TY - JOUR

T1 - Learning to spend time in unusual times

T2 - An inquiry into the potential for sustainability learning during COVID-19-induced school closures

AU - Grauer, Claire

AU - Frank, Pascal

AU - Fischer, Daniel

N1 - Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Research and writing were conducted as part of the project Time Rebound, Time Wealth and Sustainable Consumption (ReZeitKon), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under grant number 01UT1708C. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).

PY - 2023/12/1

Y1 - 2023/12/1

N2 - While current research on school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic is predominantly concerned with learning deficits, the exploratory study presented here focuses on the previously neglected question of young people’s concrete learning experiences during this disruptive period, with a focus on how they used their time and how this relates to their individual needs. The authors interviewed German secondary school students via Zoom and used a grounded theory approach and a transformative learning theory framework to derive recommendations for environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Their findings highlight two important insights: first, that the predominant focus on academic learning loss obscures a more comprehensive understanding of students’ learning experiences; and second, that real-world experiments such as the involuntary school closures during the pandemic may hold the potential to start meaningful, transformative learning processes and experimentation with new strategies for needs satisfaction.

AB - While current research on school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic is predominantly concerned with learning deficits, the exploratory study presented here focuses on the previously neglected question of young people’s concrete learning experiences during this disruptive period, with a focus on how they used their time and how this relates to their individual needs. The authors interviewed German secondary school students via Zoom and used a grounded theory approach and a transformative learning theory framework to derive recommendations for environmental and sustainability education (ESE). Their findings highlight two important insights: first, that the predominant focus on academic learning loss obscures a more comprehensive understanding of students’ learning experiences; and second, that real-world experiments such as the involuntary school closures during the pandemic may hold the potential to start meaningful, transformative learning processes and experimentation with new strategies for needs satisfaction.

KW - COVID-19

KW - Environmental and sustainability education (ESE)

KW - Personal needs

KW - School

KW - Time use

KW - Transformative learning

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

KW - Sustainability education

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85179706002&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11159-023-10034-w

DO - 10.1007/s11159-023-10034-w

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85179706002

VL - 69

SP - 823

EP - 849

JO - International Review of Education

JF - International Review of Education

SN - 0020-8566

IS - 6

ER -