What Educational Responsibilities Do We Have for the Environment? Environmental Ethics in National Civic Textbooks for Primary Schools in China

• In Event: Ethics, Politics, and Agency in Environmental Education

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has an impact on the world. Human epidemic brought by natural virus reflects the contradiction between human and nature. The ethical relationship of human-nature presented in school textbooks, which has an important impact on students’ environmental literacy. Guided by the two theoretical frameworks of environment, this study uses textual analysis to explore the environmental ethics in primary school textbooks. The research shows that the textbooks balance the anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, and emphasize human’s moral responsibility for nature. The revision of the following textbooks should strengthen the education of natural intrinsic value with the concept of life community, enhance students’ rational consciousness of nature with moral responsibility, and cultivate aesthetic relationship between students and nature with cultural.

Authors

• Yue Zhang, East China Normal University

• Desheng Gao, East China Normal University