Non-place and the future of place-based education

Abstract

Augé defined non-place as space lacking meaningful relations with other spaces, historical presence, or concern with identity—space divorced from anthropological place. Rather than space as historically-centered, marked and fashioned by social bonds, Augé’s non-place represents a de-centering of space, a movement away from cities, dwelling places and dwelling-in-places, and even embodied experiences, into capitalist, often technologically-mediated, spaces of “circulation, consumption, and communication.” Non-place presents fundamental and existential challenges to the field of place-based education, an educational approach dedicated to instilling place-consciousness and, correspondingly, pro-ecological attitudes and behaviors, by rooting education within the local environment. But how can education become “rooted” in place when place itself is increasingly ephemeral, non-existent, or untethered to a geolocation? This question is a defining ontological and epistemological question for place-based education in supermodernity.     

Facilitating place-based environmental education through bird studies: an action research investigation

This study involved a workshop designed to support biology teachers in conducting birdwatching activities with their students and to promote place-based environmental education in Turkey. The instruments for collecting data were a workshop questionnaire and interviews. The findings revealed that initial response to the workshop was positive; participating teachers reported that the resources and strategies motivated them to conduct bird studies with students. They identified barriers and noted that the place-based education approach might help overcome many of these barriers. After the workshop, it became clear that participants’ initial intentions to integrate birdwatching into their lessons were challenged by lack of confidence and time. To gain deeper insights into the outcomes of the project, the project coordinator used action research strategies to reflect on her practice and reveal implications for her continued efforts to promote bird and environmental education. She kept a journal, used reiterative reflection, and content analysis to analyse workshop evaluations and interviews. The coordinator recognized potentials and challenges for facilitating birdwatching and environmental education as part of her teaching career. This study shares some of her efforts to provide ongoing support and emphasizes that facilitation of environmental education needs time, commitment, and passion.     

The subak cultural landscape as environmental education: Knowledge,attitudes, and experiences of Balinese teachers,student teachers,and students

Bali's subak cultural landscape, with its ancient and extensive paddy-fields and irrigation system, is a valuable resource for place-based education. However, this landscape is threatened by various problems. Here we analyze the relationships among Balinese teachers, student teachers, and students, and review their knowledge, attitudes, and experiences toward subaks. This study finds that most of the Balinese teachers, student teachers, and students had limited knowledge and experiences regarding subaks, although their overall attitudes were positive. We conclude by discussing the study's implications for relocating environmental education into the local context.     

Telling better stories: Toward critical,place-based,and multispecies narrative pedagogies in hunting and fishing cultures

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the ethical and educational functions of storytelling in fishing and hunting practices and pedagogies. I explore various psychological, anthropological, and ethical theories surrounding storytelling as a way of encouraging deeper, more robust engagement among humans, nonhuman animals, and myriad beings that exist alongside of us in our multispecies communities. Drawing on animal studies, narrative theory, and critical pedagogy as well as ongoing qualitative research, I offer potential ways of incorporating a wider “ecology of stories” into situated hunting and fishing practices to engage more ethically with the people and beings that dwell in a given place.     

Community-based environmental monitoring goes to school: translations,detours and escapes

Community-school partnerships are an established practice within environmental science education, where a focus on how local phenomena articulate with broader environmental issues and concerns brings potential benefits for schools, community organisations and local communities. This paper contributes to our understanding of such educational practices by tracing the diverse socio-material flows that constitute a community environmental monitoring project, where Australian school students became investigators of and advocates for particular sites in their neighbourhood. The theoretical resources of actor-network theory are drawn upon to describe how the project – as conceptualised by its initiators – was enacted as both human and non-human actors sought to progress their own agendas thus translating the concept-project into multiple project realities. We conclude by identifying implications for sustaining educational innovations of this kind.     

Refusing to settle for pigeons and parks: urban environmental education in the age of neoliberalism

The institutionalization of neoliberal reforms that began to take hold in the 1970s were by and large ‘common-sense governance’ by the 1990s. While the growing predominance of neoliberal discourse and marginalization of alternatives in environmental education is disconcerting on the level of policy, this paper explores an equally troubling phenomenon: the deepening of a neoliberal logic, such that it pervades the way we understand and relate with the world. Specifically, this paper draws upon an experience at a recent environmental education conference whereby participants were invited to explore three place-based inquiries inspired by Aldo Leopold in an urban environment: what is happening here? what has happened here? and what should happen here? Although the intention of the workshop was to explore some of the challenges involved in implementing a critical pedagogy of place, many of the participants seemed unwilling to criticize the way in which an urban downtown core suppresses the more-than-human aspects of place. We contend that environmental education is a key arena for debating the limits of neoliberalism and explore how these well-intentioned, but ultimately uncritical responses, run the risk of being appropriated by the ecologically destructive logic-informing neoliberal natures.     

Ecopedagogy and Citizenship in the Age of Globalisation: connections between environmental and global citizenship education to save the planet

Teaching the connections between environmentally-harmful acts and social conflict is essential but is often ignored in education. This article presents two ways in which these are not taught because of the policies of those who benefit from the ignorance of these connections: first, the avoidance of teaching global-local connectivity and second, the devaluing of non-dominant cultures. Ecopedagogy is a democratic, transformative pedagogy centred on increasing justice by critically teaching the politics of environmental issues. I argue that global citizenship education (GCE) must be an element of ecopedagogy to contextually learn globalisation's effects upon local communities. In addition, GCE's goal is to increase students' understanding of diverse cultures to respect them. Ecopedagogy is also essential to GCE to fully teach social conflicts resulting from environmentally harmful acts. I offer policy and pedagogical changes to disrupt reproductive environmental pedagogies that help to sustain environmental ills for ecopedagogy-GCE models to emerge.     

Land education: Indigenous,post-colonial,and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research

This editorial introduces a special issue of Environmental Education Research titled ‘Land education: Indigenous, post-colonial, and decolonizing perspectives on place and environmental education research.’ The editorial begins with an overview of each of the nine articles in the issue and their contributions to land and environmental education, before outlining features of land education in more detail. ‘Key considerations’ of land education are discussed, including: Land and settler colonialism, Land and Indigenous cosmologies, Land and Indigenous agency and resistance, and The significance of naming. The editorial engages the question ‘Why land education?’ by drawing distinctions between land education and current forms of place-based education. It closes with a discussion of modes and methods of land education research.     

Environmental education in southern Africa: a case study of a secondary school in the Okavango Delta of Botswana

This study explored the extent to which teachers integrate environmental education and local environmental knowledge into the curriculum of a secondary school in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. In doing so, the study explored the potential value of place-based education in redressing concerns brought to light in postcolonial critiques of education in southern Africa. The study found that teachers sought to integrate environmental education into the curriculum through lessons that included references to local place names and local flora and fauna, lessons addressing issues related to environmental resource management in the region, and the acknowledgment and celebration of traditional lifestyle activities in the schools. The study also found that efforts to integrate environmental education into the curriculum were limited by a lack of educational resources needed to support these endeavors as well as a lack of adequate teacher training promoting this educational goal. The results also illustrate the potential value of place-based education in redressing the legacy of southern Africa’s colonial past in schools in Botswana and southern Africa.     

Frictions that activate change: dynamics of global to local non-governmental organizations for female education and empowerment in China,India, and Pakistan*

This article examines how non-governmental organizations create resources and spaces for girls and women’s education and empowerment in China, India and Pakistan – in the context of global expectations and local state relations as well as cultural norms. We examine the dynamics that foster female empowerment associated with educational attainment. Analysis showed that the five NGO’s responses to enabling and constraining local needs and demands gave rise to productive friction that activated positive development. We conclude that engaging local individuals as managers, teachers or facilitators who can negotiate with international actors and with the state is an effective foundation for maintaining a balance between being accountable to local contingencies and norms and to global social justice principles of the projects. These models indicated that “effective scale” might better be defined as a collaboration between the local and global, rather than “scaling up” in size.

International NGO partnerships with several of state organizations and local leadership can be a catalyst for fundamental change, subject to dynamic engagement with productive friction that activates educational empowerment and social change.     

How to promote conservation behaviours: the combined role of environmental education and commitment

This study tested the influence of both environmental education (EE) and commitment interventions among teenagers for promoting energy and water conservation at home. Conservation behaviours were measured in two ways – directly and through questionnaires – prior to and after the interventions. Results indicate (1) EE participants may have saved more energy than non-participants and (2) those signing a public commitment saved more energy and water than those who did not. Results from the questionnaire measures demonstrated the importance of EE for promoting ecological self-identity and a personal norm for energy conservation. Based on these results the use of commitment interventions in EE initiatives for promoting conservation behaviours among teenagers is proposed.     

Ecojustice education and communitarianism: Exploring the possibility for African eco-communitarianism

Abstract

In this article, we explore the concept of African communitarianism and reflect on its potential value for ecojustice education as a localised response to the wider ecological crises that impacts on African communities. We argue for an African eco-communitarian perspective and propose that this perspective extends ecojustice education. Such extension occurs firstly through foregrounding and emphasising the establishment of harmonious and co-constitutive relationships that is characterised by intersubjectivity and secondly, by extending community to beyond humans (and ancestors) to be inclusive of the more-than human world. We contend that ecojustice education, framed within an African eco-communitarianism, constitutes a localised response to the ecological crises in the form of critical place-based education, that it enables co-constitutive dialogue and interaction between the human and non-human elements of an eco-community and is an ethico-political praxis characterised by an African environmental ethic.     

回归美德伦理--生态伦理的反思与重构

生态伦理追求的主要目标是人与自然的和谐,然而现代生态伦理思想中无论是人类中心主义还是非人类中心主义都具有规范伦理的特征,而规范伦理因其自身的局限性并不能够全面指导人们的生态道德生活。美德伦理因其内在德性以及伦理崇高性可以化解规范伦理的不可公度性,重构和谐共生的生态伦理思想。     

Lifting the cover: developing an analytical tool to unravel environmental education resources

Abstract

Evaluations of environmental education (EE) programmes and resources are becoming increasingly visible and important. While benefits accrue through evaluation, many programmes and resources have yet to realise these. Issues such as a lack of clear objectives, reliance on traditional, summative approaches and inattention to context have prevented rigorous evaluation occurring. This paper reports on the development of an analytical tool designed to unravel EE resources. Its theoretical basis is a socially acute questions (SAQ) approach and educational configurations teachers use when implementing this approach. Using these configurations, a series of interrogatory questions were developed to unravel a resource writer’s education intent – what type(s) of knowledge are valued, the view of science presented and the view of learning. Two contrasting resources were analysed to test this tool. This analysis revealed that one resource viewed knowledge as universal, had a scientistic epistemic posture and a doctrinal/pragmatic didactic approach whereas the other viewed knowledge as contextualised, had a relativistic epistemic posture and a problematising/doctrinal didactic approach. Consequently, this tool showed that it was able to unravel a resource writer’s intent, identify gaps so teachers could adapt a resource and build capacity for didactics of EE and its evaluation.     

An environmental ethical conceptual framework for research on sustainability and environmental education

This article suggests that environmental ethics can have great relevance for environmental ethical content analyses in environmental education and education for sustainable development research. It is based on a critique that existing educational research does not reflect the variety of environmental ethical theories. Accordingly, we suggest an alternative and more nuanced environmental ethical conceptual framework divided into Value-oriented Environmental Ethics and Relation-oriented Environmental Ethics and present two pragmatic schedules for analyses of the value and relation contents of e.g. classroom conversations, textbooks and policy documents. This framework draws on a comparative reading of some 30 key books and 20 key articles in academic journals in the field of environmental philosophy and reflects main traits in environmental ethics from the early 1970s to the present day.     

Teachers' perspectives on environmental education in multicultural contexts: Towards culturally-responsive environmental education

This inquiry explores teachers' perspectives on enacting environmental education in a Québec urban locale with high student diversity. Participating in focus groups and interviews, teachers from three schools discussed their experiences incorporating environmental education into their multiculturally-diverse classrooms. Challenges included value clashes, a lack of common lived experiences, and reconciling contradictory educational perspectives and political policies, which often placed teachers in paradoxical positions. Findings suggest moving toward practices of culturally-responsive environmental education that demand more than awareness but include interactive dialogue. Teachers need support from beyond the classroom and the capacity to develop curriculum facilitating the inclusion of students' culture.     

The Teaching Green School Building: a framework for linking architecture and environmental education

The ‘Teaching Green School Building’ is an emergent type of school building that attempts to engage building users with environmental issues in buildings. Architectural interventions in these buildings range from signage to interactive touch screens to gardens and demonstration kitchens that foster educational programmes about sustainable food. The result can be a building that offers informal education, support for formal environmental education, and, overall, a chance for students to embody sustainable living in their daily lives at school. To date, this type of building has been weakly theorized, and the relationship between architectural interventions and environmental education largely unexplored in the literature. This literature review weaves together theories that connect the physical environment with human factors. In particular, research in environmental education, museum studies, conservation psychology and architecture illuminates ways in which buildings can support environmental education and with tactics that go well beyond the convention of informational signage on the wall. The result of the literature review is a framework that points to design patterns that extend from passive to active, individual to collective, and formal to informal. This framework can inform the design, use and evaluation of school buildings designed with pedagogical intent.     

The creative use of companion values in environmental education and education for sustainable development: exploring the educative moment

Our paper addresses the emergence and evolution of values in educational settings. It builds upon and extends earlier work on companion meanings to develop a theory of the creative use of companion values and meanings in education. The recognition of companion values in educational practices highlight epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic transactions that occur in ways we characterize as ‘other than modern.’ Introducing the idea of educative moments allows us to identify situations where value spheres interpenetrate and interrogate each other in the meaning-making of students and teachers. These moments occur when students suddenly experience companion meanings and values such that teacher and student must deliberate together rather than the teacher dictating some dominating epistemological, ethical, or aesthetic value. This way, it is possible to accommodate critical and creative reflection in education where new values can emerge or evolve. We illustrate the theory by empirical examples from classroom conversations.