Outdoor Education & Sustainability: Uncomfortable Bedfellows and/or Necessary Partners?

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will report on current research directions, trends and examples of the relationships between outdoor education and sustainability. It will focus on how current research and thought can influence educational practice around sustainability. Specific areas of focus include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Approaches to outdoor education that develop sustainable practices/sustainable literacy
• Exploring, problematizing and advancing sustainable thinking and practice in outdoor education
• Ways in which outdoor education is engaging with Sustainable Development Goals and the contemporary sustainability theory
• Theoretical and practice-based interdisciplinary approaches to outdoor education and sustainability
• Ways in which indigenous knowledge and decolonizing thinking can beneficially influence the relationships between outdoor education and sustainability
• Influences of technologies on the relationships between outdoor education and sustainability

This Special Issue will contribute to sustainability by exploring ways current research in outdoor education can positively influence human environmental relations and the wider goals of sustainability. The field of outdoor education literature portrays a topic with wide range and scope that are not always commensurate with sustainability goals. For example, the interrelated field of environmental education [1] does align well with sustainability goals whilst others concerned with adventure sport performance and personal development are less so. Similarly, sustainability is a complex field that does not always fit well with outdoor education. For example, multiple terms of reference are found in outdoor education literature such as sustainability education [2] and outdoor education for sustainable development [3], and emerging thought includes the concept of post sustainability [4]. Recent developments in sustainability and outdoor education fields resonate with the wider theoretical directions in educational research more widely, which include the complexity theory, the material turn and decolonizing thinking. Where these positions take outdoor education and sustainability are not well known. Decolonization in outdoor education research is a growing topic in northern and southern hemispheres; one partially borne out of the growing attention to place as a conceptual frame over the last fifteen years.

These descriptions of the tensions (‘uncomfortable bedfellows’) and complementary (‘perfect partners’) ideas in outdoor education and sustainability need to be understood through current research and practice. This Special Issue sets out to create a new understanding of the current situation and what we can suggest for outdoor educators who want to improve their practice around sustainability in today’s complex world.

References

1. Nicol, R. Outdoor education: Research topic or universal value? Part Two. J. Adventure Educ. Outdoor Learn. 2022, 2, 85–99. https://doi.org/10.1080/14729670285200201
2. Hill, A. Developing approaches to outdoor education that promote sustainability education. Aust. J. Outdoor Educ. 2012, 16, 15–27.
3. Hu, R., Mou, S. Outdoor Education for Sustainable Development: A Systematic Literature Review. Sustainability 2025, 17, 3338. https://doi.org/10.3390/su17083338
4. Jickling, B., Sterling, S. Post-sustainability and environmental education: Remaking education for the future. In Post-Sustainability and Environmental Education. Palgrave Studies in Education and the Environment; Jickling, B., Sterling, S., Eds.; Palgrave Macmillan: Cham, Switzerland, 2017; pp 1–11.  

Dr. Allen Hill
Dr. Jonathan Lynch
Guest Editors

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• outdoor education
• sustainability
• education for sustainability
• outdoor learning
• environmental education
• outdoor and environmental education
• anthropocene
• posthuman
• place-responsive
• place