Homework and fieldwork: investigations into the rhetoric–reality gap in environmental education research and pedagogy

Abstract

For years, environmental educators have been arguing that the culture of schooling (mostly focused on cultural reproduction) is antithetical to environmental education. Within this context, it is often suggested that environmental education occurs when there is a particularly passionate and motivated teacher who, despite frequent barriers, maintains environmental education as a priority. Yet the author’s doctoral research suggests that even strong beliefs, significant skills, and an ideal program structure do not lead to the implementation of effective environmental education. Drawing on narrative inquiry, arts-based research and poststructural analysis, this study examines ways in which the privileging of the intellect in research and pedagogy may be making effective environmental education almost impossible. © 2007, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.