Combining Development of Environmental Education

with a Search for Mechanisms of

Mental Ownership Generation through the SEET Project in Thailand

Presentation at Dialogmøde om u-landsrelateret uddannelsesforskning15th January 2009 Eigtveds pakhus IV, Copenhagen

BySøren Breiting

Research Programme for Environmental and Health Education/DPU/University of Aarhus

School children in Namibia

Thai school children

What is the background?

• When projects fail: - Reason: often too little local feeling of ownership

• When resources stop – achieved innovation stops

– Reason: Often too little local feeling of ownership

• When teachers on in-service training continue teaching as usual afterwards

– Reason: Often too little local feeling of ownership

Two types of Ownership

… to property, things, innovations, ideas, documents, intellectual products …

• Legal ownership – Based on external acceptance

• Mental ownership– Based on internal engagement

My interest in Mental Ownership

• Was started during a midterm review of the Life Science Project in Nabimia in 1997 from a point of view of ’sustainablility of implemented innovations’

• Has been with me all since

• Was researched as a follow up research related to the SEET Project in Thailand after 2004 (Strengthening Environmental Education in Thailand)

The Importance of Sustainability and Developing a Sense of Ownership (For a project intervention)

• Some specific aspects stimulate the development of a sense

ownership, among others:

• If all involved participate in the goal setting or strategy formulation, etc. • If all concerned are regarded as “equal” partners in the process. • If all have a direct interest in the changes. • If those involved give input to the process. • If they can find their “fingerprint” in the final outcome. • If they receive some form of recognition for their contribution to the process. • ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------• Fig.text. • A summary of specific aspects that seemed to support the development of a

sense of ownership among stakeholders related to educational development from the school level up to the national level, identified during the mid term review of The Life Science Project in Namibia.

(After Breiting, Imene & Macfarlane: Life Science Project Midterm Review. 1997)

‘Strengthening Environmental Education in Thailand’ (SEET Project, 2001-2004)

was funded by the Danish Development Agency (Danida 2002) and coordinated by the Thai Ministry of Education to develop an ‘integrated learner centred environmental education based on an action competence approach carried out in interaction with the communities’ (Danida 2002: 9).

The SEET project covered all levels of the Thai general educational system: ministries, provincial authorities, educational advisors, school administration, teachers and their classroom practices and interactions.

The focus was on decentralisation, development of a school-based curriculum, learner-centred teaching methods, teachers’ and advisors’ professional development, whole school approaches, and building links with the local communities.

Throughout all stages of the project (initiation, pre-project period and implementing phases), SEET had the modernisation of Thai schools and teaching as the target, and environmental education as the point of departure.

Researching mental ownership

• The complexity and goals of SEET made it possible to explore participation and mental ownership in relation to a number of issues:

• project development and achieved innovations,• conceptual development of environmental education

(e.g. links between environmental education and ESD),• professional development,• approaches to teacher training,• action research, • the idea of ‘greening schools’ (whole school

approaches).

Research approach

• Interviewing 12 participants in the SEET project a year after its implementation and close down. People representing all levels, from top mininistry civil servants, to supervisors to common school teachers

• Trying to find contraditions to my tentative ideas about which mechanisms generate mental ownership to a project

Some findings

• .. there was an overall sense of the project as ‘mine’ but shared with others.

• Some referred directly to their influence (‘my hope was, that …’) or that it was in their spirit and intentions what the project was aiming at.

More findings – Social recognition• Interviewees also pointed to the influence of recognition

at higher level in the hierarchy (such as the Ministry) as an important factor influencing commitment to the project and responsibility.

• Several of the interviewees experienced recognition by being invited to participate as a speaker or resource person in other schools or regions after the closing of the project.

• Participants gained an additional feeling of achievement and recognition through the publication and wide availability of small reports which they had individually written up as ‘interesting cases’ and which were perceived as project achievements.

If you fight for something you gain ownership to the achievements

• The more involvement and effort to achieve a certain change, process or outcome in a situation, the higher the level of mental ownership possible for those involved.

Connection between level/quality of participation and the development of mental ownership

(Participation is about ’here and now’ – Mental ownership is for ’the long run’)

Levels of generated mental ownership

• Theoretically, we can imagine a full continuum of levels of mental ownership, from very low by not having being involved at all, to very high by being the sole person that has decided everything and done everything alone.

Hen or egg?

• Participation (generates) Ownership

• An interesting question to ask is, what happens when people already have a certain level of ownership towards an issue, topic or object? Presumably, we will experience more participation, i.e. a timeline like:

• Ownership (generates) Participation

The enforcing cycles

Participation Ownership Participation Ownership Participation Ownership

• It could equally well be:

Ownership Participation Ownership Participation Ownership Participation

( a kind of ‘centrifugal power mechanism’)

Important for sustainability

• It is assumed that the level of mental ownership influences a person’s future engagement and motivation in situations involving the ‘thing(s)’ or situations, to which the person feels ownership.

What is the effect of a high level of Mental Ownership,

e.g. to a project in education?

• You ’burn’ for the project

• You fight for the ideas

• You relate to the project even you don’t need it in some situations

• You overcome obstacles

• You spread the ideas and practice

• You argue for the usefulness of the project

Coming ressource website

• www.MentalOwnership.net