This article presents the findings of a research study with young adults who explored the connections between their early childhood experiences in nature and their attitudes and actions towards the environment in adulthood. Drawing on E. Wilson's (1984) work, environmental or ecological consciousness is theorised to connect to ecological identity and relates to an individual's deep reflection on, connection to, and engagement with the natural environment. The study's survey tool invited young adults to select various options that described their experiences in nature as children and their views of, and actions towards, the environment in the present. The findings illustrated connections between childhood experiences in nature and later views of, and actions towards, the environment. The correlations between expressed views about caring for the environment and environmentally friendly actions were surprising, however, as actions did not necessarily align with beliefs. The article concludes with recommendations based on the findings, outlining how positive attitudes and actions towards the environment may be fostered in childhood.

This article argues that one of the main goals of social or civic studies is to empower students. However, traditional teaching practices often have the opposite effect of disempowering students. Traditional teaching practices are understood to emerge from the history and context of public schooling, from early practices, which have been reified. After describing this context, the article reviews the meaning of and literature around empowerment, which relate to the democratic purpose of schooling. The conception of empowerment that is presented is developed from Foucault’s work on power and knowledge. After this discussion, the article provides recommendations that aim to improve teaching practice in this area. These recommendations emerged from the teaching of an integrated teacher education course and include strategies such as inquiry, relationship - and community-building, problem or issue scenarios, and discussions. Comments from the student teachers who took the education course are included. The article demonstrates how empowering students does not disempower teachers, as teachers may fear.

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Lay theories are everyday explanations and attributions given for psychological phenomena. They are important because they affect people's behaviours and cognitions. Lay theories have typically been studied using interviews and surveys of individuals. We describe a pilot study that employed a new, community-based, methodology that we used to explore children's and adolescents' lay theories of happiness. We collected 802 responses to the phrase BI feel happy when ______^which was stencilled repeatedly on large walls we called Walls of Well-Being (WOWs) installed in a kindergarten-elementary school and a junior-high school. An interpretive, grounded theory approach for coding these qualitative data was used. Five main themes emerged in the children/adolescents' responses: Activities, Relationships, Other Oriented, Personal Feelings, and Receiving. Chi-square analyses revealed significant differences in the prevalence of response themes between the two schools demonstrating that the WOWs are sensitive to community differences. Advantages and disadvantages of the WOWs methodology are discussed as well as suggestions for mitigating disadvantages in future studies utilizing WOWs. This new method holds promise as an assessment tool that could be applied across a wide range of psychological phenomena (e.g., gratitude and hope) and environments (e.g., hospitals and businesses).

This article describes the meaning, history and significance of the concept of the 'public good'. It begins by theorising the 'public good' in relation to literature in the field, particularly Dewey. The public good is understood as an imagined and communal space in which goods valued by society become collectively owned and shared through respectful and open contestation and negotiation. The argument is then made that schools are both part of the public good as well as involved in the development of this concept in students, but that the ability of schools to do this is being damaged by new discourses. Current research and literature in the field of education is used to demonstrate how neo-liberal ideology is eroding this democratic idea. For example, neo-liberal ideology incorrectly positions all goods (including education) as private goods, with damaging consequences for society generally. Its controlling policies negatively affect the ability of schools to educate students about and for the public good, within a democratic conception of society. The article concludes with recommendations that aim to reinvigorate education for the and as a public good in schools. These recommendations are focused on teaching pedagogies.