Comparing apples and pears?: a conceptual framework for understanding forms of outdoor learning through comparison of English Forest Schools and Danish udeskole

Abstract

Using a conceptual model focused on purposes, aims, content, pedagogy, outcomes, and barriers, we review and interpret literature on two forms of outdoor learning: Forest Schools in England and udeskole in Denmark. We examine pedagogical principles within a comparative analytical framework and consider how adopted pedagogies reflect and refract the culture in which they are embedded. Despite different national educational and cultural contexts, English Forest Schools and Danish udeskole share several commonalities within a naturalistic/progressive pedagogical tradition; differences appear in the degree of integration within national educational systems. Global calls for increased connection to nature and recent alignment of results-driven school systems in both countries influence their foundational principles, perhaps leading to greater convergence in the future. We argue that close attention to pedagogical principles are necessary to ensure better alignment of purpose and practice to elicit specific outcomes and enable comparison between different types.

Keywords:

• comparative
• culture
• outdoor education
• pedagogy
• policy
• practice

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Erratum

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the editor, anonymous reviewers and Professor Noel Gough for their valuable comments that helped shape this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Growing Schools was funded by the Department for Education (2001–2003), and sought to encourage schools to make better use of the outdoor classroom as a context for teaching and learning, both within and beyond the school grounds.

2. Although the term ‘reform pedagogy’ is not formally used (Dansk Pædagogical Tidskrift 1996); the concept is associated by many teachers with a movement with roots dating back to Rousseau in the eighteenth century. It is identified with critiques of transmissive forms of education, arguing instead for emancipation within education, anchored in belief in the child’s own resources and agency, supported by curiosity, autonomy and empowerment (Bentsen, Andkjær, and Ejbye-Ernst 2009).

3. Bildung refers to the process of personal formation that brings about the inner development of the individual through education (Kelly et al. 2014, 567).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number ES/J019445/1].