How do students at the end of secondary school consider the challenges of sustainable development of the Seine in France? What avenues for education?

Abstract

This article aims to understand how students aged 14–17 from different contexts in France consider the issues related to the Seine. 20 interviews were carried out focusing on the implementation of an educational approach enabling students to grasp the priority issues associated with the sustainable development of the Seine. The analysis brings out the way in which the students have experienced the educational approach; it aims to characterise their relationship with the river, and to define their eco-citizen engagement. Several specificities emerge depending on the context studied, but the students of the three schools underline the interest of approaches that go beyond the traditional education form and that are rooted in their local reality. Our article set the interest in valorising another way of learning where students feel more free and autonomous and also requires training teachers in the development of their agency for a transformative-sociocritical approach of ESE.