This article considers several variations of experience within the intersecting fields of outdoor, environmental, and experiential education. I argue that, to date, too little work has been undertaken interrogating the theoretical and philosophical use of the term “experiential.” This has resulted in a relatively homogeneous and simple construction of the role of experience in education that misrepresents both the complexity and the level of contestation in the discourse. In an attempt to begin to address this problem, I propose three variations of experiential education: experience as interaction, embodied experience, and experience as praxis. Each of the three variations is discussed in terms of their defining characteristics and the promises and challenges of their various constructions of experience. I argue further that each of these variations are threatened by the rise of a fourth variation, what I term neo-experiential education, which neatly combines market logics of efficiency, standardization, and control. I conclude with a call for more theoretical and philosophical work in this area.
AbramD. (1997). The spell of the sensuous. New York: Vintage Books.
2.
AdkinsC.SimmonsB. (2002). Outdoor, experiential, and environmental education: Converging or diverging approaches?ERIC Digest, EDO-RC-02-1.
3.
AppleM. (2001). Educating the “right” way. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
4.
AppleM. (2003). The state and the politics of knowledge. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
5.
BeaneJ. (1997). Curriculum integration. New York: Teachers College Press.
6.
BellMartha (1995). What constitutes experience? Rethinking theoretical assumptions. In WarrenK.SakofsM.HuntJ. (Eds.), The Theory of experiential education. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
7.
BowersC. A. (2003). The case against John Dewey as an environmental and eco-justice philosopher. Journal of Environmental Education, 25(1), 25–42.
8.
BourdieuP. (1993). The field of cultural production. New York: Columbia University Press.
9.
BrookesA. (2003). A critique of neo-Hahnian education theory. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 3(2), 119–132.
10.
CarlsonD. (2002). Leaving safe harbors. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.
11.
DelpitL. (1995). Other people's children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New York Press.
12.
DeweyJ. (1916). Democracy and education. New York: The Free Press.
13.
DeweyJ. (1929). The quest for certainty. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.
14.
DeweyJ. (1938). Experience and education. New York: MacMillan.
15.
DigginsP. (1994). The promise of pragmatism: Modernism and the crisis of knowledge and authority. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
16.
FenwickT. (2001). Experiential learning: A theoretical critique from five perspectives. ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education. Ohio State University.
17.
FreireP. (1970) Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum Press.
18.
FreireP.ShorI. (1987) A pedagogy for liberation. Massachusetts: Bergin and Garvey Press.
19.
GarveyD. (2002). The future of adventure education. The Outdoor Network, 13(3), 1, 18–20, 29.
20.
GeeJ. P. (2005). It's theories all the way down: A response to scientific research in education. Teachers College Record, 107(1), 10–18.
21.
GirouxH. (1999). The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
22.
GreeneM. (1988) Dialectic of freedom. New York: Teachers College Press.
23.
HayP. (2002). Main currents in western environmental thought. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press.
24.
HessS. (2007). Imagining an everyday nature. Unpublished manuscript, Earlham CollegeRichmond, IN.
25.
HewittR. (2002). Democracy and power: A reply to John Dewey's leftist critics. Education and Culture, 19(2), pgs. 1–13.
26.
Hill-CollinsP. (2000). Black feminist thought. New York: Routledge.
27.
HooksB. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge.
28.
ItinC. (1999). Reasserting the philosophy of experiential education as a vehicle for change in the 21st century. Journal of Experiential Education, 22(2), 91–98.
29.
JayM. (2005). Songs of experience: Modern American and European variations on a universal theme. Berkeley: University of California Press.
30.
JoplinL. (1995). On defining experiential education. In WarrenK.SakofsM.HuntJ. (Eds.) The theory of experiential education, Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
31.
KadlecA. (2007). Dewey's critical pragmatism. New York: Lexington Books.
32.
KolbD. (1984). Experiential learning: Rationale, characteristics, and assessment. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
33.
KraftR. (1992). Closed classrooms, high mountains, and strange lands: An inquiry into culture and caring. Journal of Experiential Education, 15(3), 8–15.
34.
LeeD. (1976, 1986). Valuing the self: What we can learn from other cultures. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
35.
MeadG. H. (1934). Mind self and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
MeierD. (1995). The power of their ideas. Boston: Beacon Press.
37.
MolnarA.ReevesJ. (2002). The growth of schoolhouse commercialism and the assault on educative experience. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 18(1), 17–55.
NoddingsN. (1995). Philosophy of education. Boulder: Westview Press.
40.
PinarW. (2004). What is curriculum theory?Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
41.
ReynoldsM. (1999). Critical reflection and management education: Rehabilitating less hierarchical approaches. Journal of Management Education, 23, 537–553.
42.
RitzerG. (1996). Explorations in social theory. London: Sage Publications.
43.
RobertsJ. (2005). Disney, Dewey, and the death of experience in education. Journal of Education and Culture, 21(2), 12–30.
44.
RortyR. (1999). Philosophy and social hope. London: Penguin Books.
45.
RuitenbergC. (2005). Deconstructing the experience of the local: Towards a radical pedagogy of place. In HoweK. (Ed.) Philosophy of education 2005. Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society.
46.
SakofsM. (2001). Perspectives: I shouldn't have done it. Next time I won't. Journal of Experiential Education, 24(2), 5–6.
47.
SchubertW.Lopez-SchubertA.ThomasT.CarrollW. (2002). Curriculum books: The first hundred years. New York: Peter Lang.
48.
ScottJ. (1991). The evidence of experience. Critical Inquiry, 17(4), 773–797.
49.
SteeleC. M. (1997). A threat is in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613–629.
50.
WarrenK. (1996). Women's voices in experiential education. Boulder, CO: Association of Experiential Education.
51.
WarrenK. (2002). Preparing the next generation: Social justice in outdoor leadership education and training. Journal of Experiential Education, 25(1), 231–238.
52.
WestC. (1989). The American evasion of philosophy: A genealogy of pragmatism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
53.
WichmanT. (1995). Babies and bath water: Two experiential heresies. In WarrenK.SakofsM.HuntJ. (Eds.) The theory of experiential education. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt.
