Centering gender on the agenda for environmental education research

ABSTRACT

The environmental education movement developed in the 1970s at the same time as the environment movement, the feminist movement and the ecofeminist movement. However, while environmental education feels a close affinity with the environment movement the relationship with the (eco)feminist movement in environmental education research has been less than robust. Although there was some feminist environmental education research in the 1990s and 2000s, until the two recent special issues of The Journal of Environmental Education there had been a prolonged, even a deafening, silence around gender, eco/feminism and environmental education research. This article traces the history of feminist environmental education research across this and other environmental education research journals to argue that it is time for gender to be much higher on the agenda of environmental education researchers and of journals if we are to better achieve gender equality and more fully address the climate emergency within the field.

KEYWORDS:

• gender
• ecofeminism
• environmental education
• research perspectives