Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T14:00:36.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

“I am Not a Greenie, But”: Negotiating a Cultural Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2015

Hilary Whitehouse*
Affiliation:
James Cook University
Neus Evans
Affiliation:
James Cook University
*
Dr Hilary Whitehouse, School of Education, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, Queensland 4870, Australia. Email: hilary.whitehouse@jcu.edu.au

Abstract

A cultural discourse is not usually considered to be a barrier to the implementation of sustainability in schools. A study conducted in four different state primary schools in regional Queensland, found leading environmental educators did not wish to be identified as “greenies”. “Greenie” is a highly recognisable and well-used community discourse in regional Australia. The social appellation is shorthand for environmentalist and its use is divided almost irreconcilably between pejorative and nonpejorative attributions. To be at variance with dominant social and cultural practices and disorder an established status quo in order to transform schooling, teachers and principals must also indicate they know how to get the ordering right. This is why study participants maintain they are not “greenies” while they implement state recognised sustainability initiatives at school. This paper considers the pejorative aspect of a cultural discourse as a possible barrier to the wider uptake of sustainability in schools in regional Australia.

Type
Feature Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barrett, M. J. (2007). Homework and fieldwork: Investigations into the rhetoric reality gap in environmental education research and pedagogy. Environmental Education Research, 12(3), 503511.Google Scholar
Bateman, D. (2010, 01 26). Greenies ‘loving Kuranda to death’. The Cairns Post. Retrieved from http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/01/26/89715_local-news.html Google Scholar
Clark, J., & Harrison, T. (1997). Are educational outcomes relevant to environmental education addressed by primary school teachers? Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 13, 2736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Commonwealth of Australia (2005). Educating for a sustainable future. A national environmental education statement for Australian schools. Canberra: Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage.Google Scholar
Commonwealth of Australia (2009). Living sustainably: The Australian government's national action plan for education for sustainability. Canberra: Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.Google Scholar
Crist, E., & Rinker, H. B. (2010). Gaia in turmoil: Climate change, biodepletion, and earth ethics in an age of crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cutter, A., & Smith, R. (2001). A chasm in environmental education. What primary school teachers might or might not know. In Knight, B. & Rowan, L. (Eds.), Researching in Contemporary Environments (pp. 113132). Brisbane: Post Pressed Flaxton.Google Scholar
Cutter-Mackenzie, A. (2007). Knowledge matters: Teaching environmental education in the early years. In Fleer, M. (Ed.). Thinking scientifically. Canberra: Early Childhood Australia.Google Scholar
Cutter-Mackenzie, A., & Smith, R. (2003). Ecological literacy: The missing paradigm in environmental education (part one). Environmental Education Research, 9(4), 497524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, B. (1993). Shards of glass. Children reading and writing beyond gendered identities. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Davis, J. M., & Ferreira, J. (2009). Creating cultural change in education: A proposal for a continuum for evaluating the effectiveness of sustainable school implementation strategies in Australia. Australian Journal of Environmental Education. 25, 5970.Google Scholar
Deutscher, G. (2010, 08 26). Does your language shape how you think? The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?pagewanted=all Google Scholar
Evans, N. (2006). More than a sign of the fence? Teacher learning and the Reef Guardian schools program in far north Queensland. Unpublished honours thesis. James Cook University, Cairns.Google Scholar
Evans, N. (2010). Social-ecological resilience and school communities in tropical North Queensland. Unpublished doctoral thesis. James Cook University, Cairns.Google Scholar
Garvey, J. (2008). The ethics of climate change. Right and wrong in a warming world. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Gough, A. (1997). Education and the Environment: Policy, trends and the problems of marginalization. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.Google Scholar
Graham, L. J. (2007). Done in by discourse … or the problem/s with labelling. In Keeffe, M. & Carrington, S. (Eds.), Schools and diversity (2nd ed., pp. 4462). Sydney: Pearson Australia.Google Scholar
Kennelly, J., Taylor, N., & Jenkins, K. (2008). Listening to teachers: Teacher and student roles in the New South Wales Sustainable Schools Programme. Environmental Education Research, 14(1), 5364.Google Scholar
Lewis, E., Baudains, C., & Mansfield, C. (2009). The impact of AuSSI-WA at a primary school. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 25, 4558.Google Scholar
The Macquarie Dictionary Online © Macquarie Dictionary Publishers Pty Ltd.Google Scholar
Monbiot, G. (2009, 12 12). This is about us. Message posted to http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/12/14/this-is-about-us/ Google Scholar
Queensland Government (2008). Earth Smart Environmental Sustainability Strategic Plan 2008 – 2012. Brisbane: Department of Education, Training and the Arts.Google Scholar
Rockström, J. et al. (2009). A safe operating safe for humanity. Nature, 461, 472475 Google Scholar
Routledge (2000). Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Author.Google Scholar
Ryan, B. (2010, 10 20). Greens hit out at plans for worksite. The Cairns Post, p. 9.Google Scholar
Stables, A. W. G. (2001a). Language and meaning in environmental education. An overview. Environmental Education Research, 7(2), 121128.Google Scholar
Stables, A. W. G. (2001b). Who drew the sky? Conflicting assumptions in environmental education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 33(2), 245256.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. (1987). Schooling and environmental education: Contradictions in purpose and practice. In Robottom, I. (Ed.), Environmental education: Practice and possibility. Geelong: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar
Stevenson, R. (2007). Schooling and environmental/sustainability education: From discourses of policy and practice to discourses of professional learning. Environmental Education Research, 13(2), 265285.Google Scholar
Walker, K. (1995) The teaching and learning of environmental education in NSW primary schools: A case study. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 11, 121129.Google Scholar
Whitehouse, H. (2001). “Not Greenies” at school: Discourses of environmental activism in Australia. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 17, 7176.Google Scholar