Awaken 101: Student Experiences in Transformative Environmental Education

Sustainability, the possibility that human and other life might flourish on the planet forever, implies a fundamental transformation of worldviews at both personal and societal scales. For educators, a significant site of engagement is the classroom, where learners can be invited to examine, challenge, and transform personal and societal values associated with (un)sustainability. At the core of such education is transformative learning, which involves experiencing a deep, structural shift in the basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions. Transformative environmental education prompts learners to reshape the unsustainable identities and worldviews they have inherited, with the goal of fostering more sustainable personal and societal ways of being. To better understand the process and potential of transformative environmental education, this dissertation uses a case study approach to examine the outcomes of a college-level transformative environmental course. Through a mixed-methods mode of inquiry that combines qualitative semi-structured interviews with quantitative measurements of participants’ values and behavior, I address the following research questions: (1) How does transformative environmental education affect learners’ sense of self? (2) How does transformative environmental education affect learners’ everyday lives? (3) How can environmental educators best implement transformative learning in their own teaching? In addressing these research questions, this dissertation paints a picture of transformative environmental education from the perspective of learners’ lived experiences. This work is part of an ongoing conversation with scholars and educators who are concerned with helping bring about a sustainable world. It draws from and contributes to the traditions of nature-society geography, transformative learning, feminist pedagogy, feminist environmentalism, and emotional geographies. Importantly, it also contributes to the pedagogy and practice of environmental educators across disciplines. Through an analysis of ecological identity, the social and relational dimensions of learning, and the internal/external landscape of transformation, this dissertation demonstrates that transformative environmental education is promising way for higher education to engage the challenge of sustainability.