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Depoliticization and marginalized critical environmental education: curriculum revision for empowering students as environmental agents

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Abstract

The strong tendency of specific perspectives and discourses in environmental education in schools has the potential to marginalize other alternatives. This research is intended to investigate how dominant perspectives, discourses, and orientations are constructed and how environmental actors experience and interpret environmental practices at Adiwiyata School as a superior environmental education program initiated by the Indonesian government. This research uses critical ethnography, which is intended to describe hidden realities to maintain domination and hegemony as truths that are taken for granted. The existence of uniform environmental actions, which tend to be imitative and repetitive, is very problematic when the school’s characteristics, location, and urgency of the socio-ecological crisis are very heterogeneous. This indication raises suspicions about the state’s efforts through hegemonic education tailored to the regime’s tastes. Limited, predetermined options can mean you do not have a choice because you are just using the existing options. An environmental practice carried out routinely and repeatedly must still provide space for a critical reflective study process. The implications are expected to provide encouragement and opportunities for schools to revise curriculum and learning. The need for hope, opportunity, and the possibility of alternative environmental practices can free school environmental actors from reductionist constraints and foster an open, understanding-oriented, and democratic school climate.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to colleagues in the Social Sciences study program at Airlangga University, colleagues at the State University of Surabaya Center for Educational Studies, and colleagues at Transformative Education Research Group (TERG) Indonesia.

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  1. Faculty of Social and Politic Sciences, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, 60286, Indonesia

    Ganes Gunansyah, Septi Ariadi & Tuti Budirahayu

  2. Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Surabaya, 60213, Indonesia

    Ganes Gunansyah

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  1. Ganes Gunansyah
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  2. Septi Ariadi
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Correspondence to Tuti Budirahayu.

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Gunansyah, G., Ariadi, S. & Budirahayu, T. Depoliticization and marginalized critical environmental education: curriculum revision for empowering students as environmental agents. Curric Perspect (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41297-024-00253-y

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