Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustainability Education

Abstract

Environmental and sustainability education (later: ESE) can evoke and include a broad spectrum of emotions, ranging from joy and excitement to sadness and powerlessness. These eco-emotions (also called environmental emotions and ecological emotions) can be related to many things: for example, to relationships with more-than-human nature (later: nature), to the content of education, and to the pedagogical style of the educator. Emotions affect learning outcomes in many ways, and they may be important learning outcomes in their own right. They also have complex connections with both action and well-being. Classic themes in ESE are care, empathy with nature, and place attachment, often combined with awe and wonder. It has been argued that if people care for the environment affectively, they are more motivated to shape their behavior to be more sustainable. Another major theme is difficult emotions because of environmental problems and threats. Although this theme has been present in ESE for long, it has grown much more intense over time. It is related both to current losses and to predictions of future, connecting ESE with futures education. Phenomena such as eco-anxiety, ecological grief, and eco-guilt are now much discussed (see also the separate Oxford Bibliographies article Education for Sustainable Development), and this bibliography focuses on them; there are large separate literatures on positive emotions. The relation of difficult emotions to hope and action has strongly interested ESE scholars. Scholars have studied eco-emotions among both students and educators. It has been pointed out that educators need self-reflection and social support in order to engage constructively with eco-emotions. Furthermore, scholars have applied critical theory, decolonial theory, feminist theory, and various anti-oppressive pedagogies to point out that there are power structures and social norms around eco-emotions which need attention. Awareness of these factors can facilitate more just and open engagements with eco-emotions in education, and scholars have warned against overly strong presuppositions of the superiority of certain emotions and their valences. For example, the so-called negative emotions such as anxiety, worry, fear, grief, guilt, and anger can be important for transformative learning. Applying various resources, for example from psychology, educators and scholars have explored context-sensitive methods for encountering these eco-emotions in a constructive way. Key recommendations include public recognition of emotional issues by the educator, validation of various emotions, providing various opportunities for action, and use of embodied and creative methods to engage with emotional energies. Arts-based and contemplative methods have been prominently applied to the subject area, for example in new kinds of place-based activities.