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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547

7th International Conference on Intercultural Education “Education, Health and ICT for a
Transcultural World”, EDUHEM 2016, 15-17 June 2016, Almeria, Spain

Sustainable Management of Pre-School Education Centers: A Case

Study in the Province of Granada
Abigail López-Alcarria*, José Gutiérrez-Pérez & Fátima Poza-
Vilches
Department of Methods & Research in Diagnosis & Education, Granada 18071, pain

Abstract

The following research is aimed to analyze teaching practice related to the sustainable management in Pre-School Education (PE)
centers. We understand sustainable management as those behavior patterns related to the treatment of resources in the center which
employ them in an environmentally respectful way.
As a qualitative method, we consulted 30 teachers using a semi-structured interview composed of 27 questions organized in 7
different analysis categories. The quantitative counterpart was carried out by means of a Likert scale which scored from 1 to 5 the
aforementioned categories.
In most cases, found weaknesses revolve around the energy, the management of water and waste, as well as the mobility solutions.
Those aspects in which teachers have a larger scope for action, such as green areas and responsible consumption, obtained a better
score and were considered as strengths.
Teachers show a high implication in the greening of the curriculum of regular daily work in the classes and, on the other hand, a
low capacity of direct incidence in the management of the resources of the center. This causes difficulties to intervene in
environmental problems which require different levels of participation in the decision making process, and which involve multiple
agents in the solution of the problems and the adoption of strategic measures.
It is utterly important for the centers to carry out a complete and exhaustive eco-audit to elaborate a set of patterns to follow in
order to correct and foster the detected weaknesses and strengths.
© 2017
© 2016TheTheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Publishedbyby Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of EDUHEM 2016.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of EDUHEM 2016.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +34- 958249671

E-mail address: abigail@ugr.es

1877-0428 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of EDUHEM 2016.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2017.02.104
542 Abigail López-Alcarria et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547

Keywords: Sustainable Management, Pre-School Education, Case Study.

1. Introduction

Current environmental problems such as the loss of biodiversity, soil overuse, draining of resources, introduction
of non-autochthonous species and climate change, are forcing educators to get actively implicated in the search of
solutions for all these problems which deeply affect citizens. Environmental Education (EE) has become
institutionalized as a necessary modality of systematic and structured intervention inside mandatory educational
systems, by getting integrated in the curriculum in different modalities and formats in an effort of coordinated strategic
planning from different institutional perspectives worried by a common cause: educating critical citizens committed
to environmental issues (Gutiérrez, 2011).
Education centers constitute a privileged scenario to work this kind of competences, since peculiar human
interactions having special relevance for the involved people, take place in them. On the one hand, given their specific
educational function, they have a fundamental role to helping the analysis and comprehension of complex reality, on
the other hand, the educational community constitutes itself a miniaturized model of a city in which it is possible to
test different procedures and adopt sustainable solutions in a reduced scale. Hence, schools can be a good place to
imagine and experiment strategies to live according to the basic tenet of sustainability in the daily practice (Burgos,
Gutiérrez y Perales, 2015).
A school including education for sustainability in their curriculum will become an educational community which
prepares their agents for the future, and which forms part of the culture of complexity, which fosters critical thinking
and which teaches to feel and respect the environment behaving in a responsible way. These centers offer an education
based on innovation, participation and local and global collaboration.

2. Objectives

Our research is aimed to discover which measures are being carried out from pre-school education centers through
the scope of management. Along this article we explain the procedure followed to the consecution of this main goal
together with the different instruments we generated to gather information as well as the findings and conclusions.

3. Research Procedure

We based our study on descriptive research since we aim to discover and interpret sustainable management of
schools from the lens of teachers.

3.1. Sample

The sample is composed of 30 pre-school teachers working in different centers in Granada and its province (Spain).
In this case, we employed a non-probabilistic sampling of intentional character to select our sample, since we consider
this sample as the most representative of the population under study. 86.7% of the interviewees are women, while
13.3% are men.

3.2. Data collection tools

As the data gathering tool we elaborated a protocol composed of 27 questions organized in seven different
categories of analysis. The interview contains questions related to the following aspects: Water, Waste, Energy,
Mobility, Green areas, Resources and Responsible consumption.
Additionally, to evaluate data in a quantitative way, we developed a value scale in which the subjects scored from
1 (not satisfactory at all) to 5 (very satisfactory) their satisfaction degree with the seven proposed categories.
Therefore, we have followed a twofold methodological approach since we carry out both qualitative and
quantitative analyses. On the one hand, we employ quantitative analysis through the value scale to ease the
 Abigail López-Alcarria et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547 543

identification of strengths and weaknesses of the application of EE in the field of sustainable management in
educational centers. On the other hand, the qualitative analysis, carried out by means of the interview, allows us to
deepen the evaluation through examples and particular cases provided by interviewed teachers.

4. Data analysis tools

4.1. Quantitative analysis

We have implemented a series of statistical analyses using SPSS, v.22. Namely, we carried out descriptive analysis
through central tendency and dispersion measurements (table 1) as well as percentages of answers (table 2).

Table 1. Mean and standard deviation of the answers given to each category of the scale value.
Category Mean/St. Dev.
Resources 4.13 ± 0.34
Green areas 4.10 ± 0.60
Responsible consumption 3.87 ± 0.86
Energy 3.67 ± 0.84
Mobility 3.17 ± 0.69
Waste 3.00 ± 1.25
Water 2.93 ± 0.98

Table 2. Percentages of the answers given to each category of the scale value.
Category Answers % Category Answers % Category Answers %
Resources satisfactory 86.7 Green areas somewhat satisfactory 3.3 Responsible somewhat satisfactory 3.3
very satisfactory 13.3 intermediate satisfaction 3.3 consumption intermediate satisfaction 33.3
satisfactory 73.3 satisfactory 36.7
very satisfactory 20 very satisfactory 26.7
Energy unsatisfactory 6.7 Mobility unsatisfactory 3.3 Waste unsatisfactory 23.3
intermediate satisfaction 16.7 somewhat satisfactory 6.7 somewhat satisfactory 3.3
satisfactory 73.3 intermediate satisfaction 60 intermediate satisfaction 26.7
very satisfactory 3.3 satisfactory 30 satisfactory 43.3
very satisfactory 3.3
Water unsatisfactory 6.7
somewhat satisfactory 30
intermediate satisfaction 26.7
satisfactory 36.7

4.2. Qualitative analysis

The procedure we followed to analyze data in a qualitative way is shown in table 3. In this case we used Nudist
Vivo, v.10 software to code transcriptions of interviews.

Table 3. Qualitative analysis procedure.

Stages Description
1. Transcription of information Once the information is gathered, we transcribed all the recordings with the aid of the VLC player. The
texts have been stored in Word files in order to be loaded from Nudist Vivo.
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2. Analyzing data in Nudist Vivo
3. Information coding
4. Interpretation of information
We first carried out a general Reading of the transcribed interviews with the objective of achieving a
preliminary interpretation of all the testimonials given by the subjects.
A second reading process was used to carry out a categorization process from the selection of different
fragments of the text according to the thematic parameters defined in the categories, taking into account
the analysis categorization done in the technical diagnosis.
Finally, we counted the words in order to identify those with higher frequency.
We have combined the two coding procedures offered by Nudist: fast coding, used when the text
fragments entirely represented a single category, and manual codification, when different categories
appeared in the same paragraph.
Once the previous step is finished, we generated the first coded report. The software provides a version
of the texts sorted by metacategory (trees) and thematic categories (knots). We, then, used this file to
complete the information of the different participation indicators defined in our model. We also
included the interpretation of the literary coherence and narrative sense of the gathered information

5. Discussions

As we aforementioned, we carried out a mixed analysis through the combination of both qualitative and quantitative
data. The most relevant results in each category are shown next.

5.1. Water

We found that, in spite of not having any saving systems to control water consumption in most cases, there is a
patent commitment from the teachers to transmitting respectful water consumption habits. Moreover, special attention
is given to avoid water taps left open and that only the necessary amount of water is use. This behavior is reflected by
the following testimonials:
“Toilet tanks have half capacity filling. We foster respectful consumption from the assemblies”.
“We pay special attention to avoid open taps and watering when it is raining”.

From a quantitative point of view, 36.7% of the interviewed subjects scored this category as satisfactorily managed
and 30% as somewhat satisfactorily.

5.2. Waste

This category is aimed to assess which waste management policies are followed in the different spaces of the school
such as the classrooms and the kitchen, e.g. waste separation to ease recycling, correct use of bins, etc.
We were surprised to find that, even though the schools are environmentally committed, most of them did not
separate waste. This is due to different causes. On the one hand, we were told children do not bring food from home,
since they are given fruit as morning snacks, so there are no juice or milkshake cartons to be disposed. This way, this
kind of waste is not generated in the classrooms. Paper is reused as much as possible. The largest problem comes from
the kitchens were all waste is thrown to the same bin because no recycling bins can be found near the schools which
generates a logistic problem. Many schools have contacted the Town Hall to request recycling bins in order to solve
this issue. These are some of the gathered testimonials:
“We only recycle paper. No other waste is generated in the classroom”.
“We do not separate waste because even if we did, we could not find bins to dispose it”. “We only have a
special bin for paper. No separation is done in the kitchen; this is an issue we want to solve. There are not
many bins nearby where we can dispose our waste.”

This category is, therefore, one of the mot poorly considered, since 23.3% of subjects scored it as not satisfactorily
managed at all. It is true that their positive attitude and their commitment to reduce the generation of waste made
43.3% of subjects to consider it as satisfactorily managed. In summary, we found that most teachers feel frustrated
 Abigail López-Alcarria et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547 545

because of not being able to properly separate waste because of not having the necessary infrastructure to do so. Their
attitude is, then, not a problem.

5.3. Energy

Electricity and solar energy were addressed in this category. We aimed to check whether there exist specific
measures to save energy, as well as if they have solar wafers to heat water and the windows are equipped with isolation
systems to prevent leaks. In most cases, infrastructures are quite old even though they are properly maintained. It is
not strange then, that no solar wafers are found in any of the schools, or that no double glass isolating windows are in
place. However, 73.3% of teachers scored this category as satisfactorily managed since, according to their
testimonials, they are aware that infrastructures should be renewed but they acknowledge that this will incur into high
costs and that no budged is available, so they acquiesce to the situation and try to save as much energy as possible and
to transmit responsible energy consumption values to their students. Examples of the gathered testimonials in this
category are:
“We are committed to switching off lights every time a room is left”. “We switched from electrical to natural
gas heating”. “The school is naturally illuminated so we avoid switching on lights as much as possible”.
“The windows are old, they do not have double glass or European lock (…) replacing them is an important
expense”.

5.4. Mobility

Regarding mobility, we aimed to determine whether there exists any kind of sustainable plan to manage it. We
understand sustainable mobility as those actions which help reducing the negative effects of transportation in the
environment, that is, responsible mobility practices such as walking, riding a bicycle, using public transport, sharing
the car with other commuters, etc. 60% of interviewed subjects showed an intermediate satisfaction to how this issue
is managed mainly due to the fact that most parents bring their children to the school by car which causes important
traffic jams nearby the school in rush hours. This accumulation of cars is a nuisance to pedestrians since they usually
block the sidewalks and school accesses. Examples of these situations are derived from the testimonials of the subjects:
“We have encouraged the use of bicycles (…) we requested a bicycle parking in the entrance of the school
to the Town Hall (…) then we have the issue of private cars whose owners always complain about the lack
of parking places (…) only a few of families use public transportation to come to the school”. “There is a
proposal brought up by families to free the parking spaces close to the entrance so they can stop by and drop
the children without parking”

5.5. Green areas

In this category we intended to find out whether schools have green areas, their size and the kind of vegetation
which composes them. Moreover, we analyzed the method used by schools to water these areas as well as whether
these spaces are used to other activities apart from break time. By visiting the schools we saw in first person that they
have privileged green areas and large courtyards composed of a large variety of trees and plants which are also used
as educational resources. This was corroborated by the testimonials:
“We try to have different types of plants with different types of flowering, as well as different trees so children
can see how seasons affect nature”
“We have drip irrigation in some of the areas. Others are watered by children using hoses or watering cans”
“We do use the courtyard to carry out activities such as painting workshops, gardening and growing the
vegetable garden”.

Therefore, these facts are coherent with the score given to this category, since 73.3% of teachers consider that green
areas are satisfactorily managed from a sustainable point of view.
546 Abigail López-Alcarria et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547

5.6. Resources

When talking about resources we addressed different aspects. On the one hand we asked teachers about the
materials they use to decorate the classrooms and the corridors and whether they are recycled or reused. On the other
hand, we are also interested in the state of the furniture of the school and how it is used. Finally, in this category, we
aim to find out whether schools have libraries and whether they possess books or collections dedicated to environment
and EE.
We observed that schools manage their resources in a very effective way. They are committed to reusing every day
materials as educational resources, as well as to maintaining the original furniture they have dating from the
construction of the school. This commitment is transmitted to children through the respect towards their close
environment. Moreover, all schools counted with libraries where it is possible to find EE related material. Our
observational findings were corroborated by the testimonials of the teachers:
“I believe that we have done a great effort to reuse stuff (…) we always try to use both sides of sheets of
paper”. “It is one of the values to be transmitted; taking care of the environment we live in. This includes
controlling furniture, its maintenance, order and cleanliness. Children collaborate as much as they can by
tidying up their personal spaces”
“All classrooms have a library corner. All these corners have books related to nature and the environment”.

These testimonials are coherent with the quantitative score since 86.7% of teachers considered this category as
satisfactorily managed.

5.7. Responsible consumption

The last category is oriented to study responsible consumption. Some of the aspects we asked about are whether
schools carry out activities related to fair trade and responsible consumption and whether they have a kitchen and the
food they serve. According to the testimonials given by teachers, fair trade has been hardly ever addressed but, instead,
they carried out other interesting activities related to responsible consumption:
“We organized a few reusing flea markets. Parents are pushing to organize this kind of events and a group
of them proposed interesting actions (…) we have also collected gear and donated it to NGOs and different
associations”

Regarding food, those schools having their own kitchen possess staff that is very skilled sin the preparation of
healthy menus and balanced diets. Moreover, they put special attention in not generating food surplus. Teachers are
very satisfied with the work in the kitchens:
“Cooks are good workers, they are highly trained and work in conjunction with the rest of the cooks of the
Granada Educa Foundation (…) additionally, they attend seminaries and workshops given by dietitians and
nutritionists where they design the menus”
“The menu is built together with external experts. Calories and proteins are controlled. We put special
attention to reinforce those foods which are not usually eaten at home”.
“Normally, we do not have food surplus, since quantities are efficiently adjusted to the number of children”
“We give the attendance report to the kitchen every morning so the number of meals is adjusted”.

Teachers showed their intermediate satisfaction (33.3%) and satisfaction (36.7%) to how this category is managed.
Regarding fair trade, they acknowledge that the topic is not being addressed as they would desire.

6. Conclusions and Future Work

Given the testimonials gathered from teachers, there is a patent degree of dissatisfaction with the sustainable
management of the analyzed schools. This is mainly due to the reduced capacity of direct incidence that teachers have
in the management of the school resources as well as the difficulty of intervening in complex environmental problems
which require different levels of participation in decision making, and which involve the implication of multiple agents
 Abigail López-Alcarria et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 237 (2017) 541 – 547 547

for their solution and the adoption of strategic measures. In most cases, the detected weaknesses revolve around
energy, water and waste management, as well as mobility solutions.
As future work we consider interesting to carry out an exhaustive eco-audit in order to define a roadmap and a
series of guidelines to correct weaknesses and foster strengths. We aim, therefore, to carry out a mixed approach in
which the efficiency and effectiveness of the sustainable management of the school are analyzed and a strategic
reorienting of the weakest points can be tackled to adopt decisions of optimization and coordinated improvement. In
this sense, we believe that some of the results of this work need to be transferred to the different levels of responsibility
of the administrations as a source of information to allow them to make decisions. On our side, we have carried out
different individualized reports of the centers which allowed us to provide return and validate our findings by
providing feedback to the collaborative research model developed in our studies. This is a research line which remains
still open, and which supposes a space for conjoint professional training and development for both our research group
and the schools which collaborate with us.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the teachers which participated in the study for dedicating their time and
receiving us for the interviews. Special thanks too to the Granada Educa Foundation for their collaboration in the
study.

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