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Becoming a Socio-ecological Educator

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The Socioecological Educator

Abstract

Acknowledging the multi-layered nature of a socio-ecological frame, this chapter highlights explicitly how to develop socio-ecological understandings and practices in educational contexts. We begin by providing a series of vignettes based on practice. These vignettes serve to disturb assumptions that researchers and practitioners bring to physical, health, environmental or outdoor education and, in doing so, open a reflective door for research on practice. The foundational concepts introduced in Chap. 2: (a) lived experience, (b) place, (c) experiential pedagogies and (d) agency and participation, are discussed in relation to these vignettes to continue to develop them more fully, particularly how they might work in concert rather than as separate entities. We have argued that a socio-ecological approach provides a mechanism through which educators and researchers can acknowledge the relationships between the personal, social and environmental layers of social ecologies and these are explored further in the following vignettes.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Monash University, McMahon’s Road, Frankston, VIC, 3199, Australia

    Justen O’Connor, Ruth Jeanes, Laura Alfrey & Brian Wattchow

Authors
  1. Justen O’Connor
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  2. Ruth Jeanes
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  3. Laura Alfrey
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  4. Brian Wattchow
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Justen O’Connor .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Monash University, Frankston, Victoria, Australia

    Brian Wattchow

  2. Monash University, Frankston, Victoria, Australia

    Ruth Jeanes

  3. Monash University, Frankston, Australia

    Laura Alfrey

  4. Monash University, Frankston, Victoria, Australia

    Trent Brown

  5. Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

    Amy Cutter-Mackenzie

  6. Monash University, Frankston, Victoria, Australia

    Justen O'Connor

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O’Connor, J., Jeanes, R., Alfrey, L., Wattchow, B. (2014). Becoming a Socio-ecological Educator. In: Wattchow, B., Jeanes, R., Alfrey, L., Brown, T., Cutter-Mackenzie, A., O'Connor, J. (eds) The Socioecological Educator. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7167-3_3

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