This paper is a contribution to the ongoing debate about the absence of nonhuman others/animals in ESE and the challenging of the anthropocentric characterization of European education (Kopnina & Cherniak 2015; Kopnina 2012; Spannring 2014). The purpose of this paper is to suggest an ethical framework for an understanding of human-animal relationships which can serve as a critical guidance and a theoretical base for the development of an inclusive pluralism in ESE.   

In recent years, several authors have in different ways promoted a pluralistic approach to ESE (Jickling & Wals 2008; Öhman 2008; Lundegård 2012). What these authors have in common is that they are skeptical of an education which serves for a specified end and are instead endorsing an educational practice which not takes a moral (good vs. bad) or rational (right vs. wrong) positions for granted (Van Poeck and Vandenabeele 2012). They encourage an education of participation with openness to conflictual views rather than an education with the ambition to teach consensus.

The pluralistic approach has however been criticized for being an anthropocentric and a “one-species only” pluralism (Kopnina & Cherniak 2015; Kopnina 2012). Kopnina and Cherniak (2015) claim that pluralistic ESE has focused on social and economic issues rather than on questions concerning nonhumans and their ethical and environmental impact/importance. According to the authors, a more inclusive pluralism is needed – embracing the nonhuman other in a “truly plural position which recognizes the diversity of all species” (2015, p 6). Within ESE research there has been surprisingly few studies that have the ambition to deepen the understanding of human-nonhuman relationships and what an “inclusive pluralism” could mean in educational practice (Lynch & Herbert 2015; Pedersen 2013; Spannring 2014).

The ambition of this paper is to contribute to filling this gap by suggesting an ethical framework which place human-animal relationships in education within relation-oriented ethics rather than value-oriented ethics (Kronlid & Öhman 2013). There is a twofold reason for this. Firstly, when the valorization of nonhuman lives are based on their human sameness – such as their ability to feel pain, consciousness etc. (Singer 1975) – a value-orientated perspective on ethics tends to miss a pluralistic diversity of species. Such a position is also criticized for its masculinist/rationalistic starting point in attributing some nonhuman others ethical and moral status. Secondly, value-oriented environmental ethics easily get stuck in a dichotomist structure viewing anthropocentric approaches as non-environmental friendly and non-anthropocentric approaches as environmental friendly.

Instead, we want to start from an ethical-relational appreciation of what nonhuman others can do in educational practices. In order to develop such a framework we build on the works of Val Plumwood (2002, 2009) and Rosi Braidotti (2011, 2013). Theoretically, both Plumwood and Braidotti are grounded in a feministic approach viewing nature-culture distinctions and value-oriented ethics concerning nonhuman others as biased/encapsulated by dominant masculine and patriarchal structures. Together they offer a critique/problematization of anthropocentric notions without ending up in an anthropocentric-biocentric dichotomy.

Alaimo, S., & Hekman, S. (2008). Introduction: Emerging models of materiality in feminist theory. In S., Alaimo, & S, Hekman. (2008). Material Feminisms (pp. 1-19). Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic Theory. New York: Columbia University Press. Braidotti, R. (2013). The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity. Jickling, B., & Wals, A. (2008). Globalization and environmental education: Looking beyond sustainable development. J. Curriculum Studies, 40(5), pp. 1-21. Kopnina, H. (2012). Education for sustainable development (ESD): The turn away from 'environment' in environmental education. Environmental Education Research, 40(5), pp. 699-717. Kopnina, H., & Cherniak, B. (2015 ). Cultivating a Value for Non-Human Interests through the Convergence of Animal Welfare, Animal Rights, and Deep Ecology in Environmental Education. Education Sciences, No. 5, pp. 363-379. Kronlid, D., & Öhman, J. (2013). An environmental ethical conceptual framework for research on sustainability and environmental education. Environmental Education Research, 19(1), pp. 21-44. Lundegård, I., & Wickman, P-O. (2012). It takes two to tango: Studying how students constitute political subjects in discourses on sustainable development. Environmental Education Research, 18 (2), pp. 153–169. Lynch, J., & Herbert, S. (2015). Affirming irregular spaces in a school-wide curriculum initiative: A place for the animals. Curriculum Inquiry, 45(3), pp. 285-303. Pedersen, H. (2013). Parasitic pedagogies and materialities of affect in veterinary education. Emotion, Space and Society, Vol. 14, pp. 50-56. Plumwood, V. (2002). Environmental Culture: The ecological crisis of reason. Routledge: London and New York. Plumwood, V. (2009). ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE. In R. Elliot Charles, Institutional Issues Involving Ethics and Justice. Oxford: Eolss Publishers. Quennerstedt, M. (2008). Pragmatisk diskursanalys av praktiknära texter: Utbildning & Demokrati, 17(3), pp. 89–112. Singer, P. (1975). Animal Liberation. New York: Avon. Säfström, C. A. (1999). Att förskjuta perspektiv: Läsning som omvänd hermeneutik. In C. A. Säfström & L. Östman (Ed.) (1999). Textanalys (pp. 237–244). Lund: Studentlitteratur. Spannring, R. (2014). Animal Ethics and Human Learning. Conference paper for the European Educational Research Association, Section Environmental. University of Porto. pp. 1-6 Van Poeck, K., Vandenabeele, J. (2012). Learning from sustainable development: Education in the light of public issues. Environmental Education Research,18(4), pp 541-552. Warkentin, T. (2010). Interspecies Etiquette. An Ethics of Paying Attention to Animals. Ethics and the Enivironment, 15(1), pp. 101-121. Öhman, J. (2008). Environmental ethics and democratic responsibility. In J. Öhman (Ed) Values and Democracy in Education for Sustainable Development: Contributions from Swedish research (pp. 17-32). Liber Malmö.