The transformational possibilities of liberal vocationalism: a case study of post-year 10 Outdoor Education in Western Australia

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ABSTRACT This paper discusses the transformative potential that liberal vocationalism, aligned with contemporary visions of lifelong and lifewide learning, presents for outdoor learning across institutional and industry settings. Utilising Bernstein’s sociological theory, the paper explores this transformation through an illustrative case study of the relations, knowledges and identities of post-Year10 Outdoor Education in Western Australia (WA). The case study highlights how Outdoor Education in WA has been organised through distinct classificatory relations that exist between government, regulatory bodies and individual industry providers that serve to distinguish Outdoor Education from outdoor learning that is ongoing and able to be pursued by people of any age in many and varied learning contexts. These classificatory relations are shown to be reflected in established qualification and training structures, privileged knowledges and particular subject and learner identities. It is argued that consequently, current post-Year10 Outdoor Education provision has a generated a vision of outdoor learning and vocationalism that constrains learners’ access to and engagement with lifelong and lifewide experiences that can enhance their own and others’ lives. In response, three foci are presented that constitute a heuristic framework via which transformative possibilities can be progressed. The first focus calls for progressive relations between institutional education, industry and community stakeholders in the creative re-design of qualification structures and educational experiences. The second underlies the need for qualification and training structures to enable all learners equitable access to knowledges for lifelong and lifewide learning. The third argues for the construction of new therapeutic identities in Outdoor Education that enables learners to orientate towards an experience of outdoor learning that is autonomous and flexible in both theory and practice. The paper concludes by considering research and teaching directions that can facilitate the realisation of these possibilities.