A PICTURE OF OUTDOOR LEARNING PARTICIPATION

AUTHOR Dave Harvey

Dave Harvey recently completed a PhD through the University of Cumbria, looking at the development of progression and ecosystem models to enhance engagement in outdoor learning. He now runs his own company, Dave Harvey Outdoor Learning, offering research, consultancy and training to the outdoor sector.

This is the third article in this series of three highlighting key findings from my IOL sponsored PhD that explored the issue of increasing participation in outdoor learning (OL). Previous articles have looked at progression in OL and the issues surrounding assessing current participation levels.

The Covid pandemic has clearly demonstrated that the benefits of spending time in the outdoors are being increasingly recognised at multiple levels of society. One route to engagement is through the opportunities provided by the outdoor learning sector, yet a growing body of research shows inequitable participation across different populations.

People access the outdoors for a variety of reasons at different times of their lives. Children are necessarily dependent on adults and the roles of parents and teachers are critical in facilitating access. As young people grow and gain more independence, they still rely on these key enablers but their own capacity to choose becomes more significant. As adults, different goals and circumstances alter the picture again and generates an interplay of factors that influence access. Being able to access the benefits associated with the outdoors, either independently in a recreational sense or through facilitated provision in an OL sense, is dependent on a variety of factors. Access Theory (AT) provides a helpful framework to analyse these processes, relations and means, or mechanisms, categorising them broadly as economic, social and institutional, knowledge based, and rights based (1).

Economic factors relate to money. Lack of money affects people’s ability to pay for services and resources whether you are a participant, parent, teacher or youth leader. The sustainability of many OL projects often depends on their financial viability, so the issue of how things are funded cuts across all aspects of provision.

Social and institutional mechanisms include the issues of social identity, the ability to develop and use networks, and access to individuals or organisations who are in a position of authority that means they can facilitate access for others. These are cultural and societal mechanisms that underpin many other factors and form the social and structural fabric of people’s lives. The IOL’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion webinar series has begun to raise awareness of some of these issues.

Knowledge based mechanisms go beyond the basic knowledge of knowing what to do, where to go and how to do it, to also engages with the underlying reasons supporting why access is valuable in the first place. Who controls the flow of knowledge and the messages that are sent out? How this knowledge is held and shared influences how people view aspects of OL /OR and their belief in their capability to access it.

Rights based mechanisms are those that are related to law, custom or convention, i.e. what the government, society or communities sanction ether legally or culturally. The law relating to access to land or water, for example, influences people’s opportunities to engage with the natural environment, while the policy level support for OL in a country’s school curriculum affects levels of engagement in individual schools.

AT suggests that access can be split into three distinct aspects that involve a complex interaction between participants, parents, teachers and youth leaders, providers and a wider group of people (‘gatekeepers’) not directly connected to the sector but who nevertheless have a strong impact on provision. The first aspect involves controlling access and concerns the ability to mediate or control other people’s access. Maintaining access is about keeping access open. Gaining access relates to the factors that help or hinder an individual or organisation in being able to access the opportunities and benefits that may exist and can be seen to operate at different levels of participant and provider.

Maintaining and controlling access are closely related and depend on relations between people who have control over resources management or use, some of whom may not be directly related to the OL sector. To maintain access, for example, people may have to pay other people who control it. It is a complex pathway, as a participant may pay a provider to enable them to access activities and experiences, and the provider in turn may pay a landowner for access, either directly through access fees, or indirectly through car parking charges.

Access is often a combination of various factors, the blend of which will be unique for each person, underpinned by an equally unique local context, and the economic and cultural drivers will vary in different localities. In a previous article (see Horizons 98) (2) I suggested the progressive development of people’s capability to choose as a ‘golden thread’ that could link a wide variety of OL experiences across the course of their lives. Given the wide range of access mechanisms that interact to influence engagement and participation, providers and practitioners may be forgiven for feeling that they have limited resources with which to tackle such challenges. How do you tackle social deprivation or cultural views that position access to the outdoors as something for other people?

Clearly, no single provider can offer everything that an individual needs or wants. It makes sense therefore for participants to be able to access a

‘map’ of opportunities that meet their needs. The use of the term ‘access’ is critical here, as it acknowledges the multiple mechanisms at work and it is not as simple as merely pointing people to the different activities. Collectively, the various participants, communities, providers, organisations and venues are part of an overall picture of provision that is situated in a wider framework of local culture, government and council policy, national agendas, local business and cultural institutions including health, education, religion and identity. All of these interact on social, economic and cultural levels, but from an OL provision perspective they do so with little sense of cohesion.  One way to address this is to bring all of these organisations, institutions and stakeholders together into a social innovation ‘ecosystem’ (SIES) model (Figure 1).

Use of the concept of an ‘ecosystem’ to describe something that is far from natural is becoming increasingly popular and, while not without its critics (3), has a number of advantages. The particular OL ecosystem I suggest here has social innovation (rather than, for example, business, education or knowledge) at its heart and brings together a number of core principles. An OL system:

• is designed with a clear purpose in mind

• is based on an understanding of the local context

• is locally embedded and has enough scope to achieve ‘critical mass’, i.e. enough potential engagement to make it work

• makes use of existing resources and works to secure additional resources to enhance provision rather than becoming a competitive provider

• treats all partners equally

• has members who are interdependent and need each other to achieve their goals

• has a focal organisation or leader to faciliate the relationships and set standards

• has resources and a base

• has access to external funding

It is vital also that ecosystems are thought of in their local context.  They need to be part of the community rather than ‘parachuted in’ - a case of infill rather than outreach.  The people who know the community best are the community themselves, and sustainability is more likely if the local community is involved in the plan from the start.

Unlike an ecosystem in nature, an intentionally designed societal one needs to have some form of coordination if it is to achieve more than what could happen simply by letting events take their natural course. A hub organisation or person is necessary, at least in the initial stages, to facilitate the interactions between the various members and develop the ecosystem itself, bringing different organisations and individuals together, seeking additional funding and working with communities and institutions to develop opportunities.

The model is a local perspective one that concentrates on developing experiences in the community and local area, yet it allows for more distant residentials and trips as part of the overall provision. As well as being of value in their own right, these experiences can be used to develop understanding of what can be achieved in the local area or can build from the local area outwards.

The provision of opportunities is critical of course, but it is also necessary to address the underlying issues that affect people’s ability to access them. The idea of ecotones, borrowed from biological ecosystems is helpful here. Ecotones are the ‘fluid transition spaces’ (4) that comprise the boundaries between different elements of an ecosystem. In an SIES they are the transition spaces between different stakeholders. Beyond signposting, attention needs to be paid to where these ecotones are situated and how the transitions can be facilitated, which may require training and support. How, for example, do young people make the transition to attending a canoe club after a single school residential experience? How do families access the skills and knowledge to go for a walk in the countryside when it is regarded as only a place and space for others?

Providing someone who can accompany that first visit or putting on events in the local area that assist with the development of skills and knowledge, for example, are crucial first steps that can, ultimately, encourage autonomy (5, 6). Successful management and monitoring of the boundaries between ecosystem elements can help to facilitate progressive learning pathways that have been shown to be directly related to long-term interest and identity development (3). The ecosystem makes the links between the different opportunities and the participants, and by concentrating on the transition zones helps to challenge the barriers that exist due to lack of confidence, knowledge, social identity, local culture or transport.

The development of a wider range of opportunities and participants’ capibility to access them encourages the growth of both OL and OR. Schools, youth groups and other non-formal organisations can provide opportunities that then link to further learning or recreational opportunities linking to local council objectives, OL sector objectives and national agendas. The experiences provided in the non-formal sector can support the longer-term engagement by hooking into the local ecosystem and working with other providers to develop skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that encourage sustainable use of the environment when transferred to a recreational context. Both OL and OR share similar goals relating to physical and mental health, wellbeing and nature connectedness, suggesting a closer relationship between the two sectors than may currently be acknowledged.

The OL sector has a big role to play in promoting the lifestyles that encourage these goals to be met, so it makes sense that they provide people with the skills, knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that will enable them to access them for themselves.

Concluding thoughts

The model is not without significant challenges. It requires a commitment from the sector to buy into the idea of progression that promotes OR as well as OL, and signposts participants to other opportunities.  It requires commitment from gatekeepers who may not be directly connected to the outdoors to promote participation, both in an OL context and an OR one, and, perhaps most significantly, it requires conscious design and funding. Examples that reflect ecosystem principles and that have achieved considerable success in boosting participation do exist already, most notably the Outdoor Partnership in Wales and its more recent projects established in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland, all of which are different and reflect their local contexts. The Outdoor Partnership was established in 2004 bringing public, private and third sector organisations together to work effectively in the outdoor sector with a common vision. The Outdoor Partnership’s strategic approach envisages a ‘generational change’ where engagement with outdoor activities is the ‘norm’ – an accepted feature of the regular lifestyles of the local population. As a result of its work to date the Outdoor Partnership and its partners has achieved a number of key outcomes including the establishment of over 100 new community clubs and over 13,000 participants (7).

An ecosystem has the potential to bring together the different stakeholders who control, maintain and help people to gain access to OL, facilitating conversations and routes to participation that may otherwise be missed. The model acknowledges the different institutions and structures that affect access and works with them to facilitate it. By focusing on the transition zones it helps people to bridge the gaps between where they currently are and new opportunities, working with the various mechanisms by making links between the different stakeholders to help all of them to meet their goals p

References

The key reference is my PhD thesis: Harvey, D. (2022a) Outdoor learning across the community: The development of progression and ecosystem models to enhance engagement. PhD Thesis: University of Cumbria. Available at https:// insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/6542/

References in text are:

1. Ribot, J. C. and Peluso, N. L. (2003) ‘A Theory of Access’, Rural Sociology, 68(2), pp. 153–181.

2. Harvey, D. (2022b) Progression and autonomy in outdoor learning. Horizons (98)

3 .Oh, D.-S. et al. (2016) ‘Innovation ecosystems: A critical examination’, Technovation, 54, pp. 1–6.

4. Hecht, M. and Crowley, K. (2020) ‘Unpacking the Learning Ecosystems Framework: Lessons from the Adaptive Management of Biological Ecosystems’, The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 29(2), pp. 264–284.

5. Bandura, A. (2018) ‘Toward a Psychology of Human Agency: Pathways and Reflections’, Perspectives on psychological science, 13(2), pp. 130–136.

6. Hartworth, C., Richards, C. and Convery, I. (2020) ‘Entitlements, Capabilities, and Crisis in the United Kingdom’, Journal of Applied Social Science, 14(1), pp. 40–54.

7. The Outdoor Partnership (2022). Enhancing People’s Lives Through Outdoor Activity: The Outdoor Partnership Strategy 2021-2031. Available at: https://outdoorpartnership.co.uk/our-strategy