To Örebro University

The general public´s everyday encounters with nature have radically changed during the 20th century in industrial countries. Our relation towards nature in relation to environmental challenges is an important educational question, and this thesis investigates encounters with nature in educational practice. More specifically the aims are to investigate (i) how encounters with nature has been legitimated in the national curricula of Swedish school, and (ii) meaning making processes within pedagogical encounters with nature.  

In relation to the first aim a discourse analytical reading of the national curricula in Sweden is conducted. The results show that a scientific perspective of encounters with nature has been dominating during the last hundred years in the national curricula. In recent years, it is also more instrumental encounters that are expressed in the curricula, while students’ personal experiences and feelings are not focused in current curricula.  Paper II and III examine moral meaning making in three different educational practices – Outdoor Education Centres, All-Weather Outdoor Schools and the Radical Outdoor movement. A multidisciplinary method is used in paper II, LEDmodel (Landscape, Ethical and Didactical). Paper III is based on the ethical tendency and language-game analyses. The results from these studies show that the educational purpose have an impact on moral processes in relation to nature. When the purpose is related to scientific knowledge there is often an instrumental relation towards nature in contrast to encounters that are more open. Open encounters instead seem to create relations that are built on a sense of responsibility and empathy. The results show that relations are created in different ways where some are more personal and built on emotion when other emotions are more based on stated rules or norms.