TITLE:
Representations of the Benefits of Outdoor Education for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Thematic Analysis of Newspapers
AUTHORS:
Alexandros Stavrianos, Simon Pratt-Adams
KEYWORDS:
Outdoor Education, Environmental Education, Edutainment, Inclusion, Learning Difficulties
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.6,
June
28,
2022
ABSTRACT: Outdoor Education (OE) has been described as an
education taking place in a natural environment where the students learn about
their natural surroundings (Torkos, 2017). Outdoor education was one of
the precursors of Environmental Education (EE). Outdoor education is a
non-formal education and is classified as an educational approach which occurs
outside the classroom and with a wide range of subjects such as the natural
environment, culture, mathematics, music, physical science. This study adopts a
qualitative paradigm in order to explore the integration of Outdoor Education
in the philosophy of inclusion. Eight newspaper articles representing stances
and opinions of stakeholders in education,
were thematically analysed into explore popular representations of
benefits of outdoor education for students with learning difficulties. The
themes which emerged from the data were: an active attitude towards learning, a holistic approach—transferable benefits, Inclusion, Edutainment, and Experiential Learning. The key
themes identified, indicate that learners within an outdoor education context
seem to be active participants of the learning process. Moreover, outdoor
education is expandable to the learners’ environments, while it seems that
academically and/or socially less able pupils in particular, can benefit out of
outdoor education.