Chapter 5: Short Country Report for BULGARIA on the SWOT Analysis of Education for Environmental Citizenship
Boris Manov & Dilyana Keranova

Abstract: This report presents the results of a research on ‘SWOT Analysis of the Education for Environmental Citizenship in Bulgaria’. The study was conducted under the European Cost Action Project ‘European Network for Environmental Citizenship (ENEC). Its purpose is to outline the strengths and weaknesses, and to contribute to identifying the opportunities and threats, related to ‘Education for Environmental Citizenship. As a working definition of Education for Environmental Citizenship, the following view was adopted: ‘We consider Education for Environmental Citizenship to be the type of education that promotes Environmental Citizenship’. According to Dobson (2010, p. 6), Environmental Citizenship is defined as pro-environmental behavior, in public and private, driven by a belief in fairness of the distribution of environmental goods, participation, and co-creation of sustainability policy. It is about the active participation of citizens in moving towards sustainability’. The research team included six experts with rich expertise in the field of education. The inclusion of representatives from different areas of education including government institutions, the non-governmental sector, and schools enabled us to draw a broader picture. The members of the Bulgarian research team, who are part of the ENEC network, conducted the study from January to February 2018. The survey questionnaire was drawn up by the Steering Committee European Network for Environmental Citizenship, and was designed so as to be applicable in every one of the participating countries in the ENEC Network. It consists of two types of questions: open-ended and closed-ended. Most of the questions are open-ended. Thus, the respondents were able to formulate their answers freely and in their own words. There are also four closed ended questions, in which the respondent chose an option on a scale of pre-formulated answers.