To Örebro University

The overall interest of this thesis is to contribute with knowledge about meaning making processes in educational encounters with nature in different educational practices. The exploration consists of four studies based on a pragmatic perspective on meaning making inspired by the works of John Dewey and Ludwig Wittgenstein. A discourse analytical approach is also used in the first study to analyse the curriculum documents. The result confirms that encounters with nature have a clear position in the curriculum documents, and friluftsliv is a prioritised content in PETE. It is further confirmed that the field of outdoor education is a field of conflicting meanings that pose significant educational challenges. Indeterminate situations occur and may influence students’ possibilities to transform the educational content in PETE to a school context. Another conclusion from the results is that instrumental meanings and a sportification of friluftsliv often get precedence over more emotional based meanings connected to nature. The results also show empirical examples where encounters with nature enable participants to create moral relations towards nature. This potential is highlighted in previous research as one of the most important in order to (re)connect our relation towards nature and in extension better conditions to deal with environmental questions.