Gender and other forms of difference/diversity.
Whitehouse, Hilary
Diversity is integral to socio-ecological sustainability at all
scales and dimensions of education practice. The Australian Journal of
Environmental Education (AJEE) has published research and reports of
practice from a variety of novel and established perspectives and
methodologies, recognising both small and large research studies and, in
the process, becoming an energetic record of what we have been thinking
about gender and culture and difference over the past 30 years. The
editors of the AJEE have promoted diversity, given the purpose of
environmental education is to change how we think about our social
arrangements and to reconsider how it is possible to act within our
world. As with any long-existing journal, the articles reflect
historical scholarly trends and societal change, and the publications
track what has been counted as legitimate in terms of being and knowing
within the academy. Many kinds of useful knowledge were delegitimised
and ignored until quite recently, so one of the tasks of researchers and
educators and their AJEE editors has been to redress these silences and
absences. If progress has been imperfect, this is a reflection of the
difficulties of the task and not a reflection of the quality of the
journal.
Di Chiro's seminal 1987 article argued for the adoption of a
critical feminist perspective as an 'appropriate response'
towards understanding the socio-ecological crisis. Di Chiro (1987)
illuminated how there are clear connections between the repression of
women and the repression (destruction and poisoning) of the biophysical
world. Both are the result of a dominating historical paradigm that
seeks to subdue without care or consideration for others--who can be
humans and non-humans, and who become 'othered' through the
very expression of this hegemonic worldview. The reason this article is
in the 30th anniversary collection is the power and logic with which Di
Chiro made the case for the continual necessity to explore dimensions of
gender in environmental education research. The original work done in
environmental education assumed a male subject, 'Man', and
explored 'his' influence on 'the' environment. It
took feminist analysis to reveal how this historically entrenched and
unproblematised terminology was, in fact, deeply problematic. Many
realities are distorted, or lie undiscovered, when a singular masculine
subject and a singular environment stand for all the complexities in and
of our world. Educational strategies that promote acceptance of
difference and social justice cannot be fully supported when the
singular is said to stand for the diverse. Feminist analysis was, and
is, disordering. This is its purpose. Di Chiro's article remains a
philosophical milestone, and its publication in the AJEE generated a
productive line of inquiry for many researchers.
One of the strongest trends noted in the AJEE is that for more than
2 decades a succession of research papers have investigated gender
differences in relation to ecological worldviews; gendered constructions
of 'nature' and 'the environment'; environmental
knowledge, concern, and attitudes; the need for personal action; and
experiences of environmental education. AJEE studies have showed a
persistent difference between female and male students in relation to
surveyed interest in environmentalism at school and a reported capacity
and willingness to act. The same difference extends to adulthood. A
CSIRO report of a scan of available polling data, conducted in 2011,
showed that across a range of polls, women were 6% to 11% more likely to
accept the truth of anthropogenic climate change and consequently
support action. Women were also more likely to have held these views
over a longer period of time (see Nolan, 2014). Women are more likely to
be more vulnerable to the effects of climate change for many reasons
associated with their long historical estrangement from full economic
participation and the fact women tend to carry most of the social caring
responsibilities. As we more fully experience climate change (or,
perhaps, climate disruption), the differential effects of climate change
on gender, class, culture and geography will remain productive lines of
inquiry.
In terms of investigating cultural dimensions of environmental
education, it is important to remember that Australia is a both a
relatively new nation, federated in 1901, and a long settled continent
with a complex human history stretching back many tens of thousands of
years. The different cultures of Australia have not been as strongly
represented as they could have been within the AJEE, in that
publications addressing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture
are still far too few. And papers investigating the experiences of
international cultures are not many either. While a majority of articles
have tried to avoid uncritically assuming a colonising truth for all
people in Australia, forging a deeper analysis of the political effects
of our shared history and how this relates to environmental education
remains an area of study where a greater body of work would be useful.
Research that draws uncritically on a unified concept of nature and that
of wilderness--without paying attention to the historical reality that
all of the Australian country was subsumed in a colonial land
grab--reflects a 19thand 20th-century colonial stance. We need new
understandings in the 21st century.
The continuing challenge for researchers is always about how
differences in seeing and knowing can be more fully represented in the
body of Australian environmental education research, even as we know
that our similarities are what brings us together. We have 30 years of
fine research on gender, locale, class and culture to draw upon, but the
project is far from complete. It is our hope that this collection of
articles will provide inspiration for research work that is yet to come.
doi 10.1017/aee.2014.41
Reference
Di Chiro, G. (1987). Applying a feminist critique to environmental
education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 3(1), 10-17.
Nolan, R. (2014). Men of a certain age. The Monthly. Retrieved from
http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/may/1398866400/rachel-nolan/men-certain-age
Hilary Whitehouse
James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
