Values Education in Outdoor Environmental Education Programs from the Perspective of Practitioners

Jan Činčera, Bruce Johnson, Roman Kroufek and Petra Šimonová
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Jan Činčera: Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic
Bruce Johnson: College of Education, University of Arizona, 1430 E. Second Street, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Roman Kroufek: Department of Preschool and Primary Education, Faculty of Education, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, 40096 Ústí nad Labem, Czech Republic
Petra Šimonová: Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, 60200 Brno, Czech Republic

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: Shaping environmental values is considered one of the goals of environmental education. At the same time, this creates questions about the line between indoctrination and education. While values education has been widely discussed from various theoretical perspectives, few studies have analyzed how it is being practiced. This article investigates five outdoor environmental education programs and identifies the values the programs promote as well as the means they use to communicate these values to students. Additionally, the article examines the perspectives of 17 program leaders and center directors regarding the ways in which values should be promoted in environmental education and the approaches they use in their practice. According to the findings, all the observed programs applied a normative, value-laden approach, communicating mainly the values of universalism. The most frequently observed strategy was the inculcation of desirable values by moralizing and modeling. Simultaneously, some of the leaders’ beliefs, while highlighting value-free or pluralistic approaches, contradicted their rather normative practice. This article describes the theory–practice gap identified and discusses the implications of the prevailing use of the normative approach in outdoor environmental education for the field. It calls for opening an in-depth debate on what, why, and how values belong in outdoor environmental education practice.

Keywords: values; environmental education; outdoor programs; qualitative (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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