Developing a more research-oriented and participant-directed learning culture in the Australian environmental movement.

Environmental groups seek to educate and change people, yet there is little discussion and debate about the various theories and practices they use. One has only to think about the big, national environment groups like Australian Conservation Foundation, Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and World Wildlife Foundation to note that they go about their educational and change practices in distinct ways. And then there are new groups like Climate Action, GetUp and Climate Camp who are seeking to educate and change people in more contemporary ways. We think that adult educators could play a helpful role in fostering more critical and participant-directed interrogation among environmental groups about aspects of their practices that focus on change and education. In this paper, we report on focus groups, case studies and a literature review we conducted for a coalition of three environmental non-government organisations and a state government agency to do just that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]