Freirean Reinvention Essential for a Paradigm Shift From Traditional Environmental Education Models to Ecopedagogy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 48
  In Roundtable Session: Student Empowerment, Eco-Pedagogy, Popular Culture, and Love

Abstract

Ecopedagogy, by definition, focuses upon social justice in teaching environmental problems and in developing possible solutions beyond the scope of existing scientific knowledge, political, and economic frameworks. The paper discusses results from a qualitative research project of ecopedagogues interviewed in Argentina, Appalachia (U.S.), and Brazil. The need of a paradigm shift in environmental education emerged as the central theme for the research. Freirean pedagogy was seen as essential to teaching of socio-environmental connections for transformational change and to understand the politics behind the teaching, mal-teaching, and not teaching of these connections. The necessary reading and re-reading of a community/person’s ideologies of livelihood and the caring for nature were seen as needing Freirean reinventing of traditional environmental education models.

Author

• Greg William Misiaszek, University of California - Los Angeles