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Theorising of Outdoor Education: Purpose and Practice
Abstract
Many individuals freely opt to take part in outdoor adventure activities. A high proportion of these first encountered such activities as a consequence of a school or youth group initially offering them an introductory ‘taster’. This chapter concentrates on facilitated interventions that offer outdoor adventure experiences explicitly for developmental purposes. Like Roberts (2012), the author makes a distinction between ‘learning by doing’, that is developing skills and knowledge in order to learn a subject or craft, and ‘experiential education’ that Roberts notes is concerned with the emerging identities of young people, their relations with others and the world around them, and their trajectory as they negotiate a place in the adult world. Whilst learning the skills and knowledge of an outdoor adventure (OA) activity is a necessary and beneficial aspect of outdoor adventure education (OAE) it is the broader purpose these new skills are used for and what this means to young people that lies at the core of OAE.
... This study found that immersive experiences and incidental learning were prominent features of Outdoor Education programs (Loynes, 2017) and identified the immersion of participants in different natural environments which were removed from their regular classroom context as the most distinctive feature of Outdoor Education in secondary schools. Therefore, the role of Outdoor Education may be perceived as a demonstration of the capacity to provide a diverse range of immersive and holistic learning opportunities in different learning environments which were beyond the context of regular classroom learning. ...
... Data generated from this study revealed that Outdoor Education highlights SEL outcomes which contributed to both wellbeing and academic progress in other areas. Findings aligned with previous research in reinforcing that Outdoor Education provides holistic learning outcomes through immersion, experience and challenge in the natural environment and unique opportunities for undirected and incidental learning (Loynes, 2017) in the areas of personal and social development. In addition, it was acknowledged that any personal, social or environmental learning or developmental outcomes associated with Outdoor Education must first begin by the provision and acceptance of learning opportunities in these areas. ...
The domain of Outdoor Education within Australia has many definitions. These definitions have evolved over time, and often overlap depending on location and context. Therefore, definitions of Outdoor Education carry with them a diverse range of understandings regarding its form and place in secondary school curriculum. As a result, it has been neglected as a mandated component of the formal curriculum for secondary schools in Victoria. Outdoor Education provides many learning outcomes beyond the scope of the specified curriculum. The primary purpose of this research is to review and acknowledge these outcomes in the context of the formal curriculum. The study involved two phases, a curriculum document analysis and interviews with recognised and respected experts in the field of Outdoor Education. The findings from the curriculum analysis reinforced that Outdoor Education as a component of curriculum was virtually absent from both the National and Victorian state curriculum structures. Interview results revealed that due to an extensive array of differing perspectives regarding Outdoor Education, the capacity to define it as a field of study and practice is complex and descriptions should be contextual. Overall, the data also revealed that Outdoor Education has many outcomes beyond the realm of formal mandated curriculum requirements and that these outcomes are important whether they are included in official curriculum or not. As a result, recommendations from this study are that Outdoor Education be included as a compulsory curriculum within all school year levels in Australia and that the unrecognised outcomes of Outdoor Education programs be regarded as legitimate irrespective of their status within the formal curriculum.
... However, losing sight of the values underpinning outdoor education, of emergent, student-focused, and tailored learning, and allowing McDonaldization to proliferate, is "almost always counterproductive" (Loynes, 2018:34). Loynes (2018) is referring here to the irrationality of rationality, or how the spread of McDonaldization can lead to the homogenisation of practice. Essentially, "inefficiency, unpredictability, incalculability, and loss of control" (Ritzer, 2019:167) can be the end result of systems becoming more and more McDonaldized. ...
... Drasdo The uncritical acceptance of such repeatable programmes "misunderstands the human education process as a technical industrial production process in which standardised and economically viable procedures guarantee the production of always identical products" (Becker, 2016:20). Loynes (2018) is also cognisant of the pressure to deliver financially viable programmes, and he questions whether such activities can justly be called educative, as they are missing the "more organic, person-centred, complex, open-ended and longer-term encounter" (p. 34) that allows students to flourish. ...
Outdoor education has been growing as a sector in Ireland since its inception in the 1960s. There has, however, been a lack of empirical research into the development of outdoor education practice in Ireland. In the absence of a coherent theory of practice, and critically reflective practitioners, outdoor education in Ireland is at the mercy of tacit ideological forces that shape its values and purpose in problematic ways. This ethno-case study aimed to examine Irish outdoor education’s espoused theory and actual practice. Contemporary outdoor education practice and how this practice has been influenced by historical, political, and societal developments in Ireland was the main focus of this study. Four publicly funded Outdoor Education and Training Centres (OETCs) were involved in this study and data were gathered during 2016 and 2017. Data were generated, to gain insight into the daily practice in the OETCs, through participant observation and informal conversation. The public view portrayed of public provision outdoor education (websites analysis), and the internal policy of how to deliver outdoor education (centre documentation analysis) were also useful in generating data. Analysis of the dataset was in line with thematic analysis, and this was interpreted through the lens of McDonaldization (Ritzer, 2019). The validity of my analysis and interpretation was shown through a detailed summary of methods, member checks, researcher reflexivity, and internal reliability checks. The analysis and interpretation of data is presented through creative non-fiction stories. This approach, whilst uncommon in outdoor education research, allowed me to maintain a high level of anonymity, and protect the identities of the research participants coming from such a small, close-knit community. The four key findings of this research inquiry, described in these creative non-fiction stories, show the McDonaldization of public outdoor education practice in Ireland, as well as a lack of theoretical underpinning in practice, with logistics informing programmes more than educational objectives, and an ideological dissonance between espoused values and actual practice. Irish public outdoor education, with its focus on adventure sports training, has become somewhat haphazard in its vision for practice. This is not helped by the lack of interest shown from local and national government in embedding outdoor education into the curriculum. This thesis argues that a rebranding of the OETCs as adventure training centres, or a shifting of focus to concentrate on health and wellbeing as opposed to education are viable options for future practice. Should public outdoor education aspire to be integrated into the mainstream curriculum, a refocus of practice, along with a major upskilling of practitioners, is needed.
... Inspired by Biesta (2020b), we understand education as oriented towards socialisation into cultures and values, shaping children into independent subjects, and transferring specific knowledge and skills. Thus, education includes perspectives on teachers and learners that connect with perspectives on outdoor education (Loynes, 2018). ...
... There is always a risk that something unpredictable might happen in children's correspondences with the environment because stones on the seabed may be slippery and because roots may taste awful and even be poisonous. The example illustrates the widely recognised complexity and unpredictability of facilitating outdoor educational situations (Loynes, 2018). The open and flexible didactic approach can also expose teachers to uncertainty because, as in any educational case, they encounter countless questions that need answers: What do children experience? ...
There is a tendency in European education policy to emphasise more and better deliberate learning outcomes. The tendency is criticised for taking an instrumental view of education [Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Routledge,; van Manen, M. (2008). Pedagogical sensitivity and teachers practical knowing-in-action. Peking University Education Review, 6(1), 2–20. http://www.maxvanmanen.com/files/2011/04/2008-Pedagogical-Sensitivity-Teachers-Practical-Knowing-in-Action.pdf] and threatening children’s self-governed play opportunities [Pettersvold, M., & Østrem, S. (2019). Problembarna: Metoder og manualer i barnehage, skole og barnevern. Cappelen Damm akademisk]. However, self-governed play outdoors is perceived as educationally important, notably within Nordic early childhood education. This paper aims to contribute to the international debate on what constitutes good education by investigating an outdoor education culture framed within the context of Nordic early childhood education. We investigate the research question of what characterises teachers’ outdoor didactics in self-governed play and growth as these appear in a Norwegian nature kindergarten? The theoretical framework builds on (1) perspectives on Bildung as playful self-formation [Løvlie, L. (2002). The promise of bildung. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36(3), 467–486. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.00288; Steinsholt, K. (2010). Vi må miste oss selv for å finne oss selv igjen. Lek, erfaring og danning hos Hans-Georg Gadamer. In K. Steinsholt, & K. P. Gurholt (Eds.), Aktive liv (pp. 101–119). Tapir Akademiske Forlag] and (2) a relational perspective on children’s self-governed outdoor play as a way of integrated dwelling and growth through intimate correspondence with environments [Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, (2018). Anthropology and/as education: Anthropology, art, architecture and design. Routledge]. Data were generated through ethnographic fieldwork in a public Norwegian nature kindergarten that emphasises children’s outdoor play as educationally important. Nineteen children aged 4–6 participated. The fieldwork drew on participant observation, including playing with the children and on-site conversations. Using the theoretical framework as a lens, the educational culture is conceptualised as didactic sensitivity, which entails the teachers’ delicate sensitivity and responsiveness towards children and place. The teachers act professionally by creating unique, thoughtful, responsive, and situated conditions for children’s autonomous growth in natural environments.
... The uncritical acceptance of such repeatable programmes, in terms of efficiency as well as calculability and predictability, 'misunderstands the human education process as a technical industrial production process in which standardised and economically viable procedures guarantee the production of always identical products' (Becker, 2016, p. 20). Loynes (2018) is also cognisant of the pressure to deliver financially viable programmes, and he questions whether such activities can justly be called educative. He argues that they are missing the 'more organic, person-centred, complex, open-ended and longer-term encounter' (p. ...
This paper presents key findings from a study that aimed to critically examine the practice of outdoor education in the Republic of Ireland. It consisted of 10 months of fieldwork across four public Outdoor Education and Training Centres (OETCs). Data were generated through participant observation, informal conversation, as well as centre websites. Findings from the thematic analysis are presented in the form of a creative non-fiction story—principally to protect the identities and centres involved. The findings were then interpreted through the theoretical lens of McDonaldization. Considering the dearth of outdoor education research in Ireland, McDonaldization provided a lens through which it was possible to more deeply understand how rationalisation has affected Irish public outdoor education practices. The discussion explores practices inconsistent with the stated Irish definitions of public outdoor education and the paper concludes with suggestions as to how the McDonaldization of outdoor education may be countered.
Friluftsliv (“free-air life”) and outdoor education programmes should educate for sustainable development in response to the crisis facing the natural world. By aiming for education for sustain-able development, friluftsliv education programmes could facilitate an ecocentric shift in the human–nature relationship that is arguably an underlying cause of the crisis. This article seeks new insight into friluftsliv students’ relationship with nature through their reports on their own friluftsliv. The article aims to provide critical insight into how friluftsliv and outdoor education may lead to more sustainable relationships with nature. The empirical work consists of eight interviews analysed within a framework of posthuman and ecocritical theory.
The findings indicate that the friluftsliv students in this study have formed an anthropocentric relationship with nature within a nature–culture dichotomy in their own friluftsliv. Although the students in this study are environmentally conscious, as they are building their relationship with nature within a nature–culture dichotomy, they do not hold themselves accountable beyond their own private relationship with nature. Consequently, these students experience tension within this nature–culture dichotomy between their ecologically aware relationship with nature and their anthropocentric view of nature.
Friluftsliv and outdoor educational programmes should make their relationships with nature explicit and should critically examine how they represent nature through educational practice.
In this significantly revised second edition of Bronwyn Hayward's acclaimed book Children Citizenship and Environment, she examines how students, with teachers, parents, and other activists, can learn to take effective action to confront the complex drivers of the current climate crisis including: economic and social injustice, colonialism and racism. The global school strikes demand adults, governments, and businesses take far-reaching action in response to our climate crisis. The school strikes also remind us why this important youthful activism urgently needs the support of all generations. The #SchoolStrike edition of Children Citizenship and Environment includes all new contributions by youth, indigenous and disability activists, researchers and educators: Raven Cretney, Mehedi Hasan, Sylvia Nissen, Jocelyn Papprill, Kate Prendergast, Kera Sherwood O' Regan, Mia Sutherland, Amanda Thomas, Sara Tolbert, Sarah Thomson, Josiah Tualamali'i, and Amelia Woods. As controversial, yet ultimately hopeful, as it was when first published, Bronwyn Hayward develops her 'SEEDS' model of 'strong ecological citizenship' for a school strike generation. The SEEDS of citizenship education encourage students to develop skills for Social agency, Environmental education, Embedded justice, Decentred deliberation and Self-transcendence. This approach to citizenship supports young citizens' democratic imagination and develops their 'handprint' for social justice. This ground-breaking book will be of interest to a wide audience, in particular teachers and professionals who work in Environmental Citizenship Education, as well as students and community activists with an interest in environmental change, democracy and intergenerational justice.
Since 1960, the lives of young people in their late teens and twenties have changed so dramatically that a new stage of life has developed. In his provocative work, Jeffrey Jensen Arnett has identified the period of emerging adulthood as distinct from both the adolescence that precedes it and the young adulthood that comes in its wake. Arnett's new theory has created an entire thriving field of research due to his book that launched the field, Emerging Adulthood.
On the 10th Anniversary of the publication of his groundbreaking work, the second edition of Emerging Adulthood fully updates and expands Arnett's findings and includes brand new chapters on media use, social class issues, and the distinctive problems of this life stage. Merging stories from the lives of emerging adults themselves with decades of research, Arnett covers a wide range of other topics as well, including love and sex, relationships with parents, experiences at college and work, and views of what it means to be an adult. As the nature of growing up and the meaning of adulthood further evolve, Emerging Adulthood will continue to be essential reading for understanding ages 18-29.
A philosophical account of the place of autonomous and heteronomous work in human well-being - in general, in relation to our present society, and in relation to the 'activity' society that might replace it, The final section is on prospects for the distribution of work in the future.
I will start with a story. It is an account of a two-day personal development course for a group of work colleagues that took place on the Pembrokeshire coast several years ago. I was one of the facilitators and I am the storyteller. It has been written so as to highlight the interpretation of the event as a heroic journey.
Residential adventure education is a surprisingly powerful developmental experience. This paper reports on a mixed-methods study focused on English primary school pupils aged 9–11, which used complexity theory to throw light on the synergistic inter-relationships between the different aspects of that experience. Broadly expressed, the research question was how (if at all) do pupils change following a residential adventure education experience, how does any change relate to their experience during the course and what are the implications? Qualitative findings suggest that the process of personal development through residential adventure education is a complex system, in which transformative step changes arise in some pupils as a natural and possibly inevitable consequence of the complex nature of the process. Quantitative findings include evidence that the number of schools that offer residential experience is increasing but that fewer opportunities are available in schools with more deprived catchment areas. An instrument to assess the impact of a residential experience on pupils was designed and tested, showing four reliable components: living with others, challenge, teacher relationships and learning about self. Pupils' classroom attainment was significantly correlated with their perception of the impact of the course. There was a significant improvement in prosocial behaviour and a significant reduction in self-perceived hyperactivity from pre-course to post-course.
Self, others and nature (environment) have been suggested over numerous decades and in various places as a way of understanding experience in outdoor education. These three elements and the relations between them appear to cover it all. But is this really the final word on understanding experience? In this paper I explore two emphases within experience expressed by Peirce that offer differing ways of understanding experience: in one emphasis self, others and nature are submerged and not discerned; in the other they appear as the three familiar and related elements. The first emphasis is phenomenological and focused on a simple whole; the other is pragmatic and concerned with a total whole (elements in a totality). The key distinction here is that between something simple (one-fold) and something total (manifold). For Heidegger the difference between these is the ontological difference, where the two differing emphases are be-ing (verb) and beings (noun); or, expressed in another way, phenomenological thinking and calculative thinking. For Dewey these two emphases are revealed as aesthetic and reflective experience, both connected via inquiry. Awareness of this difference and connection suggests that issues involving self, others and nature as elements emerge from and return to the aesthetic ways of being (or occupations) that we build through our programme design and conduct. Relations between self, others and nature are submerged within these ways of being, highlighting how our programme design and conduct does not merely concern activities (including reflective activities), but involves building ways of being.
This paper provides an informed and critical understanding of the concept of self-esteem. It explores
this psychological construct in relation to its use in adventure education and outdoor learning.
Enhancing a participant’s self-esteem is perceived to be fundamentally a good thing and is culturally
linked to the Hahnian notion that implies outdoor education is good for character-building
and more recently personal development. This paper suggests that the improvement of self-esteem
has become a reified programme outcome as well as an argument for the value and importance of
outdoor education programmes. In this paper I seek to address the often uncritical and at times
evangelical claim that outdoor programmes enhance self-esteem. This paper looks at the development
of self-esteem generally and then considers its appearance in the outdoor education literature.
Aspects of this that relate to outdoor learning and adventure education include: development of the
self, behaviour, disaffected young people, recent UK developments and common misconceptions
regarding self-esteem. These are explored and their implications for practice and research are considered.
The essence of this paper is that outdoor educators need to be more critical, informed and
specific about exactly what it is they are trying to achieve, how their programmes are evaluated,
particularly with outcomes that are related to potential changes in ‘self’ and how these changes are
measured.
My background is as a teacher and youth worker and so what I know is mostly about young people. I believe that what I have to say about young people in the context of education for sustainability has wider implications to adults as well. This is either because they also missed out on the education I believe is lacking for young people or because they are the people who can provide that missing education for both themselves and the youth of today. I live in a liberal, capitalist, democracy. The trends in this culture have has made a major impact on the experience of being a young person. In three generations the UK has moved from a culture in which financial independence was achieved, on average, at 16 in 1950 (my parents generation) to 25 in 2000 (my children's generation). This has created nine years of previously impossible youth. These young people have a longer education, more leisure time, more disposable income, fewer jobs and greater economic and class mobility. A rich youth culture is one of the outcomes of this. During this time young people are expected to construct a lifestyle for themselves from a broader range of employment, education, faith, friendship, housing, relationship and neighbourhood choices. Guidance on this project also comes from a wider range of sources and is often less easily accessed or offered (Roche and Tucker, 1997). In the UK version of this lifestyle education and politics have become increasingly pragmatic moving away from debates about values and focussing on the practicalities of citizenship, employment and health. This often means support is available for those still competing for a place in the meritocracy that has, in part, replaced our previous class system. For example, in European Union policy, young people are categorised as student, worker or problem. In the last five years the English statutory youth service has been transformed from an advocacy and support agency for young people and their issues into a career guidance service.
Rites of passage models, drawing from ethnographic descriptions of ritualized transition, are widespread in adventure therapy programmes. However, critical literature suggests that: (a) contemporary rites of passage models derive from a selective and sometimes misleading use of ethnographic materials, and (b) the appropriation of initiatory practices and motifs out of the cultural contexts from which they emerged may be both unethical and ineffective. This paper explores the origins and applications of rites of passage models in adventure therapy, and discusses some of the central critical questions around their use. It challenges the simplistic use of complex cultural processes and offers some guidelines for the ethical and practical integration of such models in service of therapeutic outcomes.
Outdoor education uses the ‘outdoor’ space in various ways. This chapter explores some aspects of the outdoors as a fantasy space. I will compare this way of using spaces with concepts of play and storytelling and suggest that, whilst drawing on these traditions, what has developed has unique elements that suit it to the modern western world. I will describe the way in which the meta-narratives of the hero’s journey are used to create a structure in which people can explore their autonomy, power and creativity that is their agency. In particular I will discuss how the hero’s journey offers a rite of passage from youth to adult at a time when this transition has become increasingly
problematic. As outdoor education has provided this opportunity largely unintentionally and unsystematically, this interpretation will help identify some weaknesses in normative provision. I will conclude by identifying ways in which the hero meta-narrative might improve practice.
This article is concerned with the place and status of outdoor learning within formal schooling. In light of recent British outdoor educational trends, it considers the general educational significance of outdoor learning in the context of the recent Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. The article begins with an overview of some key educational concerns, and – drawing on the philosophies of Aristotle and Dewey – some discussion of the educational significance of interdisciplinary teaching and learning. The empirical component of the article focuses on visits to schools and outdoor education centres to explore teachers' understandings of, beliefs about and values concerning outdoor learning. The article relates these views to the philosophies of Aristotle and Dewey and to outdoor learning understood as an essentially interdisciplinary moral enterprise. It concludes by exploring some possible practical and curricular implications of teachers' views in light of the Curriculum for Excellence.
The authors describe a model of psychological depth and present some general principles that will enable adventure practitioners to manage the psychological level in the groups for which they are responsible. These principles call for the leader to pay attention to their language and the language of group participants. In particular, attention should be paid to four main criteria.
The first of these criteria is an indication of the way in which the participant is involved in the topic under discussion. The second criterion is derived from paying attention to the nature of relationships that are embedded in the participant's conversation. The third criterion is the level of emotional arousal experienced by the participant; no involvement indicating shallow psychological levels and stronger emotional arousal indicating increasing depth. The fourth criterion for assessing psychological depth is a measure of the normal bounds of confidentiality and privacy with which the subject under discussion would normally be treated.
Rites of passage practices have caught the attention of educators seeking better methods of teaching adolescents. The fascination with the rites of passage model (ROP) is especially strong among outdoor educators. Once Van Gennep (1960) defined the rites of passage, a three-stage system of social transformation mediating role changes in a community, anthropologists were able to observe his social conception throughout all cultures. Outdoor educators have demonstrated interest in framing outdoor programs as rites of passage because of the structural similarities between outdoor programs and Van Gennep's first and second stages of a rite of passage.
While the ROP model has similarities to outdoor programs, the model is generally ineffective in most contemporary contexts because of challenges associated with the third stage of the ROP model. It is important for outdoor programs to understand these challenges prior to investing effort into using ROP models to achieve expected lasting benefits.
Most outdoor adventure programs use a Contemporary Adventure Model to mediate change, a fundamentally different rite of passage from the classic anthropological model. Outdoor educators need to decide among three choices with a ROP: abandon the ROP framework based upon a lack of goal congruence, follow a classic model and answer the many challenges the model brings with it, or follow a contemporary adventure model while cognizant of the model's weaknesses.
This paper explores the interrelationship of space, the elements and the embodied experiences of water-based physical activity. It draws upon alternative forms of research and representation to draw out the embodied nature of the experiences in exploring the practices of windsurfing amongst communities of windsurfers. It proposes that ethnography and autoethnography can provide for unique insights into the embodied experiences of the life-worlds of ‘being’ in nature. These inter-related methodologies provide particular insights into understanding when the body, grounded through its senses, makes sense of and interacts with its natural surroundings. It argues that autoethnography may provide methodologies for understanding and analysing connections between personal embodied nature-based experiences, culture and nature. This paper brings into play personal experience in windsurfing and autoethnographies of other nature-based sport to uncover connections between body, affects, emotions and the senses as the body engages with natural elements. It engages with expressions of spirituality, as alternative to ‘flow’, and the speculative notion of kinetic empathy to propose the concept of body pedagogics as analytically useful in exploring social and environmental action in local and global spaces.
This paper explores the role of narrative in the Stoneleigh Project, an outdoor retreat approach to supporting marginalised young people in becoming agents of personal and social change. The metaphor of a journey, developed by sociological writers, is applied to the transition of young people to adulthood. Undertaken as a narrative enquiry, the programme is analysed in the context of educational theory especially Bernstein's theory of recognition codes. The way in which this unusual programme encourages the development of new personal narratives both verbally and in embodied forms is explored. Examples illustrate how young people applied their narratives to the reconstruction of their personal histories in ways that empowered them to begin journeys of transformation of their identities. Further examples examine how these journeys led, in many cases, to significant life changes brought about by the actions of the young people. A retreat style of programme and an understanding of narrative are suggested as strategies for those assisting the personal development of young people. Narrative enquiry is suggested as an approach to understanding experiential education programmes.
This exploratory study investigated the impact of participation in a three-week adventure education (AE) expedition upon levels of resilience of university students. Resilience is considered to be a dynamic process of positive adaptation to significant threat or adversity and may be an important variable to study as college students often live stressful lives involving academic workloads, relationship building and self-identity that often require the development of coping skills and resilience. Little research, however, has been conducted on the ability to enhance levels of resilience through AE activities within a college or university setting. The specific research questions studied included: (1) Do resilience scores change as a result of a short-term AE experience, and (2) What specific experiences did participants report that were related to the concept of resilience? Using a mixed method, with quantitative responses from the treatment group and the comparison group, paired sample t-tests resulted in a significant increase only in the treatment group. Following semi-structured interviews with 10 graduates two to three years after the expedition, six themes emerged as important aspects in developing a sense of resilience. These themes included perseverance, self-awareness, social support, confidence, responsibility to others, and achievement.
This study aimed at examining the effects of an outdoor educational intervention on the mental health of schoolchildren. Two elementary schools participated (N = 230); one experimental school where the intervention was implemented, and the other a reference school. Demographic questions and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were completed by the parents. An outdoor educational intervention was implemented at the experimental school, and the data collection was repeated after one year. The results point towards a small but non-significant improvement in mental health at the experimental school while adjusting for demographics. However, this effect was significantly moderated by gender: boys generally fared better than girls at the intervention school, relative to the reference school. The results indicate that it may be important to address gender issues when educational programmes are implemented in schools.
Groups are ubiquitous in outdoor education and while there is a lot of literature on groups, there is limited examination of the assumptions made about groups and the effects these assumptions have on the practices of outdoor education. I utilise some of Michel Foucaulf’s (1992) tools to investigate literature on outdoor education groups. Understandings of groups in outdoor education are primarily framed as a tension between recognition of individual needs and group needs and the literature is largely concerned with balancing these oppositional forces. Seeing this tension as part of the same dynamic loosens its hold as a foundational ‘truth’ of groups and opens a space to foreground the social context in which outdoor education occurs. It also opens a space to question some of the assumptions individuals bring with them about roles and responsibilities and the impact these have on other group members.
Anthropology is a disciplined inquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life. Generations of theorists, however, have expunged life from their accounts, treating it as the mere output of patterns, codes, structures or systems variously defined as genetic or cultural, natural or social. Building on his classic work The Perception of the Environment, Tim Ingold sets out to restore life to where it should belong, at the heart of anthropological concern.
In this piece, we put forth a Deweyian framework for youth development activities in outdoor and adventure education programs, and we show how such a framework may be exemplified by activities in sail training and sailing instruction. The paper begins with a discussion of the theoretical features of Deweyian educational experiences and makes connections between these ideas and positive youth development. We then, by reference to the educational activities aboard vessels large and small, provide concrete illustrations of these theoretical features. The goal of the paper is to propose a framework that educators in outdoor and adventure programs—and in youth development programs generally—can employ to bring Dewey's ideas to bear on program design and assessment.
Case studies of the contemporary UK sail training movement are used to illustrate the competing expressions of purpose in this field. Two sail training organisations are described and a case study voyage under the aegis of each is presented. The differences between the approaches are analysed as “traditions” or ideologies, articulated through distinctive interpretations of power and contrasting approaches to participation in decision making. It is argued that choices regarding the type of vessel used and the voyages made are not neutral technical decisions but have ideological significance. In conclusion the application of such an analysis to other kinds of outdoor and adventure education is considered.
The way the outdoors was used for educational purposes was determined by the need for young men to be made fit for war and service in the British Empire, the need to improve the physical health of children from industrial conurbations and the preoccupation of those in authority with the notion of adolescence as a problem, especially the anticipated fear of juvenile delinquency. In the 1950s and early 1960s, when there was a significant increase in the use of the outdoors in education, much of the provision reflected the earlier emphasis on character training and “manly” virtues. The suggestion is made that this was due, in part at least, to the role played by a number of charismatic and influential figures and to continued sensitivity to social, political and military factors.
According to prevailing models, experiential learning is by definition a stepwise process beginning with direct experience, followed by reflection, followed by learning. It has been argued, however, that stepwise models inadequately explain the holistic learning processes that are central to learning from experience, and that they lack scientific or philosophical foundations. Criticism also centers on the way complex cultural, social, and physical processes during experience and learning are reduced to a rational, excessively cognitive, individual phenomenon. This article reviews this criticism and adds a historical dimension to the analysis, concluding that existing cyclic models might be better valued for their important historical contribution, rather than as active theories of learning in experiential education.
DTAG is a consortium of long-established providers — Brathay Hall Trust, Endeavour Training, Lindley Educational Trust, Outward Bound and the YMCA — loosely associated with Project Trident, the National Association of Outdoor Education and formerly with the Industrial Society. Contact can be made through Bertie Everard at 2 Fern Grove, Welwyn Garden City, Herts AL8 7ND.
Learning is a metaphoric function in which the individual confirms or reorders his sense of reality by relating previous experiences with present ones. Outward Bound, an experiential learning approach, incorporates this insight in its theoretical foundations. The effectiveness of the metaphor is dependent on the extent to which the experience is isomorphic of, that is, similar in structure to, the normal life situation of the student. The validity of an attitude to human existence can be judged by the accuracy with which it reflects the characteristics of the natural world as encountered in wilderness experiences. Various chapters of this book, which is intended as an instructor's manual for Outward Bound staff, discuss the techniques involved in (1) assessing what experiences will be isomorphic with the needs of students; (2) reframing the experience so that its value will be more accessible; (3) understanding the archetypal value of the wilderness setting of Outward Bound (archetypes specifically discussed include growth, space, justice, fate, The Mother, Community, The Leader, The Hermit, and The Hero); and (4) circumventing metaphor failures. Two appendices provide outlines of the Outward Bound process and objectives. (SKW)
This article examines empirical studies and theoretical models that explain the complex relationship between nature-based recreation and spirituality. Antecedent conditions include personal history, current circumstances, attitude, motivation, socio-demographic characteristics, and spiritual tradition. Setting components include being in nature, being away to a different environment, and place processes. Recreation components include activity, free time, solitude, group experiences, and facilitation. The article further explains how these conditions and components may lead to outcomes of spiritual experiences, spiritual well-being, and leisure-spiritual coping. Previous models have not taken into account the complexity of the nature-based recreation and spirituality relationship. Recommendations are made for future research and model development.
The article outlines the main points in my new book with Martin Allen. Published by Continuum in April 2010, it questions whether young people today really are a 'lost generation' as they have been called by the media. Or whether 'new strategies for youth and education' can bring together student and non-student youth in new forms of learning with their teachers through which the latter could recover their expertise if not their professionalism. This question is critical to the future of Education Studies to which our book sees itself as a contribution. It is addressed to teachers and students alike and builds upon our previous publication Education make you fick, innit? (Tufnell Press 2008). This was developed from an Education Studies core course in education policy. Now we suggest that, rather than being 'lost,' many young people know perfectly well where they are but are 'stuck'. Anxious to enter employment, repay debts and move on with their lives, they are a generation all dressed up but with nowhere to go. Inevitably, amongst the immediate consequences of this will be even more pressure for top grades in examinations to gain HE places with higher fees combined with pressure for shorter, local and more vocational courses. Concomitantly, many young people may begin to believe that education is losing its legitimacy as an agent for moving their lives forward into a meaningful and productive adult world. Hopefully the article can contribute to debate in Educationalfutures on how best to confront this development.
Experience and Educationis the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education(Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received. Analysing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.
Venturing into other territories: reflections on theoretical journeys of social and cultural exclusion in outdoor environments
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Urban nature: inclusive learning through youth work and school work
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The Power of Experiential Learning
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The Unfamiliar is All Around Us -Always. About the necessity of the element of unfamiliarity in the education process and its relationship to adventure
- P Becker
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Adventure Programming and the Fundamental Attribution Error: A Critique of Neo-Hahnian Outdoor Education Theory
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