Gymnastik- och idrottshögskolan, GIH

I det här kapitlet diskuteras friluftsliv som utbildnings- och samhällsfenomen, utifrån ett humanistiskt och beteendevetenskaplig tidrottsperspektiv. I en bok om idrottsforskning kan det tyckas märkligt att inkludera ett kapitel om friluftsliv. Som vi vill visa i detta kapitel finns det dock skäl till att det kan se ut så i den svenska kontexten, åtminstone inom den humanistiska och beteendevetenskapliga idrottsforskningen. I kapitlet presenterar vi den forskning som bedrivits på temat friluftsliv inom svensk humanistisk- och beteendevetenskaplig idrottsforskning över de senaste femtio åren. Vi inkluderar forskning om friluftsliv kopplat till skolämnet idrott och hälsa men, för att sätta in denna i en samhällskontext, inkluderar vi också forskning om friluftsliv som ett bredare samhällsfenomen. Vår ambition är att ge dig som läsare en övergripande bild genom att mer översiktligt presentera innehållet och de viktigaste forskningsresultaten i avhandlingar och annan forskning som lagts fram.

An ongoing discussion is a debate about the benefits of outdoor activities for health, where a narrowness regarding the benefits as a matter of curing or preventing disease has been questioned. Hence, there is an urgent need to theorize further the relationship between outdoor activities and health with robust theoretical frameworks that can guide research and practice, taking different aspects of human-nature relations into account. In the paper, a critique of pathogenic perspectives of health is forwarded, as well as a critique of an anthropocentric human centeredness of health. Instead, a salutogenic model and the metaphor of the swimmer in the river is used to discuss the relation without being restricted to health as the absence of disease or to human health and wellbeing. In the paper, seven different relations, or salutogenic questions, are provided, moving from the swimmer in the foreground, to swimmers in the river to finally foregrounding the river.

Western human-centered worldviews, such as colonialism, have re-shaped landscapes extensively, and in doing so, have marginalised and subjugated the land, its inhabitants and less dominant perspectives. Many of us in outdoor environmental education (OEE) work in colonised landscapes and have opportunities to attend to them in more equitable ways. Our aim in this chapter is to introduce the concept of reading landscapes and promote ways of decolonising/deanthropocentrising approaches to understanding landscapes. We argue that there is no one way of reading landscapes and, as such, three threads run through the chapter. Firstly, the way we participate with landscapes influences how we might read them. Secondly, that our worldview affects our engagements with places. And thirdly, that theoretical perspectives/frameworks can guide our pedagogical approaches. To situate these ideas in practice, we offer four examples that embed some of these ideas in the landscapes we work. This does not offer a consensus on the practice of reading landscapes, but instead presents a rhizomatic approach to exploring how some experienced educators have engaged with the idea in their different contexts.

This article explores the educational potential of a place-responsive pedagogy to teaching and learning in friluftsliv within the Swedish physical education and health (PEH) curriculum. The article draws on qualitative empirical materials from a year-long research project together with a group of high school PEH teachers working in seventh thru ninth grade. Following Deleuze and Guattari (1987) the concept of becoming-place was employed as an analytical tool in exploring modes of thinking and doing school-based friluftsliv. Findings suggest that the current understanding of friluftsliv as curriculum, perceived as outdoor leisure and recreation, limits teachers use of school-based friluftsliv. The article’s key finding is that a place-responsive pedagogy enabled these teachers to work within school-based friluftsliv in new and innovative ways and have them engage in cross-curricular teaching and learning initiatives more locally.

The PhD Summer School aims to bring together PhD students, and some of their supervisors, from various disciplines in the field of outdoor studies. This includes education (both teaching and learning), environmental education, learning outside the classroom, udeskole, leisure and recreation. The seminar aims to build on the social, cultural and critical dimensions of research and theorising in diverse outdoor practices.

This year’s seminar builds upon previous PhD summer schools, hosted by Copenhagen University in partnership with University of Edinburgh in 2015, and Technische Universität München in 2016. The focus will be to share and explore the diversity of outdoor and environmental education research going on amongst the participating PhD students and supervisors.

This thesis aims to critically examine taken for granted assumptions underpinning friluftsliv and outdoor education as a learning area in the curriculum, and to explore the educational potential of a place-responsive pedagogy. A growing body of critical research in outdoor studies suggest that there has been a discursive shift away from an activity-based personal and social development discourse, in favour of more critical awareness in outdoor education research. This discursive shift includes a focus on place and educating for an environmentally sustainable future as the primary goal for outdoor education. The Swedish curriculum emphasizes that historical, environmental, ethical, and international perspectives should be addressed in all subjects, including physical education and health (PEH), in which friluftsliv is imbedded. However, the implementation of these overarching perspectives into pedagogical practice has been proven to be rather limited.

The thesis comprises four independent but connected articles. Empirically, this thesis draws on interviews with PE teachers in New Zealand, reflective journals from a month-long journey in the Canadian Rockies, and curriculum documents, interviews and workshop reflections from a yearlong case study with a group of PEH teachers in Sweden. Inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, relational materialism and posthuman perspectives have been employed in the analysis.

Findings suggest that different ontological perspectives affect what is regarded as “normal” or “true” learning objectives in outdoor education and school-based friluftsliv. The overall findings from the thesis show that there is educational potential in place-responsive pedagogy. The case study demonstrates that place-responsiveness challenges the taken for granted people-centred practice focusing on personal and social development outcomes, which traditionally has dominated outdoor education and Swedish school-based friluftsliv. The decentring of humans, in favour of mutual and relational engagements with matter and the more-than-human, opens up new possibilities for embodied relations to place(s). 

In conclusion, this thesis suggests the notion of engaging in a place-responsive pedagogy, in order to enable teachers to work within school-based friluftsliv in new and innovative ways. Place-responsiveness offer possibilities for working with the overarching perspectives and sustainability in pedagogical practice as well as for engaging in cross-curricular teaching and learning initiatives more locally.

The article draws on qualitative research from reflective journals of a group of university students based on their experiences from a month-long outdoor and environmental education journey in the Canadian Rockies. The article is concerned with the stories that are communicated through an embodied engagement with place(s), particularly the Brazeau River and the surrounding regions. The “relational materialist” approach (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010), combined with a focus on the entangled topics of skill, place, and journey provides a framework for empirical materials collection and analysis. Findings suggest that a decentring of humans in favour of mutual and relational engagements with matter and the more-than-human, in combination with place-stories and outdoor skill development that involves reading the land from embodied learning with/in its naturalcultural history, opens up new possibilities for embodied relations to place(s).

The purpose of this article is to explore and problematise teachers’ talk about outdooreducation in New Zealand. The focus is on what can be said, how it is said and thediscursive effects of such ways of speaking. The inquiry draws on Foucauldiantheoretical insights to analyse interview transcripts derived from semi-structured interviewswith eight outdoor education teachers who work at secondary schools in NewZealand. Findings suggest that different discourses co-exist and are intertwined in theparticipants’ talk. Associated with a dominating discourse of adventure are subdiscoursesof risk and safety, pursuit-based activities, skill and assessment. Connected to adiscourse of learning are subdiscourses of environment, sustainability and socialcritique. Resistance towards a dominating discourse of adventure with pursuit-basedactivities can be traced in a discourse of learning in the form of a more placeresponsivepedagogy.

This article examines how friluftsliv is conceptualised as a learning area within the Swedish physical education and health (PEH) curriculum. The aim is to question the legitimacy of these understandings by bringing previously marginalised discourses to the fore. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari (1987), the concept of becoming-place was employed as an analytical tool, through which the curriculum documents were analysed. The main conclusions are that friluftsliv, as expressed in the Swedish curriculum, is underpinned by the notion of being the same as outdoor leisure and recreation. This, in combination with a dominant physical activity discourse in PEH, works to legitimise what is regarded as “normal” and “true” learning objectives in school-based friluftsliv. An alternative reading, using becoming-place as a critical lens, challenges the current people-centred notion of friluftsliv as a learning area in PEH curriculum. Furthermore, becoming-place offer possibilities for reconceptualising school-based friluftsliv to better respond to vision of the Swedish curriculum.