A Whole-School Approach to Building Communities of Practice of ESD: A Case Study of Two Japanese High Schools

Abstract

The study aims to elucidate the structure and requirements of educational strategies that foster Communities of Practice (CoP) for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It examines two Japanese high schools that are implementing ESD through a ‘Period of Integrated Studies’. Both schools are located in depopulating mountain areas and are facing closure due to youth migration. High School A redesigned its learning project to prioritise ESD, while High School B initiated ESD as a volunteer project by teachers and introduced an original ‘environment’ subject. The study analyses the transformation of their practices and CoP formations. It highlights the challenges: maintaining the transformative aspect of ESD, adapting to uncertainty, fostering critical perspectives, involving stakeholders and maintaining a consistent approach. Despite the difficulties of local-global linkages, a different perception of practice ‘failure’ proves to be significant. In this chapter, requirements for the establishment of CoPs were outlined, emphasising the interconnectedness of formal, non-formal and information education in a Whole-School Approaches to ESD.

FormalPara Key Message

The transformative learning required for ESD emerges in the process of forming communities of practice for building a sustainable society; communities of practice that promote ESD transcend the boundaries between school and community, and are formed through the multidimensional and multi-layered engagement not only of students but also of teachers and communities. WSA needs a ‘structure and mechanism’ to create ESD communities of practice in the future.

1 Introduction

This study identifies the structures and requirements of Whole-School Approach (WSA) practices that promote the formation of Communities of Practice (CoPs) in ESD. The core of ESD learning theory is ‘learning to transform oneself and society’, rooted in lifelong learning (UNESCO, 2012). The question then becomes: how do we create this learning environment while transforming the existing education system? Lave and Wenger (1991) suggest that every person is a ‘legitimate peripheral participant’ in some CoPs. In light of this, the essential and transformative learning that ESD requires would emerge in the process of ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ in a CoP working towards sustainability (ESD-CoP). Moreover, ESD is a broad practice that goes far beyond the framework of formal education. It is a collaborative effort between a wide and diverse range of stakeholders, blurring the boundaries between formal, non-formal and informal education (Wals, 2011). ESD seeks a ‘convivial’ (Illich & Lang, 1973), a sustainable society where ESD-CoPs are formulated and interact. The primary requirement of WSA is, therefore, not only to introduce systemic change in schools but also to promote the formation of ESD-CoPs in the wider community. Hence, this study focuses on the transformation of teachers as ESD practitioners and identifies the structures of practice that facilitated their organisation and engagement in ESD-CoPs.

1.1 Promotion of ESD and WSA in Japan—From a Teacher Education Perspective

In Japan, the principle of ESD has been clearly stated in the Curriculum Guidelines; consequently, ESD efforts in public education are thriving. Educators in Japan are aware of the importance of WSA (Asia-Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO [ACCU], 2016). As Tejima (2017), ACCU (2017) and others have shown, a large number of good practices of ESD have also accumulated in Japan. Hence, as Yoshida and Natori (2020) noted the absence of studies that examined in detail the organisational structure and transformation of schools that promote ESD using WSA and the factors involved in schools’ interactions with their surrounding communities. In addition, ESD has been promoted in a small number of exceptionally privileged schools and the most important factor has been the lack of understanding of ESD by teachers (ESD Special Subcommittee, Education Committee, Japanese National Commission for UNESCO, 2015). ESD is a ‘lens’ through which knowledge is not imparted but acquired in practice. If teachers need to deepen their understanding of ESD, it is necessary to create a learning environment in which they can grow and develop their identity as practitioners of ESD. Furthermore, training teachers responsible for promoting ESD to develop their capacity to engage with the local community is a challenge in many countries where school-based ESD practice has been promoted (Okayama University ESD Promotion Centre, 2020). Wals and Mathie (2022) also suggest a transformation of the school environment through WSA for ESD, with teachers acting as agents of change. A new stage of WSA needs to include mechanisms and procedures to formulate ESD-CoPs in which teachers are the legitimate peripheral participant. As Schallcross (2005) and many others have shown, there are many challenges involved in implementing ESD with WSA. Hargreaves (2008), Gericke (2022) and other WSA studies suggest a particular challenge is to take an already rigid schooling system from within. It is necessary to open it up to the outside, to continue and develop pluralistic interactions and to allow diverse stakeholders to realise transformative learning. In a way, the process of realising WSA itself is ESD. Not only from external demands, but also from internal ones: the questions ‘What is education for?’ or ‘What can education do for the planet?’ are unanswered, and this question drives teachers to advance ESD. On the other hand, a foundational model for teachers to continue exploring, growing and transforming that question with diverse others is still under development. This study focuses on the Flower model of WSA by Wals and Mathie. The model is not intended to provide teachers/schools with a model or idealised image of a crested practice, but rather a reference framework for reviewing all systems, including the hard-to-find status quo, and to be used as a thinking tool to initiate and guide an ongoing dialogue by diverse actors. From this perspective, it is also a response to the aforementioned challenges of in-service teacher education: how the practice of ESD in WSAs can help teachers to form ESD-CoPs. Accordingly, the reference will be made to three elements of the Flower model; INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES, COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS AND VISION and LEADERSHIP and COORDINATION that are particularly relevant to this task.

1.2 Challenges of WSA Through ESD—Periods for Integrated Studies as a Key

MEXT (2021) suggests in A Guide to Promoting ESD to ‘create a unit plan while connecting different subjects and areas, with the Period for Integrated Studies (PIS) as the hub’ particularly to ‘ensure the repeated and developmental process of inquiry.’ PIS is central to Japan’s education reform, based on the lifelong learning philosophy of the Delore’s Report (1996), and consists of problem-solving and experiential learning that enables creativity in each school (Yamanaka & Suzuki, 2020). In addition, PIS is positioned as the core of curriculum management and is recommended in the Curriculum Guidelines to be set in the local community and be constructed in such a way that collaborative experiential learning with local residents is linked to other subject studies. For these reasons, the promotion of ESD using PIS has been advocated in Japan (Miyagawa et al., 2018). In Japanese high schools, PIS is part of the curriculum within the 74-credit graduation requirement, which is set to account for between 3 and 6 credits. Students usually attend approximately 35 h of classes per week, 7 h per day, with 1–2 h allotted for PIS.

PIS requires independence and autonomy of each school, cross-curricular and comprehensive nature and self-help operation of peripheral resources, and requires curriculum management that goes beyond the descriptive methodological level (Tabuchi & Harada, 2018). In particular, ‘a group of teachers must work together to create a new practice based on a new philosophy from diverse perspectives’ (Kurebayashi, 2000). However, neither a social support system nor an educational system from this perspective has yet been established, and it is pointed out that many teachers are becoming increasingly burdened and busy with the introduction of this integrated learning (Tabuchi and Harada, ibid; Bjork, 2007). Many teachers have pointed out that the introduction of integrated learning has increased their workload and busyness (Nakatome & Soga, 2015) and that there is a danger that learning will remain superficial or become a mere formality. In promoting ESD under these circumstances, it is an extremely important issue how to empower teachers to proactively build up their practice together with the local community. This is a perspective that should be further deepened in the WSA-ESA.

1.3 Research Method

Both high schools examined in this chapter have begun whole-school ESD initiatives, using the introduction and reform of PIS as an opportunity to make ESD a distinctive educational feature of their schools. As a result, their unique PIS programmes, developed in the local community, are also gaining national attention and recognition. One of the reasons for this is that in Japan, in addition to the difficulty of implementing the essential practices of PIS itself, especially in high schools where subject specialisation tends to be emphasised, it is often difficult to promote mainstream ESD in public schools where students aim to enter universities (Ichinose, 2019). On the other hand, while the practice of PIS and the associated mainstreaming of ESD are currently in the hands of teachers, there are no long-term empirical studies on the relationship between their transformation as ESD practitioners and WSA-ESD from observed practices.

This study refers to the ethnographical research method of Fujita and Kitamura (2013) and the long-term procedure is shown in Fig. 23.1. The study derived structural characteristics of WSA that promoted the formation of ESD-CoP from comparing two schools’ and practitioners’ narratives based on the Grounded Theory Approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The author has links to both schools as a former colleague and as an adviser to a wider network of learning exchanges to which both schools belong. The study was conducted in accordance with the research ethics code of the research institution of the author.

Fig. 23.1

Research procedure

2 Outcomes of WSA-ESD Initiatives in Two High Schools

2.1 High School A: Reformation of PIS and ESD with WSA in Response to School and Community Crises

Faced with the depopulation of the region, declining student numbers and related difficulties in educational activities, High School A introduced small-group problem-solving learning based on students’ career aspirations within the framework of PIS in 2003 to improve their career prospects. In 2011, the learning theme was changed to ‘Achieving Sustainable Local Communities’, and the school placed it at the centre of its educational activities. All groups were required to work closely with various stakeholders in the community. The groups were also divided into ten major themes, for example, under the theme ‘To think about the structure of Japanese society’, with additional keywords such as ‘justice’, ‘legislation’, ‘administration’, ‘economic recovery’, ‘contemporary social issues’, ‘family’ and ‘social advancement of women’. The overall structure of their practice is shown in Fig. 23.2.

Fig. 23.2

Structures of WSA-ESD in high school A and high school B

High School A made a special effort to include all students from Years 1–3 in one group and introduce activities at the beginning of the school year to become acquainted with the community, including inviting local experts on subjects of interest to each group to the school for a ‘hands-on’ experience. In addition, rubric evaluation is used as an evaluation method and students themselves identify and record the skills they want to develop through ESD. What is innovative is that in order to make the collaborative project a continuous one, different age groups of students participate simultaneously, thus anticipating the growth of the students themselves. Another special feature is that the students themselves are made aware of the skills to be developed in ESD (communication skills, multifaceted thinking, systems thinking, etc.) and involved as part of the self-evaluation criteria.

During the course of the research, it became clear that the programme’s objectives and promotion methods were based on the ideas of the principal, with some of the lead teachers making efforts to improve them. Furthermore, the principal created a system of ‘Place of Encounter’, ‘Local Festival’ and opened debriefing sessions to the public in the hope that high school students would become a ‘nexus’ for practitioners in the community. The principal’s understanding of WSA-ESD is integrated well in the overall programme within the framework of PIS.

2.2 High School B: Conjunction of PIS and ESD Starting from Teacher-Initiated Experiential Learning

In High School B, extracurricular activities initiated by Teacher 1 to learn through essential experiences were reflected in their PIS curriculum and subsequently led to developing a unique new subject titled ‘Environment’, with ESD principles at its core. ESD in High School B spread throughout the town and beyond, relationships with local partners were stabilised and a town-wide mechanism to support the associated WSA was established. From the findings, it is clear that the structure is rooted in an awareness of the limitations of formal and public education among the leading teachers and that ESD is not just about improving the school and its surrounding community but has a broader perspective and benefits all involved, including teachers themselves.

Teacher 1 described briefly: “At the same time, I felt ‘What have we been doing in school education?’ I have never experienced this in my usual classes̶ high school students expressing something with such an emotional attitude. Then I thought, ‘I am sure such an experience will touch the heart of the students’, which was the first reason I began environmental education.” (Okayama University ESD Promotion Centre, 2020, p. 6)

From this transformative experience, Teacher 1 began to emphasise the importance of students’ learning outside of school while at the same time believing that teachers themselves could make a difference in education by being there. In exploring this kind of learning, he encountered the philosophy of ESD, which led him to develop a new school-specific course centred on it with the help of experts. Teacher 1 expected the entire school to be involved, understanding that ‘environment’ is not a part of the science curriculum or an extracurricular activity but the entire environment that surrounds people, and that teachers, no matter what subject they teach, are involved in the environment in which humanity lives. Exposed to this understanding of ESD, several of the school’s teachers, including the founder and the chief of the ESD department: Teacher 2, who would later succeed Teacher 1, became committed to creating a system to share this philosophy widely, even though they were in completely different subjects and positions. The structure of High School B’s WSA-ESD is shown also in Fig. 23.2.

Teacher 1’s successors were aware of the following challenges to ESD in Japan’s public schools and consciously created systems to overcome them as follows:

• 1. Limitation of ESD practice only within the framework of PIS, which is left to the competence of individual teachers.

• 2. Disruption of collaborative community projects in public schools due to teacher transfers every school year.

• 3. ESD philosophy and principles are likely to disappear if teachers do not create an environment where they can continue to learn repeatedly.

• 4. Teachers’ level of interest in the local community is not uniform, nor is it defined by subject specialisation.

• 5. The teachers’ main concern, student growth and achievement through ESD, should be widely shared.

This means that there is a wide range of entry and exit points for both students and teachers at High School B, and the field of practice extends not only to schools (formal education), but also to libraries and other social education institutions (non-formal education) and local children’s voluntary associations (informal education).

3 The Process of Forming ESD-CoPs in Two High Schools

3.1 Transformations Induced by the PIS of High School A

It was evident that these innovations provided an opportunity to start the formation of an ESD-CoP. The study identified four main groups of local partners that most contributed to the programme development of High School A. Within 2 years, these four groups became interested and involved in each other’s efforts through the practices of High School A, and two or three of them began to work together on new projects. For example, Group T and.

Group M organised homestays for overseas youth, giving them opportunities to experience the life of agriculture and the issues in remote areas; Group M and Group H jointly organised an English camp for children in the mountains combined with nature experiences with high school students; Group S co-hosted an exchange event with Group M for high school students and local residents, and a number of other collaborative projects were initiated in the community.

It is clear that the students acted as a knot connecting these intensive teams and generating their ideas for sustainability. As Engeström (1987) suggests in his theory of learning by expanding and knot-working, all students involved began to see their own activities as a practice related to the future of the community and education, rather than as mere volunteering, hobbies or livelihoods, through contact with their aspirations and consciousness. The teachers, on the other hand, did not continue to be involved in these new projects. Finally, the school welcomed the members of Group H into the school and put them in charge of the new Regional Studies course. This is the only relationship with the local community that continues to this day.

3.2 Challenges in Sustaining the Quality of the Programme

In addition, it was observed that these joint activities were disbanded after a few years. The following factors emerged from the interviews;

• 1. The fact that the original philosophy of the development of the programme was not maintained and shared as teachers moved on and community partners changed due to life events, resulting in both parties feeling that they were going in ‘different directions’.

• 2. Despite the requirement to include Years 1–3 in the group to enhance the continuity of the project, both students and teachers may change their aims and preferences at the start of the project. They can look back on last year’s project and, if they do not find it appropriate, can suspend or change it for the coming year. On the other hand, community practice partners do not always accept these changes in a positive way.

• 3. The activities are part of compulsory education, i.e. PIS, and school security issues make it difficult for High School A to carry out the activities in an informal, out-of-school setting.

• 4. The damage to the community caused by the words and actions of less proactive students is greater than the school expects.

3.3 Transformations Induced by the Programme of High School B

On the other hand, in High School B, almost 20 years after the start of the practice, the following results of the practice were observed (Fig. 23.3). First, High School B began to emphasise education in collaboration with the local community, and teachers were encouraged to hire a dedicated regional coordinator with funds specifically provided by the city. This is rare in Japan and is only possible with the understanding of the local community. Second, the town itself has become more vibrant. Evidence of this is that despite the community suffering the same population decline as High School A, conservation work in the historic area of the town is progressing, with major events continued to be held actively participated by students from High School B. Teachers now actively take their students out and are involved in these events, and there are many occasions when they meet with local residents to discuss education.

Fig. 23.3

The structure of ESD-WSA of high school B and the formation of ESD-CoPs

The students’ activities have spread outside the school and continued to involve not only high school but also elementary and junior high school students in their community development activities, which have won awards in the field of ESD and environmental education. The children’s union, co-founded by Teacher 1 and a resident, is well connected to High School B through the teachers and is encouraged to engage in activities outside the school. The co-founding resident has become the community coordinator of High School B, whose role was well succeeded by another member now. In addition, a trans-regional network of adults has been formed to support these child-centred activities, and study sessions are being held to create a system to enhance informal learning opportunities. One of the most notable achievements has been the establishment of an ESD department within the school, the first in Japan. Leaders from different departments within the school, including regional coordinators, meet to share information about ESD and discuss how to develop its implementation. Finally, the town was ranked as one of the most liveable and happy cities in the Chugoku region of Japan in 2022.

3.4 Growth as a Practitioner of Teachers Through Promoting ESD-WSA

Teacher 2, who initiated these reforms one by one with other colleagues, observed a significant change in himself. In the interview, he admitted that he was initially resistant to ESD, and reflected that this was because teachers were usually reluctant to teach students themselves about ESD that they had not experienced themselves. However, he learned ESD with his students outside of school. He added that he grew as a teacher and with recognition outside of school. He made sense of his experience as such learning provided him with the opportunity to promote WSA for ESD at his own school and to actively collaborate with diverse actors in the local community (OUESDPC, ibid., p.21).

Teachers who contributed as leaders in promoting WSA-ESD at High School A gradually left their positions or transferred to other schools. In the interviews with them, the following words were heard: Teacher 3 says, ‘ESD is a novelty and a hot topic, and my efforts were covered by various media, but I couldn’t make others understand why I was involved in ESD. I gradually found it too hard to commit and could no longer continue’. Teacher 4 says ‘We (unlike the B high school) have not been able to sow the seeds in our community’. What these words suggest is that they have worked hard to survive and make ‘High School A’ a better place through WSA-ESD, but they have failed to truly form a community of practice. This indicates that ESD is not grounded in their own internal experiences, but is merely a proposition given to them from the outside.

4 Elements of WSA Promoting the Formation of ESD-CoPs

From the case studies of both schools, the structure of the WSA that facilitated the formation of ESD-CoP is analysed with reference to the WSA model of Wals and Mathie (2022). First, the difference in the area of CAPCITY-BUILDING seems to have a significant impact on the formation of ESD-CoPs: in High School A, the focus is solely on students’ competency, and teachers are automatically assigned to PIS groups according to their subject specialties. In contrast, teachers of High School B are encouraged to go outside the school at every opportunity, while a mechanism for allocating staff is created according to their own level of interest in the community and to deepen their participation as Legitimate Peripheral Participants in the ESD-CoPs. This also creates a difference community connection between schools. High School A only focuses on COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS within the PIS framework, while School B actively collaborates with various organisations that provide informal learning in the classroom, extracurricular activities and events. This has resulted in a multi-layered and multidimensional connection between students, teachers and the community. Teachers are able to engage not only formally in the classroom, but also in a variety of contexts, such as community events, volunteer work and councils for community development in product development. In particular, we note that teachers, who have experienced both the limitations of schooling and the possibilities of non-formal/informal education, value their students’ willingness to go out into the community and ‘fail’. In community partnerships, teachers become committed to and coordinate ‘not letting students fail’. A similar point is made in ESD and environmental education, where curricularised programmes such as service-learning, for example, cannot be truly radical, transformative or emancipatory practices (Butin, 2006). To achieve the ‘transformation’ sought by ESD, the practice must be ‘driven by ideology’ (Op. cit., p. 478)). The transformation of teachers themselves does not occur within the training or the classroom. Rather, the process of mutual transformation occurs ‘outside the framework’ (Jackson, 2011), and it is the discomfort created by exposure to different perspectives that elicits reflection and meaningful learning (Jickling & Wals, 2008). In other words, the community connections themselves may need to be (re)imagined as a richer ‘reciprocal relationship’ rather than fixed as a strong partnership. As Henry and Breyfogle (2006) suggest, schools and society as ‘partners’ in an identity will need to be transformed into a broader definition of ‘community’, where all participants in collaboration to solve common problems are understood as stakeholders.

In High School B, all subjects and school activities, including school climate building, are positioned as ESD and not limited to PIS. PIS is positioned as the ‘gateway’ to ESD from the formal education side, and classes and activities are prepared not only to learn about the community through competitions, etc., but also to address local concerns and issues together with the community. In addition to this foundation, there are classes and activities that address local concerns and issues together with the local community. In addition to this foundation, teachers are not completely separated from or left alone with informal education outside of school, but are connected in a perfect balance and play a role in supporting students’ activities in the community. The systematic PIS at High School A was merely a mechanical matching of students with many local actors based on the expectation and interest that they would be the link to the community. The systematic PIS at High School A was merely a mechanical matching of students with many community activists based on their expectations and interests as community ties. However, from a LEADERSHIP and COORDINATION perspective, the community coordinator at High School B, in an interview, respected these teachers’ strengths as ‘a perspective that teachers can only have’ and ‘a job that only teachers can do’, and had a better understanding of their work (OUESDPC, p. 16). In order to realise an education that is centred on students, not on the needs of the school, it is an important task for teachers to engage steadily with the community while ‘crossing the border’ between school and society, and this may suggest a new type of leadership.

5 Conclusion

In Lave and Wenger’s (1991) ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ and Wenger’s (1998) ‘Communities of Practice’ and Engeström’s (1987) ‘learning by expanding’, the process of forming voluntary groups and learning organisations, learning to participate and share experiences in them and full communication and interaction between diverse groups are essential for the development of identity and empowerment. It is understood that the power of individuals and groups to create a sustainable society is demonstrated in the mutually transformative learning experiences of communities that are open to others and diverse. Therefore, it is essential to understand that ESD is not completed in a specific unit or class but is developed and expanded from its starting point. Based on the interests of students and teachers, it is necessary to allow multiple entry points in different disciplines and at different levels and to enable multifaceted participation in them. This is because they can be change-makers for a sustainable society.

Future research will continue to investigate the effectiveness of the structure that facilitated the transformation of teachers at High School B in bringing about systemic change in high school education itself, and how it will change and develop in the future should be closely monitored. One limitation of this study is that the students themselves were not focused on, and their development as practitioners should continue to be investigated. They are themselves legitimate peripheral participants in the ESD-CoP.