leaving water taps open and destroying furniture. They clearly viewed the students themselves as responsible: ‘we are supposed to be teachers, it’s a shame to behave like children in a primary school!’

What are the Challenges the Students Confronted in Practicing Environmental Citizenship?

During their fieldwork, and as acts of environmental citizenship, each of the groups strove to find solutions for the environmental problems they encountered in their communities. While the solutions varied, in all cases the extent to which the groups were able to act was dependent on a number of factors including the nature of the problem itself and the attitudes of the people living in the communities. The following is a description of the PESs’ practice of environmental citizenship in each of their local communities.

Group 1—Hope Group

The eight PESs in Hope group tackled the problem of a water canal polluted by rubbish in their village. They conducted interviews with villagers, both male and female. During their interviews, they convinced a woman who was throwing rubbish in a canal to refrain from doing so and, further, asked her to invite others to keep the canal clean. By the end of their interviews, the PESs were able to persuade the interviewees to sign a complaint to the local council in their village in order to collect the rubbish. The following excerpts with a woman and a farmer demonstrate that the villagers were eager to participate in creating a cleaner environment.

PES: Yes, we all take part in water pollution not only by throwing rubbish in water, but also by letting others do that. We should also ask people to keep water clean.

Woman: You are right…The Local Council should clean the land around the canal and put very big bins in every street, so that people get rid of their rubbish. Yes, rubbish has to be taken away regularly.

PES: So, if somebody asks you to sign a complaint about that, would you?

Woman: Yes of course…

And…

PES: …So can you co-operate with us by making a complaint to the Local Village Council?

Farmer: Yes, I can also pay some money every month, so that the Council removes the rubbish from our area. Yeah we all should co-operate to solve this problem.

In their report, the PESs suggested that they ‘need to encourage other people in the village to share in making this complaint’. This statement supports their belief that environmental awareness in the community is an important factor in maintaining clean water.

Group 2—Let’s Clean Our Street

In this case, the PES wanted to clean the street on which she lives; although rubbish was collected from bins, the street was dirty because children and adults discarded their garbage everywhere. The PES discussed this problem with her parents and was able to convince them to talk to their neighbours. The submitted report includes video clips in which the PES’s father and three neighbours are sweeping the street. Then, three children begin to imitate them and share in sweeping the street. The PES persuaded other children in turn, to maintain a clean street.

PES: What’s your opinion on the street now [after cleaning]?

Boy: It’s clean and beautiful now…

PES: OK, if we want to keep it clean forever, what should we do?

Boy: So, we MUST NOT throw any rubbish in the street. Yeah, we mustn’t throw crispy packs in the street to keep it clean.

PES: OK Mustafa, how can you keep it clean?

Mustafa: If I see anybody throwing rubbish in our street, I’ll ask him/her not to do that and put the rubbish in the bins.

It seems that watching adult residents cleaning the street motivated the children to maintain a clean street. This supports the role of parents and adults as role models for children in environmental education.

Group 3—My Faculty–My Environment–My Home

This group of two PESs studied the problem of wasting environmental resources available at their faculty. They conducted interviews with students at the faculty and encouraged them to consider their part in solving the problem of conserving resources such as water and electricity. However, not all of their efforts were appreciated, as this excerpt demonstrates:

PES: Who is responsible for this problem?

Student1: Of course the cleaners working here.

PES: Why?

Student1: Because they have to investigate the bathrooms by the day’s end and close those taps.

PES: What about us? Ourselves?

Student1: Oh, we are too busy, having many lectures. It’s the cleaners’ job.

In this case, the interviewee did not see it as her responsibility to share in conserving water, citing her focus on her lessons and leaving the conservation efforts to the cleaners.

During interviews with other students at the faculty, with an administrator and with the vice dean of environmental affairs, this group encountered three separate approaches to encourage resource conservation at their faculty. The first approach was to punish those who were caught misusing resources at the faculty.

PES: Because I am sure they know that their behaviours are unacceptable; they won’t listen to what we say. They behave like children, so they only need to be punished so that they don’t do that again.

And…

Administrator: Such students are not children to do that, so they have to be guided otherwise they must be morally punished…The dean may make a decision to punish those students who destroy the environmental resources here. He may deprive them from attending classes for a week or two weeks. Actually there would be different ways to punish those students IF he wants!

The second approach was to distribute pamphlets and hold a symposium to make students more aware of environmental issues at the faculty. Last, the vice dean and a second administrator both approached conservation as the act of ‘a good citizen and a good teacher’ and both began by assigning to parents the responsibility for developing environmental awareness.

Vice dean: In fact both environmental awareness and the concept of belonging have to be developed gradually from the child’s early years. So the child needs to see her/his parents conserve water, gas, etc. Also, it’s the responsibility of all educational associations, school, university, media, etc.

And…

Administrator: In fact, it’s the parents’ role first to teach their kids to conserve environmental resources. Children need to get used to closing water taps, turning off fans and lamps when not in use, and so on…

Also noteworthy is his comment on the entrance requirements and expectations for future teachers:

I think our students have to be chosen properly not only according to their degree in the secondary school, but also according to their general behaviours towards others and towards environment as well. Our students are special ones in the university. They’re going to be teachers, so they have to be characterized by good behaviours in order to be able to help their future pupils to be good people.

The above statements speak to some of the issues that need to be considered in Egypt: first, the need for environmental education beginning in the early years at home where parents play a role, and for continuing environmental studies throughout the education years; second, applying the laws of environment everywhere; and last, that environmental education be considered more important for teachers in particular.

In an attempt to encourage other students at the faculty to conserve environmental resources, the PESs hung posters in Arabic and English in the classroom building. Poster messages proclaimed ‘Together to protect our environmental resources’, ‘Please keep our environment clean’ and ‘Trees for the world are just like the lungs for our body’. In addition, the group enthusiastically painted and decorated walls that had been defaced.

Group 4—Let’s Clean Our Building

This group of two PESs decided to address the litter in the stairwell and entrance to the building in which one of the group members lives. Rather than asking the residents to stop throwing rubbish on the stairs or putting the bins in front of their flats, the group designed six coloured posters and posted them in each of the six floors of the building. The posters said ‘Dear resident: let’s keep our building block and its stairs clean…it’s important for everybody’.

After a week, the PESs noticed that five posters were removed and/or torn and found that rubbish was still being thrown in the stairwell and building entrance. They decided to interview the residents of the flat where the only poster was still hanging. They learned that the children living in the building had destroyed the posters and they came to believe that those same children would destroy any other posters they might hang. The group members considered visiting all the building residents who had children and/or put their bins in front of their flats, but believed that it would be difficult to convince people to prevent their children from throwing crisp and candy packs on the stairs. Second, there was no ‘board of directors’ for the building with whom they could consult. In their report, the PESs cited the need for co-operation between the building residents. It seems that all too often environmental citizenship behaviour is incompatible with the behaviour of individuals who are keen only on the internal cleanliness of their own flats/houses. This makes collaboration a challenge. In the end, in their persistence to solve the rubbish problem, the group members purchased a big rubbish bin for the front of the building.

Group 5—Pesticides and Planting Group

This group consisted of 11 PESs, five of whom lived in the same village and six who lived in Beni-Suef city itself. They stated that they all ‘hate the excessive use of pesticides that farmers use in planting’, thus, they collaborated to ‘explore some farmers’ views about using pesticides in agriculture and to help others be aware of the danger of the excessive use of such pesticides’. During their interviews, the PESs made farmers aware of the dangers of excessive use of pesticides (weakened immune system, cancer, the collapse of the functions of the liver and hormonal imbalance) and also suggested solutions. The first farmer interviewed did not believe that pesticides could be harmful to humans because they were issued through government sources:

We use the pesticides that our government gives us through the Agricultural Cooperative Association. So they are not dangerous, otherwise the government wouldn’t give them to us…pesticides are useful to us and to our farms, do not try to panic people by these rumors. We only believe and trust our government which helps us to increase our crops.

The farmer considered the health information provided by the group as ‘rumors’ and in so doing he demonstrated two challenges for environmental education in Egypt: resistance to scientific research and overconfidence in government.

Another farmer interviewed knew the dangers of pesticides but felt that pesticide use was unavoidable, and further that human health issues associated with pesticide use were not his responsibility:

There are many insects and worms that attack our plants, thus, we must fight those things by using pesticides. You know they [insects and worms, etc.] destroy tomatoes, maize, fruits, and so on.

…the Agricultural Cooperative Association gives us the amounts of the pesticides presumed to be suitable for every plant and for the area of each farm… maintaining human health is not our business, it’s the role of the government, we are just farmers and it’s supposed that the government gives us these pesticides to improve the agricultural products but not to hurt our health.

The dilemma here is that although the farmer is aware of the danger of the excessive use of pesticides, he cannot stop using them because of the pests that attack his crops. An educated young farmer interviewed by the group was willing to use alternatives to pesticides, but these have not been made available by government.

PES: Why don’t you use a natural alternative to these pesticides?

Farmer 3: The government does not provide us any other alternative… If you’re trying to convince me to avoid the excessive use of pesticides in planting, let me know how I can get the natural alternatives…There are others who use growth hormones to descrease the speed of plant growth in order to control its price in the market. Now I can tell you that all these things happen because of the lack of control that should be available by the State.

The above excerpts emphasize the role that the Egyptian farmers believe to be played by the government; the lack of government attention to citizen health associated with pesticide use and its control is yet another of the environmental issues found in Egypt. Perhaps most interesting is that when asked whether or not they would make a complaint to the Agricultural Cooperative Association in the village or to any other government officials, the group members declared that they ‘entirely refuse this idea’ because they had been convinced of the farmers’ views: ‘the solution is in the government’s hand’.

Group 6—Future Group

This group consisted of four PESs living in a large urban city centre. They believed that any ‘Egyptian citizen can share in maintaining the Nile water by conserving her/his personal use of water’. Therefore, they ‘decided to help others to be aware of the problem that Egypt encounters’ in its decreased share of Nile River water. In their fieldwork, the group members found many examples of wasted water, such as faucets left open and sprinkling clean water in the street. They decided to talk to people in the area in order to ‘help them be aware of the importance of water’. They spoke with two shopkeepers who had strikingly dissimilar views.

PES: Can I ask you why you throw such clean water in the street?

Shopkeeper 1: It’s a habit, I do it every morning when I open the shop, just to have many customers...it cools the air… Please do not blame me, all people do that. If you go to other shops just next to this shop you see people do the same, it’s a good habit in our country...

When questioned further about the costs to the shop, the worker exclaimed that ‘…water is the cheapest thing in our country, do you know that water bills are always much more cheaper than the electriciy ones?’ The shopkeeper was unaware that Egypt has to ration its water supply since it shares that supply with countries such as Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. Even when the group member drew the shopkeeper’s attention to his responsibility in wasting the decreasingly available Nile water, his ignorance stood in the way of change. The second shopkeeper was far more aware of the water issues that Egypt faces, declaring that ‘water is a gift from Allah’.

Shopkeeper 2: (we) have to ration the use of water.

PEC: Have you ever thrown water in the street?

Shopkeeper 2: No, I hate this habit; it’s a waste of water. I’ve read about people suffering from famine because of the lack of water in their country, I also saw them on the TV, it’s miserable.

The mention of media as a source of information is noteworthy. Encouraged by the second shopkeeper’s positive stance, the group member asked him to share in the task of the group by advising others to ration water by not throwing it in the street.

Nescience and ignorance challenge water conservation measures in Egypt; obsolete beliefs often result in environmentally damaging behaviours and stand in the way of developing positive attitudes towards environment. Moreover, financial factors, such as the low price of water compared to electricity carry more weight than the vital necessity of dealing with Egypt’s water issues.

Group 7—SOS Group

This group, who called themselves ‘Save Ourselves (SOS)’, consisted of 10 PESs living in the same village located in the southwest of Beni-Suef city. The group decided to address the issue of rubbish that had been thrown by the roadside leading to the village. The rubbish accumulated on both sides of the road, being thrown beside and into a water canal, thereby blocking water from reaching animals and agricultural land. The rubbish had not been collected for years and sometimes residents burned it to be rid of it. The group members did not consider burning rubbish a solution because it resulted in air pollution causing diseases such as ‘coughing and shortness of breath for people living near that area’. Thus, SOS group claimed that accumulating rubbish was the ‘most dangerous environmental problem in their village’ because it causes ‘other problems such as air and water pollution’.

The group members conducted interviews with the village residents, sharing their environmental and health concerns and eventually asking them to share in making a complaint to the local council:

PES: It (rubbish) hurts you wherever it’s accumulated, here or in your house. Can you see the flies and insects diffuse about the garbage which smells dirty. All these insects cause diseases to us…

Village resident: …You know sometimes, every week or 10 days, I burn some of the garbage I throw here…

PES: You know Haj, my colleagues in the village and myself are going to complain about this problem. We talked to our fathers and they decided to invite others after Juma’ah prayer [a prayer which Muslims have to perform every Friday in mosque] to discuss this problem…We’re going to write a complaint. Are you going to join us?

Village resident: Why not? Let’s try again…

The excerpt suggests that it was not the first time the village residents had complained about the accumulating garbage.

The group members asked their fathers to join them in solving the rubbish problem and seven of them agreed. On the designated Friday, the fathers met in the mosque and talked to other villagers about the garbage accumulating on both sides of the canal but ‘only a few people were convinced’ to sign a complaint. The next Friday in the mosque, the fathers again brought up the issue of rubbish and the need to lodge a formal complaint and this time met with some success. Ten signatures were collected on the complaint, which was written collaboratively by the group members and their fathers. The complaint was formally lodged with the local council and a week later garbage pick-up commenced. Two weeks later, trees were planted in the road. A year later, the trees were thriving and beautiful, and garbage continued to be collected twice a week. In addition, one of the group members reported that ‘the village residents living in front of the canal built some clay troughs just close to the canal and they let their cattle feed there… (they) clean around the troughs and use the cattle dung as a natural fertilizer in their farms’. This points to the role that can be played in environmental education, by houses of worship, such as mosques, in an Islamic country.

Factors that Supported the Students’ Practice of Environmental Citizenship

The students in this research were given the opportunity to study, for the first time, any environmental issues in their local communities. As a result, the fieldwork they conducted brings to light those factors that supported their acts of environmental citizenship. One of these factors is the students’ optimism that they indeed could solve the environmental problems from which they themselves and the people in their communities were suffering. In fact, the names the students called their groups reflect their hopes, for example, Hope group, Future group and SOS group. Second, their initiative stemmed from their desire to end the suffering brought about by environmental problems. Third, and perhaps most significant to this project, was the hope that a new government would look after Egyptians’ health by addressing the pressing environmental problems reported by each of the groups. One group wrote: ‘What we can do is to hope for a good responsible government that would care about the citizens’ health in Egypt’.

Certainly, the Egyptian revolution of 2011, that took place just two months before the students conducted their fieldwork, had powerful repercussions for the students. The revolution gave Egyptians the freedom of speech, and reclaimed rights of citizenship of which they had been deprived for many years. The students’ fieldwork illustrates the extent to which both adults and children were affected by the spirit that prevailed amongst the protesters during the Egyptian revolution. There were acts of co-operation between protesters from a variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds and the growing sense of participation by citizens. The following excerpts illustrate the enthusiasm of Egyptian citizens to build an ecological society, supported by the social movements known as the Arab Spring:

My father talked to them again and again and finally they were convinced with our view about the new era we have just living after the Jan 25 Revolution in which we can ask for our rights and be responsible for our behaviours.

(Let’s Clean our Street)

…after the revolution, we can join our voice and hope to solve this serious environmental problem by the government officials in the near future.

(Pesticides and Planting group)

Shopkeeper 2: … After Jan 25th 2011 we need to collaborate in order to maintain the resources in our country…It’s not only for my country, but also for my kids.

(Future Group)

…But these days after the revolution, we must do something to us and to our village. We cannot keep silent and just blame the local council officials.

(SOS group)

Villager: No, I’m not pessimistic this time. Our youth had done it [revolution], and we can try something as well.

(SOS group)

PES: … You know, I saw many women taking part in the revolution, we [village women] also have a task that we need to do.

(SOS group)

The statements bespeak the significance of the 2011 Egyptian revolution in encouraging changes in environmental actions and attitudes, and lead us to reconsider the importance of place and time as they impact environmental citizenship.

Discussion and Implications

The data analysis, when viewed through the lens of ‘place’, points to three important themes that are founded in the ‘place relationships’ of the participants: the importance of community; the importance of critical place-based education, both for the PESs and for Egypt’s citizenry; and the enormous impact of the political revolution on the PESs’ sense of empowerment.

Community as the Starting Point for Change

The first evidence of community in this project is in the names that each of the groups gave themselves, for example, the Hope group, SOS (save ourselves) and Future group. Each moniker expresses a desire for a better future. It was important that each group of students was encouraged to work in the community with which they were familiar and with issues that they saw as important. Their emotional attachment to place, coupled with their connections to community members and their content/scientific knowledge, created powerful and passionate impetus for change.

Indeed, every one of the PES groups displayed a strong sense of purpose and initiative as evidenced by their meetings with family, peers, community members, administrators and strangers. In many instances, their choice of actions served to bring the individuals of the community together to create a common voice for change. For example, the SOS group enlisted the assistance of family members to meet with other community members at the local mosque to prepare a petition that resulted in a regular garbage removal programme for the community. Indeed, the use of the mosque as a village meeting place where environmental concerns are discussed speaks to the pervasive and significant quality of community in making decisions about the place that the community inhabits.

Using a critical PBEE model, the PESs were encouraged to critique the conditions that they found in their communities, and then to take action, to advocate for and create change. Their passion and enthusiasm to do so was further bolstered by the political transformations that had recently taken place in Egypt. A sense of purpose and possibility was pervasive.

Education

Change is certainly difficult, especially in a country with such an ancient history and traditions. Take as example the issues surrounding water usage. There was likely a time when watering the streets to clean them and cool the air were environmentally acceptable practices because the population of Egypt was lower and its cities much smaller, ergo water usage was not critical. The Nile River seemed an unending water resource. Rubbish disposed of in canals was largely organic, rather than composed of non-degradable plastics and pollutants. Benign behaviours in one time and place become a threat in another time. But without a general environmental education that addresses change, under-education becomes a common thread and threat to environmental sustainability. Take as example this excerpt:

Worker: I don’t understand you. The River Nile is ours, does any country share it with us?

PEC: Yes some countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya…

Worker: Wait wait, don’t make me confused, River Nile is ours and its water is ours, nobody shares it with us.

The pitfalls of under-education are further exacerbated when community members seem to relinquish responsibility and control of their ‘place’ to an external broker. There is evidence of a blind trust and dependence on ‘the government’ to provide for its citizens:

We use the pesticides that our government gives us through the Agricultural Cooperative Association. So they are not dangerous, otherwise the government wouldn’t give them to us.

Perhaps more troubling is the position of a farmer who abdicates responsibility for the health of his product:

Human health is not our business, it’s the role of the government, we are just farmers and it’s supposed that the government gives us these pesticides to improve the agricultural products but not to hurt our health.

Indeed, even a farmer who seems to be more educated externalizes his responsibilities:

The solution is that the government must provide farmers with organic pesticides and make control over chemical shops that sell the chemical ones.

In the process of (re)inhabitation, the apparent overwhelming lack of education around environmental issues might solicit various trajectories. One alternative, as suggested by a campus administrator, is to punish those who behave contrary to environmental sensibilities. However, the PESs in the study chose to use the interactions with community members as teaching moments to provide information and send positive messages:

PEC: What’s your opinion on the street now [after cleaning]?

Boy 1: It’s clean and beautiful now.

PEC: What about you Mustafa?

Mustafa: Of course, it’s better now. It was dirty and now it’s clean.

PEC: OK, if we want to keep it clean forever, what should we do?

Boy1: So, we MUST NOT throw any rubbish in the street. Yeah, we mustn’t throw crispy packs in the street to keep it clean. (Clean Our Street group)

The Hope group provided information on the River Nile to the farmers with whom they talked; the My Faculty–My Environment–My Home group used art work and posters to educate and provide information regarding water conservation and wasting of resources; and the Pesticides and Planting group was able to speak informatively with farmers about the environmental and social costs associated with pesticide and fertilizer use. The SOS group was able to relate the dangers of burning garbage. Their acts of (re)inhabitation and decolonization (Gruenewald, 2008) of place were profoundly linked to acts of teaching and learning.

The teaching acts of the PESs underscore the importance of providing education for citizens and for the teachers who will teach those citizens: about the environment to increase detailed and specific knowledge of local, regional and global environmental concerns; providing opportunities for students to learn in their environments as a way to contextualize environmental concerns; and, to encourage and support opportunities to act for the environment within communities of students’ choosing (OME, 2009).

Moreover, the locale-specific environmental issues tackled by each of the groups provided opportunities for the PESs themselves to integrate their developing pedagogical and content knowledge and skills with a growing sensibility regarding environmental issues. Indeed, PBEE fully enacted (through exploration of local and specific environmental problems, developing familiarity, understanding and concern, and then planning and implementing solutions) becomes a powerful tool in the integration suite. A broad range of content and pedagogical knowledge and skills are necessary for the teacher to facilitate the PBEE process for their students, from basic science knowledge, to skills of communication and technical competence and the capacity to instill concern for ‘place’. By participating with enthusiasm and conviction in the project, the PESs advanced their own professional growth.

Empowerment

The initial source of empowerment for all of the PESs was the assignment given by their instructor, to pursue environmental issues in their communities. Essentially, the PESs were given permission to act in response to locale-specific environmental issues. The further implication in this study is that political climate also empowers citizens’ ability and willingness to bring about change. There is no question that the PESs were emboldened by the recent revolution towards democracy, as evidenced by their statements:

…these days after the revolution, we must do something to us and to our village. We cannot keep silent and just blame the local council officials…

and:

…our view about the new era we have just living after the Jan 25 Revolution in which we can ask for our rights and be responsible for our behaviors.

Reflecting on Egypt in the present, and after the 25th January revolution, Egyptians have found their voice with which to ask for their right to live a good life. Therefore, they are required—more than before—to responsibly take part in making decisions related to environmental citizenship. Teachers are, in part, responsible for developing young children’s positive attitudes towards sustainable environment, which necessitates helping their pupils effectively participate in finding solutions to environmental problems such as water scarcity, climate change, pollution, etc. This is done best through the PBEE model that promotes exploration and intervention in real life/local environmental situations within which pupils can develop skills that enable them to act as wise citizens. In other words, as Julie Davis (1998: 149) says:

[E]arly childhood education needs teachers with environmental perspectives, who actively help children to resist a focus on consumption and possessions; who help them learn to act collaboratively to be caretakers and protectors of the earth and of each other.

Therefore teachers need not only information about environment and pro-environmental behaviours but also a curriculum that inspires change:

Environmental curriculum implies [not only] the preparation of documents intended for use in the classrooms of a school or a nation, but also the responsibility of curriculum developers to prepare curricula that will stimulate learning of conceptual knowledge, provide for the attainment of problem solving skills, allow for the modification of beliefs and values, provide for training in and opportunities to apply appropriate citizenship behaviors which will result in a population’s lifestyle that balances the quality of life with the quality of the environment. (Hungerford and Peyton, 1994: 13)

Egyptian teachers of young children need an environmental education orientation that will help them ‘willingly and responsibly participate in environmental maintenance and remediation’ (Hungerford and Volk, 1990: 266). Such participation can be achieved directly or/and indirectly, that is, by acting themselves as wise environmental citizens or/and by helping their pupils to achieve that goal. By participating in the project, the PES partook in the PBEE intervention model within their communities thereby building an experience base for just such activities with their future pupils.

The PBEE project speaks as well to the possibilities for empowerment and professional development of in-service teachers. They too can benefit from exploring and developing a stronger sense of place at the intersection of nature and culture, precisely in the places where they live and act. The PBEE model necessitates action on the part of learners, whereby an understanding of place and environment leads to decision-making and acting to improve that place. Provided as professional development, PBEE will find its way into classroom practice, where it has the potential to have enormous impact on the attitudes and behaviours of pupils.

One might ask the question: If a political environment in flux, wherein citizens have a sense of achieving control, encourages environmental activism, then, does a stable political environment lead to stasis in environmental action? Does the status quo seem good enough on the political and the environmental front? These are intriguing questions that beg further investigation.

Recall that, due to the nature of the education programme at the university, all of the PESs were young women. Thus the results of the study may very well be skewed by an element of gender, and this also should be addressed in further research. Nonetheless, the story of empowerment of the PESs is also the story of the empowerment of young women.

Conclusions

The positive changes wrought by the PESs in Egypt are a powerful endorsement of critical PBEE and should be considered by those who work in environmental education at all levels. There is a need world-over for environmental education that: includes content knowledge; is community based; is project/issues based; and, that encourages and supports environmental sensibilities and activism. Encouraging and supporting environmental activism at the community level, with an eye to the global, provides community members with a powerful framework for meaningful change.

Empowerment can come from many directions, in this case from a dedicated teacher at a faculty of education, and from a political situation in flux. While political manipulations may be beyond our purview, passionate teachers empowering their students are within every environmental educator’s reach.

Finally, we have found unexpected value in our collaboration that has spanned hemispheres. We have broadened our understanding of critical place-based pedagogies and followed the work of some remarkable young people. And in so doing, we have realized that the need and passion to educate and act for environmental and social wellness do indeed transcend both time and place.

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