Re-Placing Outdoor Education: Diversity, Inclusion, and the Microadventures of the Everyday

Abstract

With the increased emphasis on sustainability and place-based education, along with a heightened sense of awareness of diversity and inclusion issues in outdoor education, the time has come to critically examine the long-held trip and expedition construct within the outdoor education field. This paper will explore the theoretical influences of Romanticism on the field and connect these influences to long-standing and unresolved issues of diversity and inclusion in outdoor education. Using the romantic concept of the “sublime,” I argue that outdoor and adventure education have traditionally settled around the organizing motif of the trip and the expedition in contrast with local and everyday experiences, and as a result, these frameworks have caused the field to miss opportunities for wider acceptance and usage as well as solidarity with like-minded pedagogies in environmental and place-based education. In this paper, I claim that a critical awareness of the romantic legacy, combined with a renewed focus on the concept of place and everyday experiences, will allow the fields of outdoor and adventure education to expand in influence and inclusion. Subscribe to JOREL