[Ecoed] Ecological and Environmental Education SIG Call for Proposals, AERA Annual Meeting, New York, Monday, March 24 - Friday, March 28, 2008

[Jason Taylor]

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Participatory approaches and ecological and environmental education:
Theory, policy, practice, progress?

Call for Proposals, AERA Annual Meeting, New York, Monday, March 24 -
Friday, March 28, 2008

AERA Ecological and Environmental Education Special Interest Group
(EEE-SIG) - Deadline 2 August, 2007

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Participation, which is also a form of intervention, is too serious  and
ambivalent a matter to be taken lightly, or reduced to an amoeba  word
lacking any precise meaning, or a slogan, or fetish, or for that  matter,
only an instrument or methodology. Reduced to such  trivialities, not only
does it cease to be a boon, but it runs the  risk of acting as a deceptive
myth or a dangerous tool for  manipulation. To understand the many
dimensions of participation, one  needs to enquire seriously into all its
roots and ramifications,  these going deep into the heart of human
relationships and the socio- cultural realities conditioning them. (Rahnema,
1992, p.126) *


Building on the theme for the American Educational Research Assocation
Annual Meeting of "Research on  Schools, Neighbourhoods, and Communities:
Toward Civic  Responsibility," the EEE-SIG invites the submission of
proposals for  the 2008 meeting that expand our understandings of critical
issues  concerning participatory approaches and ecological and
environmental  education. Concerned with both the possibilities and
challenges of  participatory approaches and their implications for theory,
policy,  and practice as suggested by Rahnema (1992), and interested in
exploring whether progress has been made over the past 15 years; we
encourage attention to such themes and questions as:

-    what do we know about participatory approaches in ecological and
environmental education settings, programs and processes, and how do  we
know this; and relatedly, what do we now need to know, and how  else might
we know this?

-    how might we better theorize, practice and understand diverse  forms of
participation in ecological and environmental education,  e.g. their
rationales, effectiveness, and shortcomings, and relation  to schools, civic
responsibility, neighbourhoods or communities  (human and more-than-human)?

-    does the ecological or environmental make a difference to
participatory approaches in education in general, or to  sustainability- or
well-being-related education in particular; for  example, in focusing on and
addressing relations of power between  humans and nature and between
different groups or communities?

Proposals are welcome from a variety of ontological, epistemological,
methodological, disciplinary and cultural perspectives. We  particularly
encourage submissions on these themes and questions  related to
international and collaborative scholarship that seeks to  promote dialogue
and forge linkages. Similarly, proposals that pursue  connections between
local and global issues, and between diverse  settings, are especially
invited.

Proposals can be for paper, symposium, and innovatively interactive
presentation formats. Online submission procedures and session  formats are
detailed at *www.aera.net/Default.aspx?id=2966*<http://www.aera.net/Default.aspx?id=2966>.
The  deadline is August 2, 2007. All proposals are peer reviewed. High
quality submissions from researchers and scholars whose work does not
clearly fit with the above is also welcome and will be considered for  paper
or roundtable discussion sessions.

It is not necessary to be a member of the SIG to submit a proposal or  to
present a paper; however, we do encourage membership of the EEE- SIG to help
increase the presence of environmental and ecological  education at AERA.
Dues are $5 for one-year and $15 for three years.  For information about the
EEE-SIG, please contact the SIG Secretary:  Amy Sloane, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, *alsloane at wisc.edu* <alsloane at wisc.edu>. We  encourage
all members (particularly research students) of the SIG to  sign up as a
proposal reviewer for the annual meeting.

For further information, please see the EEE-SIG website -  *
www.bath.ac.uk/cree/eeesig* <http://www.bath.ac.uk/cree/eeesig>, or
contact:
Program Chair - Alan Reid, University of Bath, +44-1225-386294,  *
a.d.reid at bath.ac.uk* <a.d.reid at bath.ac.uk>
Program Co-Chair - Robert Stevenson, University of Buffalo,  716-645-2471 x
1093, *eoastevo at buffalo.edu* <eoastevo at buffalo.edu>
SIG Chair - Amy Cutter-Mackenzie, Monash University, +61-3-990-44638,  *
Amy.CutterMackenzie at Education.monash.edu.au*<Amy.CutterMackenzie at Education.monash.edu.au>


* Rahnema, M. (1992) Participation, in: W. Sachs (ed), The  Development
Dictionary. Zed Books, 116-131.
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