![Sample our Education journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5932/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Education.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This study is an investigation of what happens to participants during their adventure education (AE) experiences and the meanings they ascribe to those experiences. These topics were explored through the qualitative framework of educational connoisseurship and criticism at three sites: a backpacking expedition, a challenge course and a multi-activity adventure programme. Through 183 hours of observation and 74 interviews with 41 participants, the qualities of AE as aesthetic experience were revealed. This conception of AE experience is characterised through sensory encounters, full attention and aesthetic paradox. Findings are supported with the voices of participants, and the significance of this conception of AE experience is discussed.
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge and thank Becky Ingman, Dr Bruce Uhrmacher, Dr Nick Cutforth, Dr Paul Michalec, Dr Christy McConnell Moroye, Lynn Gershman, the participants of this study, and the anonymous reviewers who improved this manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This study produced findings concerning AE experiences not included in this manuscript. This article focuses on those data, experiences and analyses that facilitated the characterization of AE as aesthetic experience. As such, this conception is not an all-encompassing representation of the various meanings ascribed to AE experiences.
2. Researcher.
3. Relatedly, Morse (Citation2014) also notes how the river journey experience can be considered one of ‘imminent paradox … that one can perceive something as the other, in its alterity (otherness), and also be a part of that other’ (p. 50).
4. As Mortlock (Citation1984) confessed, ‘Once I try to understand the values of the outdoor experience then I am likely to become confused’ (p. 54).
5. Other benefits of enjoying the present moment have received recent attention in the discipline of mindfulness (see Kiken, Lundberg, & Fredrickson, Citation2017).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Benjamin C. Ingman
Benjamin C. Ingman is Assistant Professor in the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Anschutz and Co-Director of the Working to Improve School Health project. His research interests include community-engaged research, school health, adventure education, and curriculum studies.