Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T04:53:30.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Not greenies’ at school: Investigating the Discourses of Environmental Activism in Regional Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Hilary Whitehouse
Hilary Whitehouse*
Affiliation:
James Cook University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Implementing environmental activism at school can be socially risky business. This paper explores the narratives of three women who undertook award winning environmental projects in two regional Australian schools. Tara (student, age 15), Anne (student, age 15) and Andrea (principal, age 42) document the complex and courageous social negotiations they were forced to undertake in response to being negatively constituted as “a greenie” at school. Tara and Anne met resistance from their peers and family and Andrea fielded complaints from members of the local school community. This micro-qualtitative analysis shows that, despite the heartfelt rhetoric of environmental education, assuming an environmental identity at school can be problematic and difficult to enact. Environmental action is still not seen as a “cool” social practice in some adolescent peer groups. Nor is environmental action positioned as central to the “legitimate” practices of schooling in some communities. Successful projects rely on students and staff who are willing to actively, and persitently, negotiate social opposition to their achieving an ecological vision for school practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 17 , 2001 , pp. 71 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

References

Beder, S. 1997, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, Scribe Publications, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Bordo, S. 1997, Twilight Zones: The Hidden Life of Cultural Images from Plato to O.J., University of California Press, Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, I. 1997, Green Fire, Angus and Robertson, Sydney.Google Scholar
Davies, B. 1996, Power, Knowledge, Desire: Changing School Organisation and Management Practice, Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs, Canberra.Google Scholar
Fien, J. 2000, ‘Education, sustainability and civil society’, Australian Journal of Environmental Education, vol. 15/16, pp. 129–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fien, J. and Gough, A. 1996, ‘Environmental Education’ in Gilbert, R. ed, Studying Society and Environment: A Handbook for Teachers, Macmillan Education, South Melbourne.Google Scholar
Gough, A. 1997, Education and the Environment: Policy, Trends and the Problems of Marginalisation, Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne.Google Scholar
Orr, D. 1992, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World, SUNY Press, Albany.Google Scholar
Orr, D. 1994, Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect, Island Press, New York.Google Scholar