La Fabrication de l’Éducation relative à l’environnement

Résumé

S’appuyant sur la théorie des représentations sociales ainsi que sur un modèle de fabrication d’une discipline scolaire, cet article retrace la sociogenèse de l’Education relative à l’environnement (ERE), c’est-à-dire les processus et les contenus qui ont participé à sa fabrication et à sa mise en forme. Nous verrons ainsi que, de manière générale, l’ERE tend à s’inscrire dans le prolongement d’une conception essentiellement écologique de l’environnement et d’une conception plutôt mécaniste et sensualiste de l’éducation. En ce sens, si cette sociogenèse de l’ERE suggère que la construction et la circulation des connaissances qui lui sont liées participent à des images et des récits ambiants, elle suggère aussi que la hiérarchie des savoirs en vigueur lors de cette construction n’est pas en reste et que, dans ce cas, cette hiérarchie a profité sans conteste aux savoirs dits scientifiques.

Executive Summary

Public debates over environmental issues often prompt people to conclude that ‘educating the public’ is a solution to perceived ecological problems. In fact, an assumption of this very kind was a key factor in the enactment of the US Environmental Education Act in the 1970s, thus effectively giving birth to Environmental Education (EE). This new form of education engendered huge expectations—nothing short of being able to transform so-called polluting behaviour and lifestyles into so-called ecological behaviour and lifestyles, on the one hand, and of laying the groundwork for the emergence of what was subsequently referred to as ‘environmental citizenship,’ on the other. Nevertheless, despite the variety of investments dedicated to EE and the growth of loci (non-formal in particular) set aside for implementation over the last several years, many authors now conclude that EE has not made good on its promise and that its underlying project of social change has become a dead issue. What is more, despite its specificity, EE is purported to be practically indistinguishable from traditional ecology education.

In order to understand EE’s mixed results, I conducted research into the leading artisans of this type of education (Rooney, 2001; Rooney & Larochelle, 1999). One dimension that readily emerges from their work is the conceptual tradition of which they are the inheritors and in whose representations they find a basis for their EE thinking and actions. In other words, as situated subjects, educators are affiliated not only to communities of practice but also to communities of ideas that shape what is taught and why a given approach to teaching is adopted. This article thus represents an attempt to shed light on the sociogenesis of EE—that is, the process and contents that have contributed to producing and informing EE and that, moreover, have contributed to its current implementation, at least in Quebec, as I recently showed in another study (Rooney, 2001).

I begin by briefly reviewing some of the theoretical elements that I have relied on to build this model of sociogenesis. Thereafter, I present this sociogenesis according to the four stages or phases through which, according to Goodson (1988), a widely recognized and much-discussed issue enters the classroom and becomes learning content. I will then attempt to demonstrate that, generally speaking, EE tends to stem from an essentially ecological conception of the environment and of a rather mechanistic and sensualist conception of education. Thus, from this perspective, the sociogenesis of EE suggests not only that the construction and circulation of EE-related knowledge partake of surrounding images and narratives but also that the hierarchy of knowledge presiding over this construction is equally influential. Furthermore, in the case of EE in particular, this hierarchy has unmistakably worked to the benefit of so-called scientific knowledge.