Layering participation in environmental education in schools

Abstract

This article identifies possibilities for fostering meaningful and transformative participation by layering pathways that provide for relational, embodied and political expressions of participation. Drawing on a year-long doctoral study in two Montreal high schools and their overseeing school service centre, this research explores three initiatives of environmental education: one elective curriculum-based course, one youth-led extracurricular activity, and one at the institutional level. This study is significant in suggesting implementing a relational, embodied and political approach to environmental education in school contexts calls for multiple and concurrent pathways. This is part of recognizing the relational and political dimensions of environmental education and the ways these dimensions mutually reinforce one another to deepen their respective contributions.