Considering Students' Experiences in Diverse Groups

The Social System in Outdoor Adventure Education Programs

“…This level of goal compatibility should be more easily realized when groups are created for more specific purposes (e.g., outdoor leadership courses) or needs (e.g., incoming college freshmen). A common taskrelated goal was noted in a recent study of OAE student groups as a primary driver of group cohesion (Paisley, Jostad, Sibthorp, Pohja, Gookin, Rajagopal-Durbin, 2014).…”

Exploring the Inclusive Praxis of Outward Bound Instructors

“…Scholars and practitioners in the field of outdoor adventure education (OAE) have long called for the advancement of social justice within the field [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. These calls have been motivated in part by a recognition of ongoing social, economic and demographic changes to which the field must adapt in order to effectively address the needs of an increasingly diverse society [3,13].…”

“…There have been numerous other such calls to advance social justice in the field of outdoor adventure education, many framing this endeavor as a moral imperative [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Although there has been little consensus on how best to accomplish this goal [13], one common element among these calls is that they are all typically grounded in John Rawls' [14] theory of justice-a distributive approach to justice in which all social goods should be distributed equally among the members of a society, unless an unequal distribution of goods would be to everyone's advantage.…”

“…Accordingly, justice results when resources are (re)distributed equally across social classes, regardless of the reasons for the initial disparities [14]. OAE organizations strive to implement this approach to justice in their use of scholarship programs and partnerships with other youth-serving organizations [3,5,15] in order to enhance marginalized students' access to programming.…”

“…They consider social justice through the lens of critical theory (particularly critical race theory), framing it in terms of the privilege/oppression dialectic, and call for a more socially just reformulation of the field [6]. Others, such as Paisely et al [5], have also considered how the provision of scholarships might enhance the diversity of student groups on OAE courses, thus helping OAE to work toward social justice along the lines of socioeconomic status. They found that OAE students' experiences differed depending on the composition of the group (i.e., the ratio of students with and without scholarships).…”