The main purpose of the thesis is to develop a greater understanding of the place of environmental education (EE) in Kuwaiti middle schools. The study examines whether present educational practice is adapted to the present and future needs of Kuwaiti society and to the environmental aspirations of an Islamic ethos. As a theoretical basis for developing EE in Kuwaiti middle schools, the study attempts to link Islamic teachings to concepts of Western environmental ideologies. The main concepts of interest to the study are those concerning Man-Man and Man-nature relationships• in the Islamic tradition, such as concepts of Man, Earth, conservation of resources, oneness of human race and the Divine outlook of the Universe. Comparisons are made with key environmental concepts in the Western tradition, such as moderation in consumption, the Gaia Hypothesis and sustainability. A literature study, in Chapters 2 and 3 undertakes a deep discussion of Islam and Islamic ethics and an explanation of EE using Western literature sources. This is followed in Chapter 4 with a discussion of the methodology of the thesis as a whole, linking the conceptual and empirical aspects of the research. This chapter also spells out how the focus of the research evolved and changed significantly. Chapter 5 introduces an environmental audit of Kuwaiti textbooks in two areas of the curriculum. Further empirical work, including a teachers' survey in Chapter 6, shows that: there exists both the need and the potential to develop EE within the Kuwaiti curriculum framework. This requires willingness to learn from Western practices, those which are compatible with Islamic ethics and teaching, and a revival of Islamic environmental ethics within the curriculum. teachers require assistance in order to contribute to this process. Specifying and meeting teachers' needs is therefore an important part of the way forward, and as a contribution to this, an in-service workshop on EE for Kuwaiti middle school teachers was developed, implemented evaluated, and reported in Chapters 7 and 8. The thesis concludes, in Chapter 9, that in order to ensure the effective provision of EE, priority should be given to in-service training of teachers of all subject disciplines. It also suggests that Islam could have a central place in the educational curriculum as a unifying theme. As a means to revive the Islamic environmental ethics, Western EE concepts and pedagogy could be incorporated within the Kuwaiti educational system, Islamic ethics being used to 'carry' environmental education into the subject based curriculum. An extensive set of appendices is provided in Volume 2, showing research instruments, raw data and materials used in and generated by the workshop