“Care for nature doesn’t just happen” - Perspectives on care for nature in Norwegian teacher education

Abstract

This master thesis explores how teacher educators with a background in nature- and friluftsliv-based education work to nurture care for nature in Norwegian programs. It responds to previous research pointing to the important role of teacher education and care for nature in developing educational practices that are responsive to the prevailing eco-social challenges of our time. Furthermore, it addresses the successful realisation of fundamental values in Norwegian education as put forth by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training in its current core curricula for kindergarten and school education. This qualitative study employs an integrated pragmatic approach that includes semi-structured interviews and the analysis of selected curriculum sections. Findings reveal different conceptualisations of care for nature on a spectrum between anthropocentric and relational perspectives. Furthermore, the teacher educators appraise local, slow and low-impact approaches to friluftsliv and nature experience as helpful to nurturing care for nature in teacher candidates. Lack of time can be identified as the most challenging, while cooperation and involvement of colleagues, teacher candidates and community members are experienced as rising the most opportunities. Additionally, the teacher educators display different strategies to creatively work within their frameworks and find ‘interstices’ to nurture care for nature. These findings imply that friluftsliv and nature-based approaches hold the potential to nurture care for nature in teacher education that should be explored through other perspectives including the multitude of subject disciplines, indigenous Sami culture and other minorities that have a share in teacher education.