Environmental education in a neoliberal climate |
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| Authors: | David Hursh Joseph Henderson David Greenwood |
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| Institution: | 1. Warner School of Education, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USAdhursh@warner.rochester.edu;3. Warner School of Education, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA;4. Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Canada |
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| Abstract: | This introduction to a special issue of Environmental Education Research explores how environmental education is shaped by the political, cultural, and economic logic of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism, we suggest, has become the dominant social imaginary, making particular ways of thinking and acting possible while simultaneously discouraging the possibility and pursuit of others. Consequently, neoliberal ideals promoting economic growth and using markets to solve environmental and economic problems constrain how we conceptualize and implement environmental education. However, while neoliberalism is a dominant social imaginary, there is not one form of neoliberalism, but patterns of neoliberalization that differ by place and time. In addition, while neoliberal policies and discourses are often portrayed as inevitable, the collection shows how these exist as an outcome of ongoing political projects in which particular neoliberalized social and economic structures are put in place. Together, the editorial and contributions to the special issue problematize and contest neoliberalism and neoliberalization, while also promoting alternative social imaginaries that privilege the environment and community over neoliberal conceptions of economic growth and hyper-individualism. |
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| Keywords: | neoliberalism environmental education politics economics culture |
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