Four domains of inquiry in environmental education discourse formed by intersecting ontological and axiological dimensions¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The first conceptual map organizes environmental education-related discourse along two intersecting dimensions: a reality dimension (materialist versus immanence) and a valuation dimension (anthropocentric versus ecocentric ways of seeing human/nature relations). The discourse also reveals two aspects of concern, risk and relationship. Their intersection 'forms four interconnected, interrelated domains of inquiry: ecology, deep ecology, scientific humanism, and what the first author terms theology (a theology of human/nature relations).' Ten texts are located within these domains in Figure 1.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Texts whose truth and value advocacies can be named and located relative to the two dimensions and two aspects

Constraints¶

• The authors note texts within a domain may share ways of knowing 'but may not necessarily agree on desired outcomes'
• The map is a conceptual, not phenomenographic, work

Target Learners¶

• comparative educators
• environmental education practitioners and researchers

Target Learning Objectives¶

• orienting educators to the diversity of available perspectives within environmental education discourse

Claims¶

Related Theories¶

• Remapping via the local/global dynamic yields four human/social responses to nature: control, submission, awe, reconstruction
• Sauvé's taxonomy of fifteen currents of environmental education

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Nicholson-Goodman, JoVictoria; Paulston, Rolland G. (1996). Mapping/Remapping Discourse in Educational Policy Studies. Occasional Paper Series, APS Conceptual Mapping Project. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED395559