Philosophical Issues In Environmental Education

An international group of environmental philosophers and educators propose ways universities can produce and promote ecological literacy and environmental ethics.

This well-constructed, and highly original, sourcebook integrates educational materials for teaching environmental ethics with theoretical reflections. The book is set to contribute immensely to its aim of taking ethics out of philosophy departments and putting it into the streets, into villages, and on the Earth—to make ethics an everyday activity, not something left to experts and specialists. Context-based activities are presented in almost every chapter. While it acknowledges foundational theories in environmental ethics, and the work that they continue to do, it wholeheartedly embraces a growing body of literature that emphasises contextual, process-oriented, and place-based approaches to ethical reflection, deliberation, and action. It walks on the ground and isn’t afraid to get a little dirty or to seek joy in earthly relationships. And it ultimately breaks with much Western academic tradition by framing “ethics in a storied world”, thus making room to move beyond Euro-American perspectives in environmental issues. This work will be of interest to school teachers and other non-formal and informal educators, teacher educators, college instructors, university professors, and other professionals who wish to bring environmental ethics to the forefront of their pedagogical practices.

This book is a rigorous, yet accessible introduction into the current philosophical discourses underpinning practices of environmental education. It provides a comprehensive theoretical framework, relating philosophical key issues and educational concerns in an intrinsic manner, against the background of current practices and policies. While the issues discussed are complex and abstract, the book is readable for a general audience.

This book explores alternative ways of understanding our environmental situation by challenging the Western view of nature as purely a resource for humans. Environmental Consciousness, Nature and the Philosophy of Education asserts that we need to retrieve a thinking that expresses a different relationship with nature: one that celebrates nature's otherness and is attuned to its intrinsic integrity, agency, normativity and worth. Through such receptivity to nature's address we can develop a sense of our own being-in-nature that provides a positive orientation towards the problems we now face. Michael Bonnett argues that this reframing and rethinking of our place in nature has fundamental implications for education as a whole, questioning the idea of human "stewardship" of nature and developing the idea of moral education in a world of alterity and non-rational agents. Drawing on and revising work published by the author over the last 15 years, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of environmental studies, environmental education, and the philosophy of education.

Eco-Rational Education proposes an educational response to climate change, environmental degradation, and desctructive human relations to ecology through the delivery of critical land-responsive environmental education. The book argues that education is a powerful vehicle for both social change and cultural reproduction. It proposes that the prioritisation and integration of environmental education across the curriculum is essential to the development of ecologically rational citizens capable of responding to the environmental crisis and an increasingly changing world. Using philosophical analysis, particularly environmental philosophy, pragmatism, and ecofeminism, the book develops an understanding of contemporary issues in education, especially inquiry-based learning as pedagogy, diversifying knowledge, environmental and epistemic justice, climate change education, and citizenship education. Eco-Rational Education will be of interest to researchers and post-graduate students of social and political philosophy, educational philosophy, as well as environmental philosophy, ethics, and teacher education.

The project examines how three prominent philosophers of education - William Torrey Harris, John Dewey, and Gregory Bateson - each developed a world view that provides a philosophical basis for environmental education.

This volume discusses theory, philosophy, praxis and methods in Environmental and Ecological education, and considers the junction with the main visions and issues of Critical Pedagogy. The volume and its separate chapters address four axes, which can also be seen as the guidelines of the content as well as the central objectives of the book. The first axis concerns the missing theoretical and practical pieces at this point in time. The volume considers the issues that are not included in contemporary Environmental Education, and thus, deprive it from critical orientations. This implies that in Environmental Education, very little discussion exists about the political, economic, racial, gender and class issues that in most cases govern the actions of leaders and stake-holders. The second axis concerns what has been done so far and in what directions. This involves descriptions of theoretical approaches or actual applied methodologies in the classroom, such as curricula or syllabus used or the kind of actions certain educators have taken to infuse the issues of justice and critical reflection within the Environmental Education teaching agenda. The third axis examines proposals. It looks at ways to enrich domains of Environmental Education with the argumentations of Critical Pedagogy. The fourth axis concerns the way in which proposals can be effectuated. This part contains specific methodologies and teaching sequences, depicting ways of including major aspects of Critical Pedagogy and Critical Education in Environmental Education. Examples are: Non-anthropocentric ecological approaches in the classroom, political activism in the Curricula, mixture of field activities and political activities.