Education and Training For Effective Environmental Advocacy

Abstract

Research on environmental advocacy has tended to focus on outcomes and achievements rather than the processes through which these are achieved. In addition, minimal research has attended in detail to the complexity of environmental advocacy, or explored measures to through which to enhance advocates’ prospects of success. The environment movement itself has given scarce attention to promoting the skills, abilities and predispositions that contribute to effective advocacy. Indeed, most environmental non-government organisations (ENGOs) in Australia appear to believe that scientific or expert knowledge will be sufficient to influence environmental decision-makers and consequently provide minimal training or education to enhance advocacy. This thesis is a response to these problems. It seeks to develop an understanding of, and model for, activist education and training in the Australian environment movement. The two main bodies of literature that inform the study are social movement and adult education literature. The former provides the context for the study. Social movement theorists present various explanations of how and why environmental activists work for change. These theorists also discuss the organisational structures and modes of operation typically adopted by activists. The second body of literature is utilised in this thesis to provide a synthesis of relevant educational orientations, traditions and practices. Popular, experiential and adult environmental education offer promising strategies for advocacy organisations that seek to enhance activists’ skills and abilities. The research questions posed in this study lie at the convergence of these two bodies of literature. Two empirical studies were undertaken during this inquiry. The first was conducted with the Queensland Conservation Council, an environmental advocacy organisation where the researcher was employed for five years. The study drew on methods and techniques associated with ethnography and action research to identify, implement and evaluate a range of interventions which aimed to educate and train advocates. Three cycles of inquiry generated useful insights into environmental advocacy and identified useful strategies through which advocacy may be enhanced. The second study, a case study based on interviews and observation, explored the Heart Politics movement. The ethnographic research methods utilised in this case study resulted in a rich description and critical appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of Heart Politics gatherings as activist education. These two studies contributed to the development of a grounded and endogenous theory of education and training for environmental advocacy. This theory is based on a set of observations concerning the provision of activist education: (1) that most activist learning occurs informally and unintentionally through participation in social action such as environmental campaigns; (2) that this learning can be assessed according to a five-category framework and tends to favour specific categories including the development of social action and organisational development skills rather than alternative categories such as political analysis and personal development; (3) that this informal learning can be harnessed and enhanced through strategies which situate learning in the context of action and promote heightened awareness of the learning dimension of social action; and (4) that a key obstacle to education and training in the environment movement is a conspicuous lack of professional development or support for the people involved in facilitating and coordinating activist education activities and programs. These people are often volunteers and infrequently possess qualifications as educators or facilitators but are more likely to be seasoned activists. They tend to work in isolation as activist education activities are sporadic, geographically diffuse and ad hoc. These observations along with other insights acquired through participatory action research and ethnographic inquiry led to a set of conclusions, some of which have already been implemented or initiated during the course of this study. The first conclusion is that strategies to promote the professional development of activist educators may benefit from the development of texts tailored to the tactical orientations and political and other circumstances of Australian environmental advocacy groups. Texts, alone, are considered an inadequate response. The study also concludes that informal networks, formal and informal courses and other strategies to assist collaboration and peer learning among activist educators offer considerable benefits. Other conclusions pertain to the benefits of collaborating with adult educators and tertiary institutions, and professionals, to the relative merits of activist workshops and other forms of delivery, to the opportunities for activist training presented by regular environment movement gatherings and conferences and to the significant merits of promoting and supporting mentorship relationships between novice and experienced activists.