In her genealogy of the word ‘use,’ Sara Ahmed (2019) highlights the potential that is inherent in the term. It is ‘stubby, plain, workmanlike,’ but also radiates sturdy practicality in achieving something worthwhile (p. 5). While recognising the value of ‘blue sky’ or basic research ‘of’ or on education, which advances understanding without the expectation of its usefulness, in the case of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) research, there is typically an applied aim of advancing some aspect of ESE, or in other words of being ‘for’ education. Within this, there are many ways that educational research can ‘be of use,’ including through theory (Fine and Barreras 2001).

Ahmed suggests that the requirement to be useful, while often presented generally, tends to fall upon some more than others, often those considered most ‘useless.’ In the case of research, for example, does the responsibility of ‘useful’ ESE research and practice rest with some more than others, including those most affected by a lack of ESE action—people from countries already hard hit by climate change, or communities who have experienced decades or centuries of environmental and colonial injustice (Rickinson & McKenzie, 2021).

Ahmed (2019) also alerts us to the value of ‘queer uses’, or those that challenge how things are usually approached (p. 75); suggesting the value of research that is atypical, or against the grain of usual ways of doing things. Another point is to beware of use as a technique of power, such as ESE research which keeps us busy, but maintains or even perpetuates the status quo. In doing seemingly ‘useful’ research through different kinds of research partnerships, we also risk becoming part of the structures that support education that is less than it can be for people and planet. And perhaps our research too often works with a limited view of what can or needs to be changed, not questioning enough, the forms or procedures of education (Ball, 2020). 

In this symposium, we consider whether and how theory can or should be ‘useful’ in and as ESE research. Theoretical and conceptual work, whether standing alone or in conjunction with empirical data, has been a long standing aspect of ESE research, and research more broadly. It has been advocated as something that can allow us to ‘think without a bannister’ (Arendt, 1975) when used to peel back the layers of assumptions that lock us into particular ways of life harmful to ourselves or others. On the other hand, unconscious theory is always in use, such as in populist theories (the state is corrupt and wants to take away individual freedom), propagandist theory (climate change is a hoax). Theory is in use all the time, shaping how we know and what we do. Surfacing theories in use is typically considered an important part of a critical education, and can be enabled by the mobilisation of alternative theories and ways of thinking and being (McKenzie, 2009).

In addition, the recognition of the implicitness of theory in practice and vice versa, means extending understandings of theories as beyond cognition to also material and lived. Theory not only has an epistemological aspect, but also an ontology, and an axiology. As a result, we can understand theory as socio-materially productive of sense making and action, rather than only as thought (Mannion, 2020). 

In this session, researchers will speak to how they are using theory in their ESE research and to what effects - what it enables or forecloses, how it is understood and practised, and with what possible implications for ESE research, policy, and practice. 

Arendt, H. (1975/2018). Thinking without a bannister: Essays in understanding (Editor J. Kohn). Shocken Press. Ball, S. J. (2020). The errors of redemptive sociology or giving up on hope and despair. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41 (6), 870–880. doi:10.1080/01425692.2020.1755230. Mannion, G. (2020). Re-assembling environmental and sustainability education. Environmental Education Research, 26 (9-10), 1353-1372. doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1536926 McKenzie, M. (2009). Pedagogical transgression: Toward intersubjective agency and action. In M. McKenzie, P. Hart, H. Bai, & B. Jickling (Eds.), Fields of green: Restorying culture, environment, and education (pp. 211-224). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rickinson, M., & McKenzie, M. (2021). The research-policy relationship in environmental and sustainability education. Environmental Education Research, 27 (4), 465-479. DOI: 10.1080/13504622.2021.1895973.