Whilst lacking Noel's rigour I sort of agree with his assertion that thumbnail definitions of terms that encompass complexities are inherently unstable ... to the extent that my Doctoral thesis was based on the idea that the comparative eclipse of outdoor management development (OMD) is partly due to the theoretically contested nature of both outdoor learning/education/ and management learning/development/education - leading to unclear and clashing understandings of what OMD is (was?).
So, although (maybe) thumbnail definitions are inherently unstable, I do think it's worth working at addressing and identifying the complexities masked by short definitions in order to gain a more thorough understanding of our field...
BTW, if anyone wants a pile of very tidy JAEOLs, mine are still available for the cost of postage...
Regards
Bill Krouwle
----Original message----
From : [log in to unmask]
Date : 21/04/2018 - 10:22 (GMTST)
To : [log in to unmask]
Subject : Re: seeking definitions
At a recent international conference on udeskole at skovskolen in Denmark organised by Erik Mygind and Uli Dettweiler, this question came up again. I suspect that Noel is right that it is too complex to produce definitions that can encompass all the local enactments
of the various forms but being clear about characteristics in different cultural contexts helps us make sense of research in the field. A colleague at the conference, Lee Eun-Young, is coordinating an international consensus project to explore this and it
would be great to have participation from this network to draw on these understandings. We will keep you posted on progress with that and hope you will join in.
All the best
Sue
Sue Waite
Sent from my mobile
On 21 Apr 2018, at 09:53, Noel Gough <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
My advice is to stop seeking definitions and to be aware that any brief explanation is bound to be partial. Thumbnail definitions of terms that encompass complexities
are inherently unstable due to the depth of argument about them. This shouldn’t be confusing because we use complex terms in everyday life without feeling any need to “define” them (do you need to define
“love” or “justice”?). I advise students to develop an understanding of the range (locations) of uses of terms, and to be clear about their own understandings in the context of their inquiries.
I recommend a poststructuralist position on questions of definition that sees words performing an ordering function by imperatively changing the circumstances in which they are formulated. If we approach
“outdoor education” as a speech act that performs an ordering function then we will not ask what outdoor education means
(that is, we will not
ask for a dictionary definition) but ask how it
works and what it does or produces in specific and locatable discourses-practices.
Best, Noel
Noel Gough PhD
Professor Emeritus and Foundation Chair of Outdoor and Environmental Education
La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Honorary Life Member:
Australian Association for Research in Education
Founding Editor:
Transnational Curriculum Inquiry
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Noel_Gough
Please note that I retired from La Trobe University on 8 July 2014.
Personal email: [log in to unmask]
Postal: PO Box 820
Parkville VIC 3052 Australia
Mobile: + 61 417311219
Recent publications:
Gough, Noel. (2017). Specifying a curriculum for biopolitical critical literacy in science teacher education: exploring roles for science fiction.
Cultural Studies of Science Education 12(4), 769–794.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11422-017-9834-0
Adsit-Morris, Chessa, & Gough, Noel. (2017)
It takes more than two to (multispecies) tango: queering gender texts in environmental education.
The Journal of Environmental Education, 48(1), 67-78.
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/CHGd4E95RwSNJfd9T3n3/full
Gough, Annette, & Gough, Noel. (2017). Beyond cyborg subjectivities: becoming-posthumanist educational researchers.
Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49(11), 1112-1124 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1174099
Gough, Noel. (2016). Australian outdoor (and) environmental education research: senses of "place" in two constituencies.
Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 19, 2-11. http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A469848453/EAIM?u=latrobe&sid=EAIM&xid=2918bf89
Gough, Noel. (2016). Postparadigmatic materialisms: a "new movement of thought" for outdoor environmental education research?
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A469848457/EAIM?u=latrobe&sid=EAIM&xid=f0b762e7
Gough, Noel, & Sellers, Warren. (2016). Changing planes: lines of flight in transnational curriculum inquiry. In William M. Reynolds & Julie
A Webber (Eds.), Expanding Curriculum Theory: Dis/positions and Lines of Flight (2nd
ed., pp. 90-120). New York: Routledge.
Springer Book Series (with
Annette Gough): International Explorations in Outdoor and Environmental Education
From:
Outdoor and adventure education research <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Colin Wood <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Colin Wood <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, 21 April 2018 at 5:21 AM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: seeking definitions
Dear all,
I know it sounds like a really dumb question, but does anyone know of a good source of definitions of outdoor education, adventure education and outdoor adventure education? A student asked me and I realized that
I didn't have a clear answer. I pointed her at Ford 1987, and the first chapter of Ewert, & Sibthorp 2014, but I feel that either I have forgotten something important or that these are such nuanced terms that they are defined only through usage. But that
seemed sloppy.
I checked a handful of recent PhDs to see how they had coped and most of them ducked the question by only defining one term and then magically merging the terms in the literature review. I even checked Wikipedia
which suggested that there was no consensus on the meaning of terms and that they may be synonyms. So I am appealing for a source...
Mind you, now that I have started to worry about the paucity of definitions: I wonder if there is any real definitional difference between outdoor learning and outdoor education... between learning outside the
classroom and education outside the classroom... etc.
Colin
Colin Wood
University of Worcester
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