Social representations of environmental education in physical education classes of students and teachers of educational establishments of the IX region of Araucanía, Chile

Abstract

Environmental Education as a content is incipiently linked to the national curriculum, which, due to the current global and regional context, should be a central and transversal axis that seeks to raise awareness, train and modify attitudes on environmental care from early ages and throughout schooling. The purpose of the research is to describe and understand in depth the social representations of Physical Education students and teachers about Environmental Education in educational establishments in the communes of Curacautín, Temuco and Puerto Saavedra in the IX Region of Araucanía. The methodology of this research is of qualitative approach, which is carried out through open semi-structured interviews, the data are collected and analyzed through the Atlas.ti version 8 software. The main results of this study show the scarce knowledge of the students in relation to Environmental Education. Likewise, the teachers of each establishment agree to integrate Environmental Education in their classes, but in a secondary way, without including concrete contents directly related to the care of the environment. Finally, it is concluded that the social representations of teachers and students reveal an interest in the subject and express diverse opinions and ideas regarding how the content could be approached, so that knowledge about EE grows and develops in the school environment.