Animals in Environmental Education

Abstract

While environmental education (EE) has long considered the importance of humanity’s various relationships with natural and built environments, a focus on nonhuman animals has not always been of central concern in the development of theory, research, and practical applications within the field. This may seem counterintuitive. However, EE was originally founded upon concerns related to a perceived lack of awareness of global environmental catastrophes as well as the skills to respond to those challenges. Early frameworks from global conferences describe the focus of EE as holistic, emphasizing the interdependence of natural and built environments as well as the important connections between ecological, social, political, and economic spheres. As a result, the emphasis on ecoliteracy and teaching about environmental problems often focused on broad connections and discourses about environmental protection, action, and literacy. While nonhuman animals would certainly be indirect beneficiaries of EE under this holistic approach, for much of the field’s history the scholarly literature glossed over a serious consideration of the role that nonhuman animals play in our theories and practices in education about and for the environment. Until relatively recently, concerns about animals often fell under the umbrella of conservation education or humane education, which are sometimes aligned with but often distinct from the field of EE in several ways. A more focused look at nonhuman animals as subjects of environmental education research and scholarship developed throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, coinciding with what is sometimes referred to as the “animal turn” within the social sciences and humanities. The animal turn, often influenced by postmodern and post-structural rejections of human exceptionalism, is highlighted by increased and serious consideration of animals in Western scholarship beyond the realm of the natural sciences to include often critical perspectives within the humanities and social sciences. Various traditions and (sub)disciplines have emerged—animal studies, human-animal studies, posthumanist studies, critical animal studies, and anthrozoology to name a few—that treat animals as active, agential subjects within human societies and the wider world. Much of the current literature featuring animals in environmental education is influenced by these positions. The various sections in this bibliography feature significant overlap. Many of the scholars reference each other’s work or draw on similar theoretical frameworks (it is a relatively small but growing community of scholars after all). For example, common worlds pedagogies often incorporate Indigenous epistemologies, feminist new materialisms, posthumanism, and decolonial praxis, and regularly feature research in early childhood education settings. Queer and ecofeminist explorations of nonhuman animals in environmental education often draw on posthumanism or articulate courses of action that might align with critical animal studies. There are certainly distinctions between these areas of scholarship as well, and each section presents variations for thinking about and articulating human-animal interactions and animal subjectivities within the realm of environmental education. Lastly, while many scholarly works and studies in environmental education implicitly invite us to think about or engage with animals, this bibliography seeks to identify those works that have centered on animals, animality, and human-animal relationships in environmental education and ecopedagogical projects.