‘We Should all in Part be Naturalists’: Critical Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Education Policy

Booth, Robert (2024) ‘We Should all in Part be Naturalists’: Critical Environmental Philosophy and Environmental Education Policy. Journal of Philosophy of Education. ISSN 0309-8249 (Accepted for Publication)

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Abstract

In response to a worsening of the climate and ecological crisis, the UK Department for Education (DfE) recently published a policy strategy which intends to facilitate transformational behavioural change via reforms which inculcate in pupils a lasting and action-orientated ‘awe and wonder’ about the natural world. Its approach attempts to link increased sustainability and climate literacy with transformational change via satisfaction of two aspects of effective environmental education: the ontological aspect, by which pupils better grasp ‘their place in nature’; and the affective aspect, by which pupils are motivated to protect and value nature. Here, with the help of critical environmental philosophers, I argue that the strategy inadvertently reveals a lacuna in environmental education policy, whereby relatively uncritical commitment to a strong ontological naturalism unduly limits critical reflection upon the more problematic affect and action-guiding assumptions underlying the entities that mainstream science reveals. I end by suggesting some modest remedial measures and highlighting some broader questions that the foregoing raises about what environmental education ought to be.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	environmental education, climate crisis, ontological naturalism, ecophenomenology, ecofeminism, technology, Partha Dasgupta
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Creative Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities
Depositing User:	Robert Booth
Date Deposited:	01 Nov 2024 10:17
Last Modified:	16 Dec 2024 15:25
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4410

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