Commercialising education–A multimodal analysis

Abstract

This paper investigates a set of interactive resources for mining and energy education produced by the Australian mining industry and endorsed by Australia's Education Department. Building on Eaton, E., & Day, N. (2020. Petro-pedagogy: Fossil fuel interests and the obstruction of climate justice in public education. Environmental Education Research, 26(4), 457–473) ‘petro-pedagogy’, the study employs critical multimodal discourse analysis to show that these ‘Oresome interactives’, while often educational, disproportionately promote the interests of the mining industry. The resources represent the industry as an inevitable and positive part of modern Australian living, present the environmental impacts of mining as minimal and represent alternative energy sources as unstable, rare and unsightly. The paper concludes by calling for caution with regard to the use of such ‘gifted’ educational resources.