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Theorising of outdoor education
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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.
I am putting this on RG because of the increasing interest (as of Jan 2018) in the future of work and its impact on our lives, given the likelihood of massively increased automation and decline in full-time jobs for life in the next decades. As all this will take place during the working lives of those now at school and soon to be so, there are implications for the kind of education we provide. Should school and university education be as orientated as it is today towards increasing the chances of a 'good' job? Could other aims of education to do with personal and civic well-being come more to the fore?
This is the opening of my 1997 book Education and the End of Work: a new philosophy of work and learning London: Cassell. (Hebrew translation Israel: Massada 2002) I will add individual chapters as I get through the scanning...
This section includes the contents page. As is clear from this, the book looks at.the work culture we have now (Ch1); sees what philosophers have had to say about the nature of work (Ch2); examines relationships between work and well-being (Ch3); looks at possible future work scenarios and their impact on education (Ch4); looks in more detail at the role of various educational agencies (Ch5)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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