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The ecological crisis, marked by the Anthropocene epoch, is having a major impact on the global ecosystem, and the consequences are predicted to become increasingly severe in coming decades. The turbulence and uncertainty of the crisis means social work must begin planning, reflecting and reorientating. The first half of the article contextualises the climate crisis within neoliberal capitalism, whereas the second half proposes alternatives for social work practice that attempt to exist outside these structures. We have argued that social work should have a greater focus on developing an eco-social transition which means engaging with alternative economic systems, intentional communities, community gardens and localism. These approaches can practically espouse the profession’s values whilst beginning to conceptualise a response to the climate crisis that operates outside neoliberal capitalism.

The COVID-19 crisis forced educators globally to reassess delivery of their curricula and educational priorities. Already the worsening climate crisis amid human beings’ deleterious relationship with the more-than-human world has caused many educators to demand radical reconsiderations as to the purpose and meaning of education. We ask: how did the disruption of mainstream schooling, during the COVID-19 crisis, provide opportunities that we can learn from so that we may improve our future relationship with the more-than-human world? We examine research that shows children can benefit from outdoor, contemplative pedagogical approaches that differ from their usual indoor classroom experience. Outdoor, contemplative pedagogical approaches involving freedom from “clock-time”, as were experienced by some children during the lockdowns, can allow for ways of knowing and states of being that are often marginalised or excluded from mainstream schools in industrial growth societies. We draw on underpinning theory that argues the status quo in schools conforms to a factory model of schooling that prioritises limited ways of knowing and states of being, thus, lacking the perspectives needed to enable children to cultivate a sustained, healthy relationship with nature. We suggest that outdoor contemplative approaches are required that allow children to dwell pedagogically and experience their relationship with the more-than-human world.

While gender equity appears to be moving at glacial speed in contemporary societal debate, many argue advancement toward equitable outdoor leadership has been stymied. Hearing and responding to lived experiences and stories can be an impetus for transformational change. The experiences of all genders, as well as nonbinary and agender people, attest to the need for a major shift within the outdoor professions. Together, as a unified voice, we explore our diverse perspectives and professional journeys as reflexive practitioners. By sharing our biographical sketches with a particular focus on gender influences, through our philosophical approach we intend to highlight efforts underway to redress gender inequities and promote institutional and cultural adjustments. We detail attempts to raise awareness, gather resources, and promote effective entry points into the conversation. We describe our perceptions of the gendered landscape and pinpoint areas of future focus to elevate understandings of inclusive outdoor leadership. Radical and unilateral progress is needed, and we offer tangible and inclusive pathways to move this critical agenda forward within various spheres of influence. Subscribe to JOREL

Recent dialogue in outdoor leadership has led to the realization that more care and attention is required to ensure the profession receives the benefits of diverse perspectives. In this paper, we report on stories gathered through feminist narrative inquiry via art-based approaches from 32 participants attending one of three outdoor conferences in Australia. The arts-based workshops aimed to provide a safe space for participants to reflect upon how gender may have influenced their outdoor leadership journey. Three key gender-related themes emerged through a thematic analysis of the reflective process: (1) noninclusive practices, (2) inclusive practices, and (3) suggestions to increase equity and inclusivity to embrace and enact. Further exploration of these themes highlighted the value of single-gender environments and the influence of supportive mentors while illuminating the societal privileges, unconscious entitlement, and implicit biases prevailing in the profession. Finally, we draw attention to gender erasure and the imbalance in voice and suggest collaborative efforts that move the outdoor leadership profession forward and ensure the benefits of diverse perspectives are received.Subscribe to JOREL

In this century characterised by rapid change and unprecedented challenges, most education systems have acknowledged the importance of developing interpersonal and intrapersonal skills alongside technical knowledge. This chapter describes how two approaches to outdoor learning develop these 21st century competencies, through the lens of experiential education. Outdoor Adventure Education is an established pedagogical vehicle for developing psycho-social skills. Learning Outside the Classroom is a rising movement of teaching subject content while simultaneously promoting interpersonal, communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and conflict resolution skills, creativity and connection with nature. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the potential of outdoor environments to foster transformative competencies, and the inherent challenges for integration into regular school experiences.

Embedding a gender-aware and social-responsive culture is one of the many challenges which confronts the outdoor profession. Creative methodologies and feminist research has the potential to unlock new insights and knowledges about outdoor embodiment and embolden change. This paper offers a fresh research approach to interrogate the lived experiences and prevailing injustices encountered by outdoor women. To address issues of hegemony and asymmetrical power imbalance, the authors chose visual arts-based methods to widen their research aperture. Arts-based research disrupts the common use of language and allows participants to creatively communicate thoughts and feelings. Data was gathered from a purposive convenience sample of outdoor leadership professionals at conference workshops and emergent themes analysed. We conclude as a reflective research method, visual-arts provided alternative perspectives beyond the dominant discourse to illuminate blindspots in the outdoor professions.

Background: Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers are in a unique position to act as role models to their students.Purpose: To explore the expectations, beliefs and attitudes towards role mo...

Gender roles invariably shape the styles of leadership people assume in outdoor education. This research investigates how society’s value of masculine leadership styles influence instructor and participant understandings of, and experiences in, the outdoors. Six practiced outdoor leaders were interviewed to critique their gendered experiences within the industry. While each of their stories were singular, collectively, the interwoven threads reveal marked intersectional similarities. The emergent themes observed included: breaking gender roles is a positive; leaders encourage gender incongruency; and, organisations focus on gender-balanced hiring. Interestingly, the findings, which were not overtly apparent to all participants included: female leaders feel the need to prove themselves; and, the mechanisms to better address gender fluidity in the industry are needed. The investigation also revealed unconscious bias and sexist views still prevalent in the industry. These included: the belief that women are less physically able; sexual harassment is normalized; and, working with female instructors can be more challenging. Our study raises questions about the buried dynamics of gender expectations and the undercurrents shaping both participants’ and leaders’ experiences in the outdoors. Conclusions are drawn which call for reimagining ways of moving our gendered leadership understandings and practices forward both at the coalface and during professional training.

The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award (as it is named in Australia) is an extremely widespread and popular youth development program. Participants (14–25 year olds) navigate the Bronze, Silve...

There has been increasing interest over the past decade with regard to the health and wellbeing implications of time spent outdoors in nature for children. Universal systematic reviews of evidence report benefits to physical health, social-emotional mental health and wellbeing, cognition and academic learning. Internationally, there is indicative evidence to suggest outdoor engagement with nature may also impact children’s language and communication skills, skills that are critical to development, education, social relationships and life opportunities. Yet, at present such evidence has not been synthesised. Despite evidence for the benefits of the outdoors, the amount of time children are spending outdoors is in rapid decline, and has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside this are increasing numbers of children starting primary education with significant speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) which remain persistent over time. With established wide-reaching benefits of nature to children’s physical and mental health and psychological development, there is a need to further explore the more specific impacts of the natural environment on children’s language, communication and social skills, which could provide a unique opportunity to consider nature as a universal public health intervention for SLCN. The current review will aim to synthesise existing qualitative and quantitative evidence of the impact of time spent in natural outdoor spaces on the language, communication and social skills of 2–11-year-old children. Literature will be searched across seven databases and considered for inclusion against inclusion and exclusion criteria. Potential implications of the review include informing public health practice and policy for child development and education, informing priorities for speech, language, and communication interventions, and providing directions for future international research.

Outdoor Learning in natural environments is a burgeoning approach in the educational sector. However, the evidence-base of research has not kept pace with teacher perceptions and increased practitioner usage. Anecdotal evidence and formal research suggest the significant health and wellbeing benefits of nature connection. Offering low-cost, non-invasive pedagogical solutions to public health challenges—particularly around mental health, wellbeing, physical literacy, and increasing physical activity–the pedagogical benefits of Outdoor Learning are yet to be fully enunciated. The proposed systematic review will search for studies across eight academic databases which measure the academic and socio-emotional benefits of Outdoor Learning, with a focus on school-aged educational settings. Using the inclusion criteria set out in this paper (and registered with PROSPERO: CRD42020153171), relevant studies will be identified then summarised to provide a synthesis of the current literature on Outdoor Learning. The goal of this review is to document the widespread international investigation into Outdoor Learning and its associated benefits for development, wellbeing, and personal growth. The systematic review will provide insights for teacher-training institutions, educational policy makers, and frontline teachers to improve the learning experiences of future students.

This is an unusual article in that it brings together the perspectives of many on this journal’s editorial board, around the issue of contending with COVID-19. Twenty statements showcase a range of thoughts and experiences, highlighting the differences and similarities in the way the pandemic is impacting on the educational practice of outdoor and environmental education. The future is not yet written, of course, so it is worth thinking about how the current moment may impact on the months and years to come. The aim of this article is to influence and support such thinking Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The Forest School movement offers children valuable outdoor experiences; however, pedagogically it is under-theorised and under-researched in diverse contexts. As a result, it has at times become a “drag and drop” program, which does not necessarily acknowledge local place, environment or culture. Alternatively, place-based outdoor learning is examined as a place-responsive approach, where a year-long outdoor program was implemented and evaluated in an Australian primary school. Place-based outdoor learning is a broader integrated approach that is interconnected with place, curriculum and learners. This paper re-envisions a perspective on outdoor teaching to individualise meaningful learning in nature, within specific contexts.

Forest School focuses on child development underlining nature-connection and play pedagogy. Practitioners facilitate child-led learning through a deep observation approach. However, challenges and assumptions exist in such approaches. Additionally, a critical examination of the practice reveals that it may be lacking a solid theoretical underpinning that can respond to diverse contexts and participants while escaping a one-size-fits-all approach encouraged by commercialisation. Ecological Dynamics offers a theoretical framework that has the potential to guide Forest School practice and clarify its effectiveness. Specifically, notions of affordances combined with analysis at the level of person-environment relationships could guide future design and implementation of activities. Benefits could include realising and attuning to affordances which have sociocultural and individual connotations, thereby respecting local cultures and their community resources. The role of the Forest School practitioner becomes one of facilitating diverse populations in their perception of affordances in nature for individualised benefits, including well-being.

Two social media posts (Highland, 2015; Johnson, 2015) about the authenticity of women’s experiences in the outdoors fueled an intense dialogue among the authors of this paper. These posts sparked healthy debate, and we asked ourselves, “Why does our apparel, our aesthetic appeal, our physicality, or even our motivation become subject to critique and judgment?” The burgeoning use of social media, in particular the use of Instagram and Facebook to curate a public self, has provided the catalyst for our study. This paper explores the use of online presence by women in the outdoors and examines how social media is portraying those women. In particular, we examined the authenticity of Instagram and Facebook in representing identities. We also interrogated the potential of social media to contribute to the commodification and aestheticization of what it means to be a woman in the outdoors, using current social media literature as a point of departure and Goffman (1959) as a theoretical lens. Findings were mixed; some images perpetuated the aestheticization of women outdoors, whereas others provided inspiring, strength-based portrayals. Such findings implicate the unremitting need to deconstruct negative aspects of social media images of women in the outdoors and develop a new lens to (a) assess the positive aspects of social media images of women in the outdoors, (b) counteract the negative self-perceptions generated by mainstream media images, and (c) allow for positive self-representation.Subscribe to JOREL

This study investigates innovative ways that outdoor educators can actively promote young participants’ authentic voice in educational research and, in turn, increase our understanding of their worldview through accurately recording what children are seeing, hearing, doing, and touching when they are beyond our researcher’s gaze. The study was conducted with an Australian primary school class who completed a 1-year place-based outdoor learning program. It employed a novel research design wherein video footage was obtained from body-worn cameras mounted on the chests of the children. The footage depicts first-person visual and audio data from children’s viewpoints and deepens our understanding of children’s learning experiences. Additional data included observations, curriculum work samples, academic results, interviews, and student-generated photographs. Results highlight that footage provides unique insights regarding triangulating findings on student learning experiences. Body-worn cameras may be used to enhance young people’s participation in research when integrated into a broader child-friendly approach.Subscribe to JOREL

PurposeThis study, from Western Sydney University, aims to assess the disposition of students towards climate warming (CW) – a key component of sustainability. CW is a global reality. Any human born after February 1985 has never lived in a world that was not constantly warming, yet little is known about how higher education students perceive their future in a warming world.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey, split into three parts, was used to deliver benchmark data on (I) personal information, (II) factual knowledge and (III) sentiments related to CW.FindingsGender and age of students significantly influenced their perception of CW. While self-rated understanding of CW was generally high, factual knowledge about CW was low. Few students recognized that CW was already under way, and that it was mainly caused by human activity. The most prominent emotions were fear, sadness and anger, foretelling widespread disempowerment and fear for the future.Research limitations/implicationsThe study was based on a single dataset and survey response was relatively low. However, respondents mirrored the composition of the student community very well.Originality/valueThis is the first study revealing large psychological distance to the effects of CW in university students from Australia. Combined with the impression of despondence, the present study suggests that higher education in Australia, and possibly elsewhere, is not providing the prerequisite tools tomorrow’s leaders require for meeting societal, environmental and economic challenges caused by CW. Practical ways to erase these blind spots in sustainability literacy are provided, drawing upon established and novel concepts in higher education.

Women leaders in outdoor environmental education (OEE) have begun to discuss the invisibility cloak that seems to envelope us. Women comprise approximately half the OEE professionals; however, women still face gender bias resulting in challenges of recognition and access to the upper echelons of the profession. Data show that implicit prejudice and limitations, arising from systematic hegemony and the gender binary, create an atmosphere that generally silences or ignores women's contributions and voices in media and history. As a collective group, our profession needs to actively challenge and positively change the forms of knowledge and recognition that render women invisible. Authors suggest that feminism and alternative discourses that have historically been marginalized or less visible can be used to replace and challenge current dominant narratives.

This project sought to investigate the learning that comes about from the intersection of outbound mobility experience programs (OMEs) with service learning in pre-service teacher education settings. The aim of the program of international service learning in the case study was to encourage pre-service teachers to rethink potentially ethnocentric assumptions. The guiding research question was, ‘What outcomes ensue from the combination of OMEs and service learning for pre-service teachers?’ The focus of the paper was on OMEs that took place in China and Malaysia. Findings included that the combined program aided development of global mindedness, learning by being there, teacher experience in a new context and the development of a professional identity in the participating students.

Background Health and Physical Education (HPE) teachers are known to be under social-, personal-, and employment-related pressure to be and appear physically fit, and to use dangerous dieting and weight control practices. This is problematic due to the influence this may have on their own health and the potential to model these attitudes and behaviours to their future students. Methods In this paper, we compare the body image, dieting, disordered eating, and exercise behaviours of first year, HPE, and non-HPE, teacher education students. Participants were 596 first-year university student pre-service teachers (n = 249 HPE and n = 347 non-HPE) from three universities in Australia who completed self-report questionnaires. Analysis of covariance and logistic regression analyses were used to determine differences in attitudes and behaviours between these two groups for males and females separately. Results We found that male HPE participants had significantly higher levels of drive for muscularity and obligatory exercise, and were more likely to be classified as having an exercise disorder, dieting, and using steroids than non-HPE students were. Female HPE students were more likely to engage in self-reported excessive exercise, to have higher scores on the Obligatory Exercise Questionnaire, and be classified as having an exercise disorder. Conclusion These findings are important as they confirm the presence of dieting and disordered eating attitudes and behaviours among all teacher education students, and highlight male HPE teachers as a potentially vulnerable group. These results may inform the implementation of intervention programs for teacher education students to ensure their personal wellbeing and professional capacity in promoting positive body image, nutrition, and physical activity among young people. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40337-016-0133-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The role, place, and often invisible contributions of women working in the outdoor learning profession have become an area for increased scrutiny. Alarmingly, there is an underrepresentation of women cited in research and practice, yet women make up approximately half those involved in outdoor education and outdoor recreation. A male-dominated narrative seems to prevail. The intention of this paper is to serve as a focal point for critical analysis and discourse about the status of women in the outdoor learning profession. We investigate the prevalence of females presenting keynotes at Australian national and state outdoor education conferences, complemented by dialogical engagement with women working in the outdoor learning profession regarding the opportunities for their voices to be heard. Our analysis clarifies some of the key issues and identifies constructive ways to recognise and support women’s contributions with the aim of enabling both women and men to be valued for their unique and shared involvements in the outdoor learning profession.

The initial online publication contained several typesetting errors. The original article has been corrected.

Existing community gardening research has tended to be exploratory and descriptive, utilising qualitative or mixed methodologies to explore and understand community garden participation. While research on community gardening attracts growing interest, the empirical rigour of measurement scales and embedded indicators has received comparatively less attention. Despite the extensive body of community gardening literature, a coherent narrative on valid, high quality approaches to the measurement of outcomes and impact across different cultural contexts is lacking and yet to be comprehensively examined. This is essential as cities are becoming hubs for cultural diversity. Systematic literature reviews that explore the multiple benefits of community gardening and other urban agriculture activities have been undertaken, however, a systematic review of the impact measures of community gardening is yet to be completed. This search protocol aims to address the following questions: (1) How are the health, wellbeing, social and environmental outcomes and impacts of community gardening measured? (2) What cultural diversity considerations have existing community garden measures taken into account? Demographic data will be collected along with clear domains/constructs of experiences, impacts and outcomes captured from previous literature to explore if evidence considers culturally heterogeneous and diverse populations. This will offer an understanding as to whether community gardening research is appropriately measuring this cross-cultural activity.

Australia is currently grappling with a range of social and environmental challenges, many of which impact the way our public health system, and society more broadly, function. In this short communication paper we explore urban agriculture in Australia as a Nature-Based Solution (NBS) to address some of the ecological, social, economic and health challenges facing the continent. We argue that urban agriculture has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change extremes while simultaneously providing multiple benefits such as improving wellbeing, people-nature connections, and food security. We present three exemplar case studies diverse in geography, context and governance from Queensland, Tasmania, and New South Wales exploring verge gardening, market gardening, and a community greening program respectively to highlight the benefits of urban agriculture as a NBS. We advocate that various forms of urban agriculture need to be researched and considered for their potential impacts and multiple benefits to be fully supported, governed, and understood in light of the social-ecological challenges Australian cities face.

There is an emerging body of literature that explores the impact of garden-based learning on health, well-being, social cohesion, and educational outcomes. In this paper, we examine a pilot study conducted in partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens’ Youth Community Greening to implement a gardening program with disengaged youth. Data was collected through eldwork and semi-structured interviews, revealing ve interconnected themes: enhancing well-being and health literacy; building life skills; engaging students; connecting with adults; and increasing self- esteem. We conclude by showcasing some of the collaborative practices between educational contexts and communities to reveal how these partnerships can be mutually enhancing.

Introduction: The gendered outdoor education landscape When I first entered the outdoor education (OE) profession in the mid '80s, gender disparity was overwhelmingly apparent. The work environment was highly gendered and homogeneous in a range of ways: white, middle class, and able bodied. Attending the first New South Wales state conference in the early '90s, I could almost cut the testosterone in the air with a knife. I was one of two lonely women; we made up a tiny minority of the workforce due to extreme gender imbalance. A similar scene was playing out in the United States in the '80s as illustrated by OE pioneer and founder of Woodswomen, Inc (WI), Denise Mitten (in press), who has traced the history of women adventuring outdoors within a patriarchal field. She recounts: Over thirty years ago, at the 1983 Association for Experiential Education (AEE) International Conference in Lake Geneva, WI, women made a move to unite using the time-tested communication method of posting a note on the bathroom mirror asking women to "meet at midnight at the picnic table." In the US the AEE was in a challenged state because in a previous year the leadership refused to move the conference from Missouri, a state that did not ratify the equal rights amendment (ERA) for women. Women were understandably angry at the lack of political awareness of male leaders. Women were concerned about lesbian baiting that is so often used to silence women. Meeting at midnight in practice and symbolically provided a space and place to talk about women in AEE. (Mitten, in press) Thankfully, change came rapidly in the middle of the 1990s, with the number of women increasing exponentially (Gray, Allen-Craig, & Carpenter, 2016; Miranda & Yerkes, 1996). The field welcomed a groundswell of talented and competent women who aspired to lead the sector and to teach in the outdoor profession (Mitten & Woodruff, 2010). Yet, whilst the overall number of women in OE has risen steadily since the 1990s, growth in our academic recognition and professional influence has stalled (Christie, in press; Gray, Mitten, Loeffler, Allen-Craig, & Carpenter, 2016). Currently, we lag behind in professional status and are disproportionately underrepresented in leadership positions, in spite of the influx of gifted women. The issue has become more acute over the past decade as a number of authors have noted (Bell, Cosgriff, Lynch & Zink, in press; Blades, in press; Christie, in press; Gray, in press; Gray & Mitten, in press; Martin, 2013). By nature, I would like to consider myself an optimistic and constructive contributor, but how to approach this issue is, nonetheless, a thorny problem. In fact, women's gains in the field have been remarkable, as evidenced by entry-level classes in the tertiary sector full of bright, vibrant, industrious young women and with many of the successful women having benefitted from mentors of both sexes. However, the entrenched problem of gender disparity, especially in terms of the asymmetry in recognition and leadership, compel me to name this issue that has plagued the field: there has not been a thorough feminist self-examination. Since the 1990s, the successes achieved in the field may have created a false sense of complacency, and women have not actively pushed for additional changes that will be necessary for us to truly achieve parity. The source of the problem is complicated: OE women do not often find explicit opposition or overt prejudice. Instead, the obstacles are invisible and the covert biases that prevent women's progress appear to be gender neutral. In addition, many women suffer from feminist fatigue--an important through-line of current feminist discussion--where women are exhausted of raising the "F" word time and time again, with no societal change or progress (Gray, Mitten, et al., 2016). In part, our reluctance to bring up these recurring issues is because many of the problems are hard to pinpoint. …

Universities around the world seek to internationalise students to prepare them for an increasingly globalised world. Outbound mobility experiences (OMEs) are recognised as one of the most effective ways to foster independent thinking, cultural sensitivity, and a sense of ‘worldmindedness’. This article takes a case study from an Australian university and explores efforts to increase student participation rates in OMEs. Through a mixed-method study of three student cohorts (n=223), important data was gathered relating to how OMEs are perceived by undergraduate and post-graduate students. The results are filtered through thematic discourse analysis and suggest that the university needs to do more to build awareness, explain the professional and employability benefits, and create a travel culture where students are encouraged to grow their international skills and communication competencies. This research has important implications for universities seeking to increase international student mobility and prioritise a global outlook.

This paper promotes the Jafari tourism model as a framework to understand the various stages of the student and staff travel experience while participating in an outbound mobility experiences (OME). Working through each of the components of the Jafari model allows recognition of the changing needs and requirements of both students and staff throughout an OME and the tensions that accompany this relationship. Drawing on experiences gained from the development and implementation of a two-week OME to Vietnam offered annually between 2011 and 2015, this paper will demonstrate how the Jafari tourism model can be used in relation to OMEs.

Incorporating the Arts into immersive place-based education programs can increase connectivity with the environment and facilitate the development of socially responsible and pro-environmental learners. Increasingly, children and adolescents are alienated and detached from the natural world. Given this noticeable shift, educators working in the outdoor setting need to rethink their modus operandi. Past attempts to promote learner connection with the environment have centred upon short-term stays and risk-centric approaches that embrace high adrenaline activities. This is the antithesis of Touched By The Earth, a yearlong place-based enrichment program using multi-modal creative methods with young learners to delve into the impact of experiential learning and how the Arts promote a personal relationship with the environment.

Gardening has long been a popular pastime. There is a growing evidence base for the health and well-being benefits of gardening. Community gardening brings a social aspect to gardening, thereby increasing the potential benefits to include addressing social inclusion and poor community health through sharing of values, support of others, and building networks. This systematic review protocol aims to determine the characteristics of community gardening that could lead to beneficial outcomes such as connection with the community and development of new skills. Thirteen academic databases will be searched for studies looking at the benefits of community gardening, with a focus on vulnerable populations. Data will be extracted from all studies meeting the inclusion criteria and summarized to provide an overview of the current literature. This systematic review aims to provide a comprehensive investigation into community gardening, its benefits, and how they are achieved for the target population. By gathering and synthesizing this information, the review should allow policy makers and practitioners to work more effectively to address health and social inequities, by highlighting areas of need and enabling optimization of future interventions.

With high rates of psychological distress reported amongst children internationally, the development and evaluation of new program initiatives is critical in order to meet the challenge of this burgeoning issue. Both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy are emerging as popular strategies to elevate psychological wellbeing. This small-scale program evaluation focuses on nine upper primary school-aged children enrolled in a specialist school in Australia for children with challenging behavior and/or emotional needs. Participants completed a newly developed 8-week intervention entitled 'ACT in the Outdoors' which combined key principles of both acceptance and commitment therapy and adventure therapy. The program was evaluated via a combination of pre and post participant psychological measures, and post interviews with participants and teachers. The results of this small-scale preliminary evaluation suggest that a portion of the participating children reported improvements in psychological wellbeing and skill development. Improvements appear to be mitigated by attendance and level of psychological wellbeing upon program entry. Based on this premise, the results suggest that more research is warranted to further understand the potential benefit of this innovative interdisciplinary approach.

This chapter raises provocative ideas, moving briskly through them inviting engagement in further research and teaching in local/global education policy practice. A new generation of local/global education is warranted if higher education academics and students are to explore the deep fractures in the politics and the economics that are dividing nations, internally and externally. University students (and academics) now live in a world where authoritarianism is on the rise as public faith in democracy declines, environmental degradation and policy dilemmas increase, and racism furthers these crises. These crises are integral to the increasing disconnection between economic growth and real material improvements in their own work/life trajectories. The nature of these challenges is such that making an intergenerational shift in local/global education is now necessary.