Working across and with methodological difference in environmental education research

Unsettling orthodoxies: education for the environment/for sustainability

“…Were people afraid of possible repercussions from being seen to be speaking out for one or the other side of the debate? Or could it be that this is another remarkable feature of such discourse struggles, that when a position is orthodox, alternative positions struggle to find additional supporters, or at least supporters who will 'speak publicly' (see also Russell 2006). Could it be that through such strategies orthodoxies come to be maintained and so to govern what can be thought -and what can be said -within a field?…”

“…Such a reading is important because, as Nikolas Rose (1999, 9) reminds us, 'concepts are more important for what they do than for what they mean' and we seem to most often discuss what concepts contain, signify and mean (for those who develop them and those who interpret and/or critique them) rather than what they do, that is, the effects they have. Thus I offer this reading not as a critique of either position but in the spirit of 'generous scholarship', of which Russell (2006) speaks, in and for the field. I begin by further outlining the similarities I see between 'education for the environment' and 'education for sustainability', before turning to some of the indications that 'education for the environment' can be seen (theoretically at least) as an orthodoxy for the field.…”

Environmental education research: will the ends outstrip the means?

“…These can further complicate and limit the appropriate content and conduct of professional learning and capacity building in environmental education research specifically, and at a variety of scales. Indeed, if programmes do emerge, as with the case of significant life experience research, has the field learnt the lessons of how we engage and debate such research in public such that it balances the needs of both generous and critical scholarship (Russell 2006)? With many reports and articles in environmental education research still being derived at least at some stage from what some might regard as the building blocks of a research field -doctoral studies (including a high degree of practitioner or small-scale researches) -and factoring in a conversion rate to academic posts perhaps in the range of usually less than 50% for doctoral students (see the Arts and Humanities Research Council, UK -www.ahrc.ac.uk -for a review of career profiles across all disciplinary areas in the UK), the suspension or redirection of academic pursuits on the part of new researchers and their career choices and conditions does not automatically induce a diversification of, and progression in, the repertoires in a research community across an evolving spectrum of methodologies and ends.…”

A critical pedagogy of place: from gridlock to parallax

“…2. See also Russell (2006) for a discussion of generous scholarship: attention to this issue of how we talk to one another is not new in broader academia or within environmental education. 3.…”