Environmental Education: arguing the case for multiple approaches

This paper develops existing arguments about the need to rethink ways in wh ich environmental education is conceptualised, interpreted and enacted by s chools, teachers and students working within their communities. In doing th is, it critiques what it sees as the narrowing and constraining influence t hat socially critical theory has exerted over the field, and calls for mult iple approaches, carefully and communally deliberated on, in order to deliv er the (environmental) educational goals deemed appropriate and necessary b y schools and communities. Such an approach, it is argued, will likely be c ross-disciplinary and multi-faceted in that it will be informed by a combin ation of traditions and ideological persuasions which together will offer m ove than any one of them could alone.