Identification as Incentive to Care: Pre-service Teachers’ Orientation Towards Inclusion in Nature

• Main Author: Gedžūne Inga
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2015-12-01
• Series: Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education
• Subjects: inclusion in nature; identification; care; pre-service teacher education; sustainability
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/dcse-2015-0008

This study proposes identification with nature as a pedagogical technique in teacher education for sustainability to facilitate commitment to care about nonhuman nature, such care being an important underpinning of an inclusive and hence sustainable human-nature relationship. 29 pre-service teachers participated in a series of learning activities which involved using identification with nature combined with creative forms of expression such as eco-story and eco-poetry to reflect on the human-nature relationship. Findings from qualitative content analyses of student-generated creative writings and subsequent evaluations of the proposed learning experience support the use of identification in learning about human-nature relationships to promote care for and inclusion in nature through nuanced awareness of similitude between the human and the nonhuman.