Words (are) matter: generating material-semiotic lines of flight in environmental education research assemblages (with a little help from SF)

This paper addresses the question of how Australian environmental education (EE) research was conceptualised and contextualised in the decade of the 1990s. Sixty seven articles published by Australian authors in this journal from 1990–2000 were analysed to examine the conceptualisation of this research using an inductive emergent categorisation approach and a five frames model (Reid, in press) of key arguments and debates in the field. Contextualisation was explored in relation to specialist areas, scale and environmental dimensions of focus. A search for a coherent and distinct meaning of of this research was explored by making comparisons with international environmental education research during a similar time period that was the subject of two reviews. These analyses revealed that Australian environmental education research can be characterised as questioning and challenging prevailing (at the time) environmental education orthodoxies by critiquing and theorising the conceptual and curriculum framing of environmental education, most commonly from a socially critical and global perspective. Specialist areas and educational sectors that received little attention are also discussed.

In this paper, we reflect on a study in Brazil’s Cerrado that attempts to address a lack of attention to an aesthetic dimension in environmental education practice and research. We start by tracing this lack to the overvaluing of the cognitive sphere in the educational process, noting its echo in the low aesthetic value attributed to the Cerrado biome. Then, through reflecting on an empirical, interview based study of sensations, perceptions and feelings evoked by aesthetic experiences in the Cerrado, we draw on insights from a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to identify key themes for environmental education research and practice in this regard. These include: recognising the singularity of experience; attending to the qualities of experience; acknowledging the value/s of ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’ experiences; and deepening emotions and verbal communication. In our final considerations, we discuss the limitations of the study, alongside new directions in studies of perception, experience, aesthetics and pedagogy that may also advance attention to an aesthetic dimension in environmental education practice and research.

The need for more radical forms of learning-centred transformation is increasingly recognised in transformations to sustainability. Yet these approaches to learning remain under-developed and undertheorised especially from a politics and environmental education research perspective. This paper offers a review of an emerging politics of transgression in environmental education research, as developed through an extensive T-learning (transgressive learning in times of climate change) knowledge co-production research programme, spanning eight years, and continuing. The ongoing problem that the research programme seeks to address is how to do transgressive learning in/as environmental education research in times where the fall out of coloniality and fossil capital collide in an increasingly regressive political landscape which Akomolafe and Ladha (2017, pg. 820) describe as “the deadening ideology of late-stage capitalism and its corollaries of patriarchy, rationalism, white supremacy and anthropocentrism.” Through the paper, I seek to highlight a “low theory” (Wark, 2021) of transgressive politics in environmental education research, embodied in practices of transgressive politics as movement in co-engaged T-learning research, which I illuminate through a meta-reflective curational process from the ‘archive’ or T-learning knowledge commons collection.

This paper questions the relative silence of queer theory and theorizing in environmental education research. We explore some possibilities for queering environmental education research by fabricating (and inviting colleagues to fabricate) stories of Camp Wilde, a fictional location that helps usto expose the facticity of the field's heteronormative constructedness. These stories suggest alternative ways of (re)presenting and (re)producing both the subjects/objects of our inquiries and our identities as researchers. The contributors draw on a variety of theoretical resources from art history, deconstruction, ecofeminism, literary criticism, popular cultural studies, and feminist poststructuralism to perform an orientation to environmental education research that we hope will never be arrested by its categorization as a "new genre." © 2011 by Revista Estudos Feministas.

Since at least the beginning of this century, the literatures of research methodology in the social sciences have increasingly focused on what are now being called “new empiricisms” and “new materialisms.” My purpose in this essay is to appraise the potential of these approaches for outdoor environmental education research. I begin by reviewing some of the ways in which outdoor and environmental education research has been conceptualised in the recent past, with particular reference to the practice of representing research in terms of paradigmatic distinctions. I argue that poststructuralist theorising, with which the new empiricisms and new materialisms have strong continuities, has never been accommodated by Kuhnian paradigmatic categories, and that these new movements are more usefully understood as arising from “postparadigmatic” thinking. I then provide a brief (and far from comprehensive) overview of some key characteristics of new materialist research approaches with particular reference to the utility of deploying Barad’s concept of “intra-action” and Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of “assemblage” in conceptualising research methodology and methods, and offer a selection of examples of how such approaches might inform outdoor and environmental education research, with particular reference to challenging anthropocentrism in these fields.

When considering a topic as broad as research in environmental education it seems worthwhile, at the outset, to make some basic distinctions. First, establishing research priorities is not simply an empirical question. While it is undoubtedly useful to try to establish perceived needs and interests, and to consider them when establishing research priorities, this can only describe part of the task at hand. There are surely some logical requirements as well.Second, a much more challenging task, it seems to me, is to more clearly understand the nature of the questions to which we seek answers. We must seek to distinguish between those research techniques which are more or less consistent with the nature of our task. Unfortunately, research in education generally, and in environmental education, in particular, has been hindered by a failure on the part of the research community to recognize the need for a more complete range of research perspectives than those customarily found, and by a failure to recognize the occasional and inevitable misapplications of technique which can occur when appropriate methodologies do not seem available.With some misgivings about the scope of research in environmental education in mind, I am led to my concern: How do we go about furthering our understanding of concepts central to our field of study? In exploring this question I propose that conceptual analysis is an important research area. Further, I also argue that it is not simply an option, but rather a logical necessity if we are to establish greater coherence within environmental education and avoid unnecessary confusion (see for example: Barrow & Milburn, 1986; Scheffler, 1960; Soltis, 1978; and Wilson, 1969). Further, it is in the nature of this question that we find appeal for this particular approach to research.

This paper engages questions about ends in environmental education research. In doing so, I argue that such questions are essentially normative, and that normative questions are underrepresented in this field. After cautioning about perils of prescribing research agendas, I gently suggest that in environmental education key normative questions exist at the intersection of ‘education’ and ‘ethics’, and that they point to an area of research that deserves more attention. In describing the intersecting nature of these ideas, I show that how education is conceived in turn shapes interpretations of ethics, and vice versa. Seen this way, I also show how ethics inquiry in an educational context can be conceived as a means to explore controversy, dissonance, unconventional ideas, and to imagine new possibilities. Finally, I argue that research at this intersection of education and ethics can provide insights that can enable us to teach, inquire, and ultimately live as if the world mattered.

This research explores the diversity of topics related to environmental education issues and students’ environmental concerns regarding their behavior. The bibliometric method is a quantitative approach used to measure and investigate specific indicators within the literature published in a particular field. This method involves creating knowledge maps using extensive databases to identify patterns and trends. Using the keyword “environmental education” on Scopus from 2018 to 2023, 365 relevant documents were found. In the PRISMA flow diagram, the process started with 7550 traced documents, narrowing down to 2536 relevant documents through screening. From these, 776 related documents were chosen, and 573 relevant documents were recognized after the inclusion stage. Throughout, a total of 365 publications were included in the study. VOS viewer software was used to analyze data and generate bibliographic maps and networks. In the last five years, research on environmental education has experienced exciting fluctuations. Key sources like Sustainability Switzerland and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health have played a significant role. Research by Bogner, F.X. stands out, reflecting high interest in environmental issues and education within the scientific community. Universities such as Universidad de Granada and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia contribute significantly. The United States leads in publications. Environmental education research remains crucial for sustainable practices and environmental literacy despite fluctuations. This data provides essential guidance for future research planning. This research not only underscores the increasing research emphasis on the educational ramifications of pandemics but also identifies specific areas that warrant more extensive exploration.

Históricamente se ha reconocido en la educación ambiental una tradición participativa y horizontal. Pese a ello, las investigaciones empíricas describen bajos niveles de inclusión de niños, niñas y adolescentes en este tipo de educación y en su rama investigativa: son escasas las investigaciones que miden esta intervención, limitándose a describir casos de estudio. Para precisar aquello, se realizó una revisión bibliográfica sistematizada de las investigaciones de educación ambiental escritas en español desde 1999 a 2019, en las cuales participaron niños, niñas y adolescentes en diferentes grados de involucramiento. Se codificó el nivel de participación por medio de la escalera de Roger Hart, la cual describe ocho peldaños distintos. Esto fue correlacionado mediante análisis estadísticos y pruebas no paramétricas con el año y país de publicación, el tipo de educación y la metodología empleada. Los resultados indican un aumento progresivo de los niveles de participación infantil y adolescente de1999 a la fecha, como también niveles más altos en la educación ambiental no formal, sise consideran metodologías cualitativas para investigar (autores de Argentina y Cuba). Se discute la importancia de repensar el lugar de niños, niñas y adolescentes en el desarrollo de la educación e investigación ambiental.

This article explores the evolution of the relationship between the inquirer and participant within a narrative inquiry conducted in the field of environmental education. Our focus is on how relational ethics contribute to the creation of narrative spaces that cultivate a caring and reciprocal relationship, where respect, trust, and productive self-reflection foster personal and professional growth for both parties. Building on this, we discuss the potential to reenvision research in environmental education—and beyond—as a caring and reciprocal experience. Ultimately, we advocate for the view that educational research should serve as a platform that fosters interactions promoting democracy, through cooperation and equitable dialogue, and ethical growth through care and reciprocity.

The assemblage of water/watery/watering is a lively cartography of how water may be accounted for when theorising with and through environmental education research. Challenging the universalising claims of Western technoscience and the colonial logic of extraction, the article develops an alternative theoretical mapping of environmental education through engagements with Ingold’s (2007, 2012, 2015) concepts of lines, knots, and knotting. For this article and for the Special Issue in which it is housed, the concepts of such knottings are defined as an assemblage of haecceities, lived events that are looped, tethered and entangled as material and conceptual agencies that inhere within situated encounters. Thus, this article grapples with the need to account for water differently in contemporary posthuman ecologies. To overcome anthropocentric and mastery-oriented approaches, various other ways to account for water in science or environmental education will continue to come to the surface, bubbling and rushing like a waterfall as they have done in this work. Some of these will include thinking with water, which will be central to a theoretical mapping of water that seeks embrace sticky knots. The article explores a (re)turn to artful practices and encounters as spaces in which posthumanist concepts for environmental education might be cultivated.

This article reflects on and responds to the eight articles that interacted with my 2024 book, Gender and Environmental Education: Feminist and Other(ed) Perspectives. It draws together some of the important themes illuminated and interrogated by the respondents and suggests future directions for research in gender and environmental education. These include: the need for unforgetting; using the concept of the Capitalocene to name the root cause of the climate change emergency; engaging non-Western perspectives; implementing anticolonial methodologies; researching intersectionality and for multispecies justice; promoting interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity in order to understand environmental problems better; re-thinking strategies, and changing school curricula so that they incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing and caring for the environment.

This article examines the evolving landscape of environmental and sustainability education in teacher education (ESE-TE) in Canada through a scoping review of 198 peer-reviewed studies published between 2005 and 2020. Situated within broader international efforts to reorient education toward sustainability, the review maps the theoretical, methodological, and linguistic contours of ESE-TE scholarship across the country. Findings reveal a field characterized predominantly by qualitative research, strong representation from Ontario-based scholars, and limited contributions in French and from northern regions. The increasing integration of Indigenous education and land-based learning signals a promising yet complex engagement with decolonizing approaches to sustainability. However, significant gaps persist in the inclusion of diverse epistemologies, methodological breadth, and Indigenous-led scholarship. By tracing these developments, this study contributes to ongoing conversations about how Canadian faculties of education might mobilize research and collaboration to address the climate crisis and advance the transformative aims of sustainability education. Keywords: environmental and sustainability education, teacher education, scoping review, Indigenous education, climate crisis

This research has been motivated by the necessity of understanding the essential concept of education and of having critical attitudes related to the common sense about the aims of education. Researches related to the concepts of education and environmental education can help us to understand the fundamental principles that are being chosen to justify and to carry out environmental education programs. So, trying to understand tendencies in environmental education researcher's conceptions in Brazil we carried out an analysis of the articles presented in The First Environmental Education Research Meeting (I EPEA). The main questions proposed are: 1 - what conceptions of education and environmental education can be identified in the articles presented in I EPEA? 2 - What evidences can be raised from these articles to help us to identify such conceptions? Through content analysis we tried to identify meaningful excerpts to the research purposes and to categorize them in a thematical process. The political dimension of education, linked to the process of social transformation and citizenship, was one of the main aspects find out in the articles. Participation, interdisciplinarity, values, the relationship between local and global aspects of environmental issues and controversial issues were objectives or methodological principles presented in I EPEA articles. Nevertheless, it is relevant to point out that we could find some elements that permit us to link them to a traditional view of education or a view that goes in the direction of technicality in education. Risks of a pragmatic view or of an instrumentalism conception of environmental education present in these articles are mentioned.

Environmental Education Research has developed a Virtual Special Issue (VSI) (http://explore.tandfonline.com/content/ed/ceer-vsi) focusing on studies of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) policy. The VSI draws on key examples of research on this topic published in the Journal from the past two decades, for three reasons. First, to provide readers with a series of snapshots into the genealogy of ESE policy research in this field. Second, to encourage renewed attention to previously published work. And third, to offer commentary on the evolution of research trends, approaches and findings.