It is not novel to say we need a new paradigm or new approaches in Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE).  Writing in 2010, halfway through the UN Decade for Sustainable Development, Pace looks back at what had been achieved in terms of Environment Education tracing it back to its roots in the Tbilisi IGC; He dares suggest we have been ‘preoccupied with what version is currently in fashion’ rather than action.  Pace positively concludes this is ‘part of an educational process that is contextually relevant, participatory, emancipatory and leading towards sustainable development’ (2010, p.322). Since then, there was what Gough (2016) describes as ‘a materialist turn’ (p.55), with contributions like McPhie and Clarke’s (2015, 2020) amongst others.

I am looking at ESE outside of formal schooling.  Ardoin and Heimlich (2021) suggest that learning ‘happens across a variety of biophysical and sociocultural settings, experiences, and contexts and is recognised as being life wide; …  …  [is] ‘life-deep, or influenced by one’s culture, values, beliefs and ideologies’ (p.1682).  The survival of humanity and all creatures on Earth is an issue that according to Deane-Drummond (2008) touches deeply on our sense of meaning and purpose: ‘it is hard to talk meaningfully about ecology …  …  without also speaking about religion and theology’ (p.11).

In ESE (and EE) literature there has been little focus on Christian ESE.  Cholil and Parker (2021) suggest that it is important for the broader EE research community to consider religious EE because just as like some New Materialist approaches, it is interested in ‘exploring the more-than-human world [and] how we can get away from anthropocentrism’ (2021, p.1778).    Integral ecology is one of the elements of Christian EE, also identified as one of the intellectual responses to climate change, and the Anthropocene (Ivakhiv, 2014; Clarke, 2017). Integral ecology is described by Pope Francis in his letter to all humanity: Laudato Si, On care of our common home as call ‘to openness to categories which transcend the language of Mathematics and Biology and takes us to the heart of what it is to be human’ (LS11). 

There is considerable action on the Christian ESE front (Howles, et al 2018; Kureethadam, 2019), spurred by Laudato Si, where a whole chapter (6) deals with ‘Ecological Education and Spirituality’ highlighting the importance placed on education (LS15).  It is interesting that there has been little articulation or focus on links between Christian EE and ESE.  This can prove to be an avenue for possibility, and an alternative way of looking past dualisms, as suggested by New Materialists.     

There is no better time for ESE to ‘explore and apply various forms of post-humanist and new materialist theory in rigorous but creative ways’ (Mannion 2020, p.1353).  Similarly, I suggest focusing on emerging New Materialist themes in the Christian EE/ESE context, building on them,  and exploring new connections:  adding to work by Clarke and Mcphie (2020) in their introduction to the special issue of Environment Education Research: New Materialisms and Environmental Education. 

In a climate emergency, in any emergency, we need all hands on deck.  ‘If we are truly concerned to develop an ecology capable of remedying the damage we have done, no branch of sciences and no form of wisdom can be left out’ (LS63).  Hungerford and Volk in their 1990 paper differentiate between information giving, and the more challenging task of behaviour change.  Building on Latour’s lectures, amongst others, in their paper on an Ecological citizenship, Howles et al suggest a ‘potential overlap’ between New Materialist concepts and Laudato Si:  it is that which I explore in my research.

My method is ethnography with some autoethnographic elements as I participate and experience the same spaces, and educational activities/courses of two different Christian ESE providers in the UK. The groups are connected through a Christian conservation organisation. I draw my qualitative data from fieldwork using interviews, participant observation and focus groups. I have carried out scoping interviews at the start of the process to identify and choose my case studies. I have also attended public (online) meetings with my groups’ ethical permission (and appropriate Ethical permissions from my institution). My positionality, as a researcher from Malta growing up with an education based on the values of the Catholic church, contributes to the ‘how’ and ‘why’ I chose to dealing with this topic. Thinking back at my own education and my motivation for any environmental action (with respect to what kind of planet I want to leave for my children) I do not see it apart from the rest of the assembly that makes my own life: social, economic, cultural, spiritual, political or educational. Linking ESE with my Christian values seemed natural. Reflecting on my research journey I embrace a New Materialist approach, as described by Fox and Alldred (2015) of ‘research-assemblage’ which includes myself as researcher, data, methods and contexts’ as a participant observer and this is how I think looking at Christian ESE with that approach will contribute to knowledge in ESE.

By focusing on Christian ESE providers in the UK, I want to see what themes emerge. We can learn whether such a connection or such assemblage of ESE embedded in Christian values is purposeful, and therefore could do more towards supporting the creation of environmentally responsible communities that we desperately need in this Climate Emergency. The beneficiaries of my case studies will be environment and sustainability education providers themselves, and to contribute to knowledge in this field so that we have better chances of living in a more sustainable world. Clarke and Mcphie, assert that “conversations about the significance of new materialisms within environmental education research are well underway” and with my contribution, using that approach I hope that I bring in another theme: how eco-theology as part of integral ecology could be included in our discussion in ESE, as part of thinking with new concepts (Clarke and Mcphie, 2020). Just like Gough’s concluding remarks, (2016, p.60) it is difficult to point to exact outcomes at this stage in my research, therefore I propose looking at Christian ESE for new connections, to find out how it is becoming: there is no other way to do that than by being present and experiment blurring boundaries of research and experience.

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