Worldviews, Environments and Education

Abstract

This chapter explores the concept of worldviews in tertiary outdoor environmental education (OEE) programs. We discuss how worldviews are constructed based on our understandings of the world and our place within it, drawing on the role of social and cultural norms and assumptions influencing the ethical frameworks we might adopt. The chapter offers a critique of commonly employed approaches to the concept of worldviews, such as anthropocentrism, biocentrism and ecocentrism. Although our discussion is reflective of our positions and experiences, located in south eastern Australia, we suggest possibilities for considering broader perspectives and assemblages that might otherwise be overlooked. We suggest the provocations of posthumanist orientations and offer some introductory suggestions for deploying them constructively in OEE.