ABSTRACT
In 2009, Professor Julie Davis published her review of international research findings and noted “a research hole” related to children being considered “agents of change” in early childhood environmental education. The paper considered three different categories of learning, “around the concepts of in the environment, about the environment and for the environment” (Davis and Elliott, 2014:4). In 2014, Julie Davis and Sue Elliott (2014:5) observed the development of a “newer” body of research which “makes more explicit, the philosophical and pedagogical links between early childhood education and education for sustainability, often advocating for an embedded and enacted culture of education for sustainability within early childhood education, rather than focusing mainly on investigating children’s knowledge about the environment or engagement in the environment”. This chapter explores early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) within the context of the statutory early years framework in England, the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (DCFS, 2008a; DfE, 2014, 2017), and the associated discourse related to sustainability within primary education. Using an early childhood education lens, this chapter also explores the guidance for early years practitioners, including variants of teacher education, as a platform to visualise education for sustainable development (ESD) with young children.
