Abstract
We live in a world characterised by significant environmental degradation issues, increasing social inequality, and economic uncertainty. These pressing issues compel an active response from all sectors of our society to work towards a more sustainable future. The role that education, and more specifically outdoor education, has in this response is an important one. This thesis, therefore, explores how school-based outdoor learning experiences can more effectively educate for a sustainable future. Guided by an eco-justice and sustainability theoretical framework this critical qualitative research engaged eight teachers in ethnographic and participatory action research which attempted to challenge the status quo and re-envision sustainable outdoor education pedagogies in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This research revealed concepts of outdoor education to be contested and influenced by deep cultural assumptions such as anthropocentrism, individualism, and consumerism. The transformative intent of this project stimulated pedagogical change for teachers which included: increasing understandings of sustainability, adopting more sustainable approaches to resource use and programming, and developing innovative teaching and learning strategies. Attempts to re-envision outdoor education through sustainability included initiatives such as: focusing on connection to place, utilising cross-curricular approaches to learning and assessment, and developing underlying programme philosophies with a sustainability focus. However, there remains tension surrounding conceptual disparities in teachers’ understandings of sustainability and silences on social justice issues within their thinking and practices. This research also revealed the limitations of current outdoor education practices, even those with a sustainability focus, to influence students’ attitudes and behaviours towards sustainable action. Enhancing students’ ability to love and care for local and degraded environments, as well as the distant and ‘pristine’ environments where outdoor learning experiences often occur, is a further challenge for sustainable outdoor education pedagogies.