Ontological diversity in environmental education

Working as an environmental education (EE) facilitator I can attest to the fact that a feeling of urgency, detachment, helplessness and lack of alternatives tends to be a common reaction when working with EE in the European context. This has led me to question the factors that influence the learning process within EE.

Building on my past work on ideological and epistemological blockages to effective social change, this project will utilize the concept of ontology as a more encompassing term for social analysis.

Based on analytical frameworks on secularism, religion and climate change developed within the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at Groningen University, together with transdisciplinary currents of thought such as political ontology and agroecology, in the proposed research I will study the role of ontological diversity in environmental education (EE) utilizing concepts and methods from the field of theology and religious studies (TRS).

Framing the research within TRS will allow us to find a critical perspective on the dominant secular-scientific tradition behind EE policy and implementation, as well as the presumed secularity-based ontological homogeneity of EE in Western and Westernized contexts.

In this research we will explore if the effectiveness of European environmental education is being hindered by lack of ontological diversity, together with ways in which TRS can contribute to fostering ontological diversity (OD) within EE.

I will be focusing on EE in the contexts of Barcelona (Spain) and Havana (Cuba) using literature review, expert interviews, critical discourse analysis, grounded theory, good practice analysis and participatory action-research (PAR) in order to develop four scientific articles on OD in EE, a handbook for EE practitioners, a handbook for policy makers, and policy recommendations for EU GreenComp implementation.