School teachers’ conceptions of environmental education: reinterpreting a typology through a thematic analysis

This article reinterprets Sauvé’s typology of Environmental Education (EE) as an analytical framework to study the EE conceptions of 11 primary school teachers working in Monterrey, Mexico. Each teacher engaged in a sequence of three face-to-face semi-structured interviews that explored their ideas and teaching experiences in relation to EE. Sauvé’s typology was used in the thematic analysis, concentrating on aims of EE, concept of the environment, and examples of EE teaching and learning activities. The findings identify full and partial associations between the teachers’ ideas and Sauvé’s typology. This diversity shows that the conceptions of the teachers were complex and could not be fully represented by single EE types. Two teacher case studies are presented to convey the influence of culture and social contexts on their conceptions. Overall, the article presents an alternative take on the typology and provides recommendations for future research on EE conceptions.