Participation, Education, and Democracy: Implications for Environmental Education, Health Education, and Education for Sustainable Development

This chapter focuses on participation in the context of European and Nordic debates about whether education should be understood as an end in itself, as in the humanistic tradition, or instrumentally, to bring about social change. In the case of the latter, environmental education, health education, and education for sustainable development can each be understood as denoting initiatives and efforts that are driven by a shared ideal of improving the world we live in now, and for the future. As such, they are often seen as overruling education in the former, humanistic sense, particularly in relation to its legitimate purposes and modes. Whilst acknowledging this trans-educational function, this chapter sets out to recover the relevance of general education to ‘adjectival educations’ like environmental education, health education, and education for sustainable development, and vice versa, that is, in relation to efforts to educate pupils in a broader, humanistic sense. It asks what, after all, is the aim of our educational efforts, and how are we to assess their success and outcomes, particularly if we are to prevent ‘adjectival educations’ from being reduced to instruments of ideology or policy when the overarching goal is to foster deeper and more meaningful participation in education.

Keywords participation, co-determination, democracy, general education, adjectival education