REMINDER - SUBMISSIONS CLOSE 2 AUGUST 2007 - apologies for cross
postings, please circulated to interested colleagues
==========================================
Participatory approaches and ecological and environmental education:
Theory, policy, practice, progress?
Call for Proposals, AERA Annual Meeting, New York, Monday, March 24 -
Friday, March 28, 2008
AERA Ecological and Environmental Education Special Interest Group
(EEE-SIG) - Deadline 2 August, 2007
========================================================================
============
Participation, which is also a form of intervention, is too serious
and ambivalent a matter to be taken lightly, or reduced to an amoeba
word lacking any precise meaning, or a slogan, or fetish, or for that
matter, only an instrument or methodology. Reduced to such
trivialities, not only does it cease to be a boon, but it runs the
risk of acting as a deceptive myth or a dangerous tool for
manipulation. To understand the many dimensions of participation, one
needs to enquire seriously into all its roots and ramifications,
these going deep into the heart of human relationships and the socio-
cultural realities conditioning them. (Rahnema, 1992, p.126) *
Building on the theme for the AERA Annual Meeting of “Research on
Schools, Neighbourhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic
Responsibility,” the EEE-SIG invites the submission of proposals for
the 2008 meeting that expand our understandings of critical issues
concerning participatory approaches and ecological and environmental
education. Concerned with both the possibilities and challenges of
participatory approaches and their implications for theory, policy,
and practice as suggested by Rahnema (1992), and interested in
exploring whether progress has been made over the past 15 years; we
encourage attention to such themes and questions as:
- what do we know about participatory approaches in ecological and
environmental education settings, programs and processes, and how do
we know this; and relatedly, what do we now need to know, and how
else might we know this?
- how might we better theorize, practice and understand diverse
forms of participation in ecological and environmental education,
e.g. their rationales, effectiveness, and shortcomings, and relation
to schools, civic responsibility, neighbourhoods or communities
(human and more-than-human)?
- does the ecological or environmental make a difference to
participatory approaches in education in general, or to
sustainability- or well-being-related education in particular; for
example, in focusing on and addressing relations of power between
humans and nature and between different groups or communities?
Proposals are welcome from a variety of ontological, epistemological,
methodological, disciplinary and cultural perspectives. We
particularly encourage submissions on these themes and questions
related to international and collaborative scholarship that seeks to
promote dialogue and forge linkages. Similarly, proposals that pursue
connections between local and global issues, and between diverse
settings, are especially invited.
Proposals can be for paper, symposium, and innovatively interactive
presentation formats. Online submission procedures and session
formats are detailed at www.aera.net/Default.aspx?id=2966. The
deadline is August 2, 2007. All proposals are peer reviewed. High
quality submissions from researchers and scholars whose work does not
clearly fit with the above is also welcome and will be considered for
paper or roundtable discussion sessions.
It is not necessary to be a member of the SIG to submit a proposal or
to present a paper; however, we do encourage membership of the EEE-
SIG to help increase the presence of environmental and ecological
education at AERA. Dues are $5 for one-year and $15 for three years.
For information about the EEE-SIG, please contact the SIG Secretary:
Amy Sloane, University of Wisconsin-Madison, [log in to unmask] We
encourage all members (particularly research students) of the SIG to
sign up as a proposal reviewer for the annual meeting.
For further information, please see the EEE-SIG website -
www.bath.ac.uk/cree/eeesig, or contact:
Program Chair - Alan Reid, University of Bath, +44-1225-386294,
[log in to unmask]
Program Co-Chair - Robert Stevenson, University of Buffalo,
716-645-2471 x 1093, [log in to unmask]
SIG Chair - Amy Cutter-Mackenzie, Monash University, +61-3-990-44638,
[log in to unmask]
* Rahnema, M. (1992) Participation, in: W. Sachs (ed), The
Development Dictionary. Zed Books, 116-131.
|