The development of a re-understanding or reinvestigation of body pedagogy is currently prominent in the research field of physical education (PE) and sport pedagogy. Several researchers point to regulative discourses restricting or controlling the enabling of transformative approaches to alternative practices and content. This criticism concerns problematic scenarios lacking awareness of issues connected to inclusion and diversity but also to traditions of the learning of movement capability and health and a growing focus on measurements. The knowledge area of outdoor education (OE) within PE has been criticised for being a one-size-fits-all approach to curriculum, practice and philosophy and for narrowing learning perspectives. Less attention has been paid to what to learn in OE, including aspects of everyday practices of being outdoors. OE as a knowledge area within PE also risks positioning students with diverse backgrounds hierarchically and as ‘the others’. This is due to barriers and existing power mechanisms that benefit white, middle-class values and traditions. Here studies show that students with diverse backgrounds encounter specific challenges when participating in OE in school due to their families and upbringing lacking outdoor life skills and traditions.

At present, there is a need for theory-generated empirical research exploring embodied experiences in OE, which can give reason for a broader conception of OE goals and desired learning outcomes. In this paper, we try to unpack what the emotional, physical and cultural aspects of being in a favourite outdoor place look like, and what the conditions of the place are, and furthermore what kind of meanings the students make. Hence, this paper will especially focus on aesthetic experiences as one way of exploring embodied experiences, meaning making and environing in relation to OE and being outdoors.

The more precise aim of the presented study was to explore fifteen-year-old students’ meaning making of being outdoors as expressed in their written stories about a favourite place. Two Year Eight classes in a Swedish municipally run compulsory school in the region of Stockholm, Sweden, participated in the study. The municipality has a high diversity in terms of inhabitants with a foreign background (43 percentage of the inhabitants are foreign born or where both parents are born abroad of Sweden).

The students were asked to write a short story (not more than one page) about their favourite outdoor place (what characterizes the place, what makes it special to you, and what happens when you visit this place). During the collection period for the stories, there was a high rate of absence in the classes due to Covid-19 pandemic. All PE-lessons were organized outdoors and no changing of clothes were required. In total, 24 stories (14 by girls and 10 by boys) were collected and analysed out of 28 available for this specific study. The excluded stories (2 by girls and 2 by boys) did not include experiences of being outdoors. The total number of students in the two classes was 47. The analytical approach was based on how people make meaning with text. It drew on the work of Rosenblatt (2005), combined with practical epistemology analysis (PEA) developed by Wickman and Östman (2002) and used by Maivorsdotter and colleagues in several studies (Maivorsdotter et al., 2014; Maivorsdotter and Wickman, 2011). Practical epistemology analysis (PEA) examine experience operationalized through aesthetic judgements. Attention was paid to the relation between the student and the situation (their favorite place). Focus was placed on the direction that learning and meaning making take as a result of situated transactions occurring in educational situations. Here meaning making refers to how experience and habits contribute to the students’ creation of microenvironments in which they can pursue and realise their interests through their ends in view. In the active process of creating microenvironments, students incorporate some conditions and disregard others in a process of ‘environing’. In this way, environing is the process of exploring ‘encounters’ and the experiences of coordinating these into functional wholes The first step in the analysis was to search for descriptions of outdoor events demarcated by the aesthetic qualities expressed in terms of moving towards or away from the fulfilment of the aesthetic quality of the experience. The next steps were to analyze gaps and relations as aesthetic judgements provide us with information about how the students viewed their experience of taking part in a specific event. Identifying encounters was the last step in the analysis. For example, the encounters could involve friends, fresh air, family habits or the students’ previous experiences. The different described encounters illuminate the connection between the student and the situation as a whole.

Our analysis identified the theme ‘to be in a place fulfilling aesthetic qualities of being outdoors’ as the major end in view in the students’ stories. This major theme was then categorized into minor themes leading to dimensions of environing described as “calm and privacy,” “community and togetherness” and “feelings and senses”. The analysis of these made it possible to discern a sense and meaning making of “being” outdoors as an embodied experience, as a relational whole of the self, others and the environment. A favorite place was by all students described as a very local and nearby place accessible in everyday life. The analysis generated understandings of feelings of “fulfillment” and different embodied experiences of what an encounter with an outdoor place or being outdoors could mean. Furthermore, how personal and diverse the meaning making place tends to be and how experience and habits contribute to the students’ creation of microenvironments. Dimensions of environing become part of an embodied process. One conclusion from the findings is that exploring and sharing a favourite outdoor place can become part of both an experience and a reflexive learning process where place touches upon aspects and relations of well-being but also on cultural, ecological and/or historical readings. Habits seen as transactions of experiences and dimensions of environing become more than just learning about a physical place or a technical OE activity; they become part of an embodied process. This type of student assignment may support teaching and learning processes that highlight and educate students’ overall embodied (individual) experiences and learning in OE and PE. The findings call for an alternative understanding of what OE can or should consist of as part of students’ overall embodied (individual) experiences and learning in OE and PE.

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