Participation and Learning : Perspectives on Education and the Environment, Health and Sustainability

This ground-breaking collection brings together a diverse range of perspectives on the philosophy, design and experience of participatory approaches within education and the environment, health and sustainability. Chapters address participatory work with children, youth and adults in both formal and non-formal settings. Authors combine reflections on experience, models and case studies of participatory education with commentary on key debates and issues. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and advanced students with interests in learning, research and key concepts in environmental education, health education, and education for sustainable development, and professionals and practitioners engaged in planning and evaluation. Cover......Page 1 Participation and Learning......Page 3 ISBN 9781402064159......Page 4 Preface......Page 6 Contents......Page 10 Contributors......Page 14 1 Participation and Learning: Developing Perspectives on Education and the Environment, Health and Sustainability......Page 24 2 Stepping Back from ‘The Ladder’: Refl ections on a Model of Participatory Work with Children......Page 42 3 Differentiating and Evaluating Conceptions and Examples of Participation in Environment-Related Learning......Page 55 4 Learning in and as Participation: A Case Study from Health-Promoting Schools......Page 84 5 Environmental Learning and Categories of Interest: Exploring Modes of Participation and Learning in a Conservation NGO......Page 104 6 Participation and the Ecology of Environmental Awareness and Action......Page 121 7 Participation, Situated Culture, and Practical Reason......Page 134 8 From Practice to Theory: Participation as Learning in the Context of Sustainable Development Projects......Page 151 9 Participation and Sustainable Development: The Role and Challenges of Mediating Agents......Page 167 10 Mental Ownership and Participation for Innovation in Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development......Page 182 11 Participation, Education, and Democracy: Implications for Environmental Education, Health Education, and Education for Sustainable Development......Page 204 12 What Comes Before Participation? Searching for Meaning in Teachers’ Constructions of Participatory Learning in Environmental Education......Page 220 13 Participatory Pedagogy in Environmental Education: Reproduction or Disruption?......Page 235 14 Elusive Participation: Methodological Challenges in Researching Teaching and Participatory Learning in Environmental Education......Page 248 15 Student Participation in School Ground Greening Initiatives in Canada: Refl ections on Research Design Decisions and Key Findings......Page 264 16 Researching Participation using Critical Discourse Analysis......Page 279 17 Youth Participation in Local Environmental Action: An Avenue for Science and Civic Learning?......Page 291 18 A Clash of Worlds: Children Talking About their Community Experience in Relation to the School Curriculum......Page 308 19 Sustainability Education, Whole School Approaches, and Communities of Action......Page 322 20 School Councils as an Arena for Pupils’ Participation in Collaborative Environmental Education Projects......Page 344 Index......Page 362 The Research in Participatory Education Network (RIPEN) was initiated by the Research Programme for Environmental and Health Education at the Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, in 2003. It embraces a broad spectrum of researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners of participatory education, working in or from Europe, North America, Africa, and Australasia. Given the international scope of the network and the range of interests it now has, as initiators and early participants in the network the editorial team invited RIPEN to discuss what a critical perspective on participatory approaches to education might mean for education and the environment, health and sustainability, and how network members might research and substantiate their claims and ar guments. Following the introductory chapter on the scope of this collection, 19 chapters illustrate the contributors'responses to that invitation. Our focus on critical perspectives was prompted by earlier work by Majid Rahnema in Wolfgang Sachs's (1992), Development Dictionary. Critiquing concepts of participation in a volume that set out to stimulate cultural, historical, and anth- pological debate on the key concepts of development, Rahnema (p. 126) wrote: Participation, which is also a form of intervention, is too serious and ambivalent a matter to be taken lightly, or reduced to an amoeba word lacking any precise meaning, or a slogan, or fetish, or for that matter, only an instrument or methodology. The Research in Participatory Education Network (RIPEN) was initiated by the Research Programme for Environmental and Health Education at the Danish School of Education, University of Aarhus, in 2003. It embraces a broad spectrum of researchers, scholars, students, and practitioners of participatory education, working in or from Europe, North America, Africa, and Australasia. Given the international scope of the network and the range of interests it now has, as initiators and early participants in the network the editorial team invited RIPEN to discuss what a critical perspective on participatory approaches to education might mean for education and the environment, health and sustainability, and how network members might research and substantiate their claims and ar guments. Following the introductory chapter on the scope of this collection, 19 chapters illustrate the contributors' responses to that invitation. Our focus on critical perspectives was prompted by earlier work by Majid Rahnema in Wolfgang Sachs's (1992), Development Dictionary. Critiquing concepts of participation in a volume that set out to stimulate cultural, historical, and anth- pological debate on the key concepts of development, Rahnema (p. 126) wrote: Participation, which is also a form of intervention, is too serious and ambivalent a matter to be taken lightly, or reduced to an amoeba word lacking any precise meaning, or a slogan, or fetish, or for that matter, only an instrument or methodology