The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and Learning

The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and
Learning
Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: The
Relationship between Young Children's Participation
and Agency – Children and Nature
Contributors: Author:Eva rlemalm-Hagsr & Anette Sandberg

Book Title: The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and Learning
Chapter Title: "Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: The Relationship between Young Children's
Participation and Agency – Children and Nature"
Pub. Date: 2017
Access Date: November 28, 2020
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications Ltd
City: 55 City Road
Print ISBN: 9781473926608
Online ISBN: 9781526402028
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781526402028.n14
Print pages: 213-226
© 2017 SAGE Publications Ltd All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of the online
version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
SAGE SAGE Reference
© Tim Waller, Eva Ärlemalm-Hagsér, Ellen Beate Hansen Sandseter, Libby
Lee-Hammond, Kristi Lekies and Shirley Wyver 2017
Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: The Relationship between Young Children's Participation
and Agency – Children and Nature
Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: The Relationship between Young Children's Participation and
Agency Children and Nature
Eva rlemalm-Hagsr Anette Sandberg
INTRODUCTION
This chapter discusses and provides an overview of contemporary understandings within early childhood
education for sustainability (ECEfS) from two perspectives: young children's participation and agency, and
the relationship between children and nature. This chapter has both theoretical and practical implications, as
it intends to deepen the understanding of ECEfS and the complex web of present-day educational activities
which combine notions and ideas from the early history of preschools in Sweden with more contemporary
understandings of children and childhood. To illustrate this, a case study is presented from the Swedish
preschool system. Based on a critical theoretical approach, the study aims to scrutinize hidden structures
and assumptions in relation to education for sustainability. We conclude by suggesting that further research
is needed about: (i) ECEfS within an expanded rights framework, (ii) children's relation to nature, (iii) children
as participants and agents of change within cultures for sustainability.
EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY
An education that wants to challenge sustainability builds on reinventions of basic educational theories and
attends to humans’ self-relation, humans’ mutual relations and humans’ relation to other parts of nature (Wolff,
2011: 349).
The above statement is part of a general discussion about the need for educational re-orientation. The author
argues that education, especially education about sustainability, has to acknowledge the interconnection
between individuals, their place in society and their nature as biological beings. These linkages are the focus
of this chapter – specifically in relation to children in early childhood education and care (ECEC); their right to
be involved in decision-making on environmental, social, economic and political matters that affect them; and
ethical questions about nature and the nonhuman world.
We live in an era of uncertainty, instability, complexity and rapid change, and face challenges such as global
warming, decline of biodiversity, resource depletion, unsustainable production and consumption, political
instability and growing inequalities within and between nations. It is sometimes said that these questions
are inappropriate for young children or too challenging for them to handle or understand. This argument has
been challenged, however, and research now argues that young children have a right to take part in such
discussions, and that children are able to understand and become active agents in transformative change
toward a more sustainable world and way of living (Barratt-Hacking et al., 2007, 2013; Davis, 2009, 2014;
Pramling Samuelsson, 2016).
In this chapter we use the concepts ‘education for sustainability’ (EfS) and ‘early childhood education for
sustainability’ (ECEfS). The concept of ‘sustainability’ is rather ambiguous and, to some extent, normative,
and contains important theoretical (Jickling and Wals, 2008; Kopnina, 2012a, 2014; Wals, 2014) and
ideological tensions (Sandell and Öhman, 2013). We agree with Davis’ (2014) understanding of sustainability
as an ‘alternative progress’ striving for an ecologically sustainable world, respect and care for the nonhuman
world, and social, economic and political justice for all humans. This is in line with a critical perspective
that places economic, social, ecological and political sustainability in relation to issues of environmental
sustainability, and equality and justice for humans and nonhumans alike (Fraser, 2009; Mellor, 2005;
Plumwood, 2002).
This way of interpreting sustainability goes beyond the older concept of education for sustainable
The SAGE Handbook of Outdoor Play and Learning

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development, and is a reaction to the rhetorical use of the concept ‘sustainable development'. Specifically, it
is taken-for-granted anthropocentric assumptions that put humans in the foreground and silence nonhumans
(Kopnina, 2014). International policy documents show that since the 1970s (United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment, 1972) education has been a tool in an international political effort to ensure a
sustainable future, and since the 1990s (UNCED, 1992) children have been seen as important stakeholders
with the right to participate (UN, 2015). This drive to increase children's participation rests on the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989), and in particular Article 12, which states
that children have the right to be involved and to be heard in matters that affect them. This transition
toward a child-centred approach has been a lengthy process in both research and policy-making (James
and James, 2004; UNCRC, 1989). It has reconceptualized the understanding of children and childhood,
and young children are now understood and viewed as social agents with the ability to contribute ideas,
experiences and creativity, and also to influence change both as unique individuals and collectively as a
group (e.g. Davis, 2014; James and James, 2004). In recent decades, a participatory educational approach
has pushed environmental education (EE) and sustainability practice and research in the direction of a more
critical and participatory educational approach (e.g., Sandell and Öhman, 2013; Wals, 2014). In addition,
post-human frameworks (e.g., Somerville and Williams, 2015) have changed how humans, materiality and
the environment are understood.
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY
The research field of ECEfS has its historical roots in Environmental Education (EE) and Education for
Sustainable Development (ESD) (Davis and Elliott, 2014). Barratt Hacking et al. (2007) and Davis (2009)
argue that few studies in early ECEfS recognized children as competent participants and agents of change
in connection with sustainability. There is now a growing body of literature about early childhood education
and sustainability from different theoretical and methodological perspectives (Davis and Elliott, 2014; Green,
2015; Somerville and Williams, 2015).
In an overview of contemporary ECEfS and EE research by Somerville and Williams (2015), three major
categories appeared: connection to nature; children's rights and post-human frameworks. The category
connection to nature clearly reflected the EE tradition, focusing on children's connection to the natural
environment, teaching and learning about nature, values, how to behave in natural settings and nature
conservation. Children's rights focused on children's rights and their ability to speak and act on issues of
sustainability. Finally, post-human frameworks dealt with a philosophical and theoretical perspective that goes
beyond the binary opposition of nature and culture (for an extended description of the categories see Chapter
19, this volume). In another research overview, Hedefalk et al. (2015) showed that two different definitions
of EfS were visible in the research. One was a three-part interrelated approach focusing on education
about, in and for the environment, and the other treated the economic, environmental and social domains as
interrelated.
A study by Green (2015) of 36 articles (published between 2004 and 2014) focusing on children's participation
in environmental education and sustainability research showed that children mostly were positioned as
‘human becomings'; this was interpreted as research on children. In some studies children were seen as
important participants, and their voices and perspectives were used; this was research with children. Only
in one of the articles was research by children used. This finding indicates that research where children are
seen as competent actors, as co-researchers, is still rare within early childhood EE and ECEfS.
Other studies in ECEfS highlight children's experiences and perspectives, and their competence and capacity
to get involved and participate in action leading toward a sustainable future (e.g., Hammond et al., 2015;
Hägglund and Johansson, 2014; Mackey, 2014). Nevertheless, children are dependent on what objectives
and issues practitioners in early childhood education perceive as important in the everyday life of the
preschool, as well as their teachers’ views of children and childhood (Elliott, 2012). Davis (2014) stresses
the importance of developing ‘cultures of sustainability’ in order to generate transformative thinking, practices
and relationships in early childhood education about sustainability. This way of seeing the practice can be
understood as what Wals (2014) calls the ‘whole-institution approach'. This is a holistic approach where
schools and early childhood practices integrate a sustainable long-term design into preschool management,
physical environment, teaching and learning as well as community involvement aiming to promote social,
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economic, political and environmental sustainability.
One of several aspects of further research in ECEfS that has been acknowledged lately is the human–nature
relation (Davis, 2014; Somerville and Williams, 2015). Davis (2014) argues for an expanded rights framework
including the following: (1) children's competence and right to participate in efforts to promote sustainability,
(2) children's right to be agents of change, (3) collective rights, as complement to thinking about children's/
human rights, (4) intergenerational rights, (5) the rights of all living beings as well the non-living. Somerville
and Williams (2015) argue that employing a post-human framework and a philosophy that goes beyond the
binary opposition of nature and culture is one way of discursively challenging unsustainable epistemologies,
ontologies and practices.
YOUNG CHILDREN'S PARTICIPATION AND AGENCY
As our emphasis in this chapter is to critically problematize young children's participation and agency, i.e.,
their status as social agents with civil rights and the right to take part in civic engagement (Theis, 2010),
and the relationship between children and nature, we will use Mellor's (2005) patterns of unsustainability
and Fraser's (2009) concepts of affirmative and transformative strategies of change to discuss some critical
aspects of ECEfS. Mellor (2005) argues that three aspects are of interest when discussing unsustainability:
relations between humans; relations between humans and nature; and the double dialectic, namely
human–human relations and human–nature relations (see Table 13.1). Fraser's (2003, 2009) affirmative
approach can be described as actions that do not contest underlying structures of injustice. The
transformative approach, on the other hand, focuses on deconstructing underlying frameworks of injustice.
We define injustice in this chapter as social, economic, political and environmental unfairness. This way of
discussing ECEfS strives to expand the understanding of the social, economic, political and environmental
dimensions of early ECEfS and accentuate their interconnectedness. It addresses epistemological,
ontological and ethical issues of how to be a human or a nonhuman in a contradictory world, issues that
teachers and children face every day.
Table 13.1 Overview of patterns of unsustainability, inspired by Mellor (2005).

Patterns of unsustainability
Relationship between Relations between humans The double dialectic: Human−human relations and
humans. and nature. human−nature relationships.
The need for critical examinations and
The need for an transformations of the epistemological rationales of
Claims for social,
interconnectedness between humans, nature and the world influenced by
economic, political and
human and nature and human western conceptualization, thought and way of
environmental justice.
and non-humans. acting in relation to the human and non-human
world.
Early childhood education for sustainability in relation to the patterns of unsustainability–interpreted as:
Children's participation
Problematizing environmental
and agency in relation Problematizing ontological and epistemological
ethical values and worldviews
to social, economic, understandings of children, childhood, nature and
(anthropocentric–non-
political and culture as part of the knowledge construction in the
anthropocentric) and outdoor
environmental issues in ECEC.
play and learning in ECEC.
ECEC.
ECEfS in Relation to Patterns of Unsustainability
One of the most important aspects of working with ECEfS is promoting children's participation and agency,
and this is relevant for all dimensions of sustainability (Davis, 2014). Child participation, in the sense that
children should have the right to have a say in matters that affect them and to participate as social agents,
is now an accepted principle in politics and in research. This is the result of a long transitional process within
both research and policy-making (James and James, 2004; UNCRC, 1989). To understand the meanings
of children's participation and agency in relation to social, economic, political and environmental issues in
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ECEC, it is important to understand how childhood, children's competence and children's autonomy have
been constructed over time. It is now widely accepted that childhood is a social construction and that children
are affected every day by how adults and society view them. Childhood is also intertwined with social, cultural,
economic and political structures (Kj⊘rholt and Qvortrup, 2012) and environmental concerns (Davis, 2014).
The rhetoric concerning children's rights often aims to challenge hegemonic ideologies that view children
as innocent, irrational and pre-political (James and James, 2004). Childhood sociologists such as Prout
(2005) and Lee (2001) have distinguished between children as ‘human beings’ and as ‘human becomings'.
Prout (2005) has further theorized a being/becoming duality, claiming that both children and adults can be
understood as being and becoming depending on the context. He states that ‘both children and adults should
be seen through a multiplicity of becomings in which all are incomplete and dependent’ (p. 67).
Although children's participation is an accepted position in politics and child practices, it remains contested
(Kj⊘rholt, 2005) and can be interpreted as a site of struggling for recognition (Fraser, 2009; Fitzgerald et al.,
2010), as adults often underestimate children's capacities. Also, some critical concerns have been raised by
researchers such as Popkewitz (2008), Vandenbroeck and Bourverne-De Bie (2006) and Raby (2014), who
argue that children's participation and agency resonate with a neoliberal agenda and with Western middle-
class values of individualism, self-realization and self-governance, as well as consumerism (Brusdal and
Fr⊘nes, 2014). This is an individualization that according to Raby (2014) can deepen the gaps between
children who have the possibility to participate and children who do not due to age, individual capability, space
and marginalized places. However, Raby (2014) argues that children's participation, especially collective
democratic participation in school (or in this case in early childhood education and care), may challenge
dominant discourses and collective concerns such as social justice (p. 86).
According to Manson and Bolzan (2010), children's participation can be expressed in institutional practice
in different ways. It can refer to either individual participation, where the starting-point is the individual
child's ‘participation as taking part in', or ‘involvement in decision-making', where children's collective voices
and actions are considered to be both a value in the form of a democratic right and a pedagogical
practice (Hart, 1997; Shier, 2001; Thomas and Percy-Smith, 2010).In the former, participation has an
individualistic connotation, with children taking part in activities planned and structured by adults. In the latter,
the relationship between adults and children is different, as the power relations are challenged and children
share the power and responsibility for decision-making (Hart, 1997). For example, Broström et al. (2015)
conducted a study together with colleagues from Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Germany and Sweden
in which preschool teachers described how they perceived child participation. Results from the study showed
that the preschool teachers viewed participation primarily in terms of encouraging children to make their
own decisions and creating the best conditions for them to make independent decisions and choices. This
ambiguity can also be seen in Ärlemalm-Hagsér's (2013a, 2013b, 2014) study of 18 Swedish preschools
with a ‘Diploma of Excellence in Education for Sustainable Development'. The objectives of education for
sustainability in the preschool practices were analysed together with an examination of whether and how
children were described as active participants and agents of change in relation to these objectives. The
results imply that children's participation and agency are seen as fundamental in some cases, linked to the
children's own lives in the present and the future. The practice can in this sense be interpreted as a place
for transformative processes. This was evident in the rhetoric of children's rights and skills, as well as in
the rhetoric of care, which manifests itself as respect for the child and respect for nature. In regard to other
objectives, however, children's participation and agency were not considered at all, as for example in gender
and ethnicity issues and children's relation to nature.
The Relationship between Children and Nature in ECEfS
Studies in different fields and diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives have contributed to our
knowledge about the relationship between children and nature (see Chapter 19, this volume). Research on
children's outdoor learning about the environment and sustainability has focused on different aspects of the
issue. According to Davis’ research overview (2009), the focus of research has been on children's relationship
to nature – education in the environment (e.g., Elliott, 2008; Sandell and Öhman, 2010; Wilson, 1997), and
children's understanding of various phenomena in nature – education about the environment (e.g., Chawla
and Flanders Cushing, 2007). However, studies that recognize children as participants in or agents of change
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in connection with sustainability – education for the environment, which previously was lacking in the research
(Davis, 2009) – are now growing in number (Davis and Elliott, 2014; Green, 2015).
Studies (e.g., Ewert et al., 2005) emphasizing children's experiences of and interaction with nature as a
significant means of cultivating children's interest in and concern for the environment indicate that by acquiring
a caring attitude towards nature, children can promote pro-environmental attitudes and values such as
respect for and awareness of nature. In recent years, research has shown that spending time in nature is
not in itself enough to generate and consolidate environmental friendly attitudes or behaviour (Sandell and
Öhman, 2013). Chawla and Flanders Cushing (2007) point out that notions about how pro-environmental
behaviours are fostered often falter as a result of simplistic understandings of the relationship between
experiences in nature and behaviour changes. They further stress that these issues are inextricably linked to
politics and to children's ownership and involvement.
The normative perspectives on the relationship between children and nature can be understood as stemming
from the European Romantic Movement's unproblematic view of the child as deeply intertwined with nature
(Froebel, 1995 [1826]; Rousseau, 1892).
Gender and Outdoor Play
Other, ‘romantic', views of children and nature include seeing outdoor play as gender-neutral and context-
free. This has been challenged by studies showing that children's play in early childhood settings is gendered
(Blaise, 2005; MacNaughton, 2006). Thorne (1993) discussed the constructions of gender in children's
outdoor play in terms of a ‘choreography of gender'. This ‘doing’ of gender takes the form of girls’ and boys’
different choices of themes, places and materials for play. Outdoor play can also be seen as constructions
of diversities, contradictions and ambiguities beyond the dualism of ‘girls’ and ‘boys'. For example Waller's
(2010) and Ärlemalm-Hagsér's (2010) studies about children's outdoor play showed that both girls and boys
actively took part in mostly similar activities and behaviours. On the other hand, gender segregation was also
visible when children played in gender-based groups and in their choice of play themes.
Other researchers have shown that the natural environment might increase gender equality, since nature
and natural materials are not gender-coded, as many of the materials indoors might be (Änggård, 2011). On
the other hand, Niklasson and Sandberg's (2011) study found some gender and age differences concerning
perceived and utilized affordance in outdoor environments. The children's narratives also indicate that girls
and boys have qualitatively different experiences of playing in the natural outdoor environment.
In contemporary critical gender research in early childhood education (see. for example. Blaise, 2005;
Hellman and Heikkilä, 2014; MacNaughton, 2006) the theoretical perspectives have moved from the analysis
of ‘difference’ in gender as nature-given and/or biological. By analysing the prevailing gender constructions
and developmental discourses in preschools, we can challenge underlying constructions of children and
childhood and of femininity and masculinity.
Environmental Ethics, Values and Worldviews
Even though critical questions about the human–nature relationship are essential to understanding the
complexity of sustainability, they are seldom stressed in early childhood education (Elliott, 2008). One
way to problematize the relationship between children and nature is to use theoretical understandings and
concepts from environmental ethics. As Wolff (2011) states: ‘Humans shape their relation to nature through
their views of themselves, of others, and of the entire planet’ (p. 329). Studies in environmental ethics
have discussed different intrinsic values of the human and the natural world such as anthropocentrism,
ecocentrism and biocentrism. These are values that are implicitly transferred through language and mind-
sets. Anthropocentrism implies that human beings are the most significant species in the universe and/or are
superior to nature. A non-anthropocentric form of environmental ethics, biocentrism, implies that all forms of
life have intrinsic value, while ecocentrism considers all ecological ecosystems to have intrinsic value (Kronlid
and Öhman, 2013; Plumwood, 2002).

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There is a lack of studies with young children about their environmental ethics, values and worldviews (Evans
et al., 2007; Kopnina, 2012b). A number of studies have examined children's environmental attitudes with
a focus on environmental problems and worldview. For example, Kahn's (2002) psychological constructivist
studies showed a large amount of anthropocentric reasoning (95%) in children's answers to questions
about environmental issues and a smaller amount of biocentric reasoning (5%). Kahn suggests that children
undergo a shift of worldview from anthropocentric to biocentric reasoning around the age of 6–8, as they
assimilate knowledge about the environment and the world, and that children from a wide range of cultural
and social backgrounds show a high degree of moral reasoning about environmental issues. In studies from
New Zealand informed by critical pedagogies of place, ethics of care and local indigenous knowledges,
Ritchie and colleagues (Ritchie, 2014; Ritchie et al., 2010) describe how some early childhood education
settings were working to create cultures of sustainability in cooperation with the local community, described by
one of the preschools as building ‘communities of care'. In these early childhood education settings, children
encounter philosophical, spiritual and ethical values and issues, along with practical aesthetics challenging
anthropocentric values. In this way, early childhood care and education services can become part of a
philosophy and practice of caring for one another and for the planet.
To problematize the relationship between children and nature and ECEfS in research and practice by using
theoretical understandings and concepts from environmental ethics is one way to respond to Kopnina's
(2012a) call for more explicit clarification of the underlying environmental ethics, in particular in EfS research.
PRESCHOOLERS’ EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY: A SWEDISH CONTEXT
Sweden is often seen as a pioneering country with regard to sustainability issues, and although a large
number of Swedish preschools currently work with sustainability issues (Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013a), there is
a shortage of scientific studies within the field in contemporary Swedish early childhood education research
(Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sundberg, 2016). Swedish preschools have a long tradition of working with social,
economic, ecological and political sustainability issues (Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013a; Dahlbeck and Tallberg
Broman, 2011). This can be seen in the pedagogical work that already took place during the formation of
preschools in the mid-1850s, the contents of which included individual health, lifestyle issues and individual
competence, with children viewed as key actors shaping a better future society characterized by social
stability, health and economic progress. As Dahlbeck and Tallberg Broman (2011) put it, children have been
and still are seen as heralds of moral and ethical values for families and the community.
The current National Curriculum for the Swedish Preschool (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011)
does not specifically use the terms sustainability/sustainable development (SD) or education for sustainability
(EfS), even though the importance of making the world a better place has informed Swedish early childhood
education from the outset (Dahlbeck and Tallberg Broman, 2011). Nature and environmental issues have also
long been part of the educational practice in Swedish preschools (Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013a; Niklasson and
Sandberg, 2011). One conclusion that can be drawn is that the important social, economic, environmental
and political dimensions of sustainability are clearly present in the national curriculum (Ärlemalm-Hagsér
and Davis, 2014). This can be seen in the democratic values that underpin the steering document. Swedish
preschools are also supposed to use democracy as a foundation for all activities. The rationale is based
on the idea of children's participation – their ability to be and to become active democratic citizens in their
own right. When it comes to environmental issues in the Swedish preschool curriculum, specific objectives
concerning the environment and nature that are described include: environmental and natural conservation
issues; an ecological approach; a positive belief in the future; a caring attitude toward nature and the
environment; and understanding nature's recycling processes. The curriculum specifies that preschools
should help children understand that daily life and work practices can be organized in ways that contribute to
a better environment, now and in the future (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011).
A CASE STUDY
This case study has emanated from three studies conducted during the years 2013–2015 (Ärlemalm-Hagsér,
2013b, 2014; Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sandberg, 2013; Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sundberg, 2016). The different
studies are seen as making up a quilt addressing different aspects of the relationship between young
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children's participation and agency, and between children and nature in connection with ECEfS.
The theoretical framework in this ‘case’ study aiming to study children's participation and agency, and children
and nature in a Swedish context, is guided by a critical theory approach (Fraser, 2003, 2009; Mellor, 2005).
This approach recognizes that the current social reality is constructed, and that institutions (preschools in
this case) have political, moral and ethical values embedded in their practices and are created in a specific
historical, social and cultural context (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005). Such structures influence how children
and childhood are understood, as well as how practices are agreed upon and handled. A multiple methods
approach was used, employing an abductive method of analysis. The empirical material consisted of: (i)
applications submitted by preschools in 2008 and 2009 to obtain a ‘Diploma of Excellence’ in sustainable
development (Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013b, 2014); (ii) preschool teachers’ narratives about outdoor play and
learning (Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sandberg, 2013) and (iii) a questionnaire about how preschool teachers
understand and work with education for sustainability (Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sundberg, 2016).
Coltsfoot Preschool
The Swedish preschool discussed here will be referred to as Coltsfoot. At Coltsfoot preschool, outdoor play is
an important part of the preschool practice and children play outside before and after noon on the preschool
grounds or in the nearby woods for 1.5 to 3 hours every day, all year round. Children go out in all kinds of
weather – rain, snow and summer heat. The preschool teachers stress that children's encounters with the
outdoors offer:
• fresh air and experience of the elements, weather and seasons

• contact with natural materials
• encounters with animals and plants
• opportunities to discover the landscape
• opportunities to take risks and test abilities
• multidimensional development and learning
• present and future health and well-being
• play and social interactions with peers.
The natural sciences have lately received new, ambitious curriculum goals, and the preschool teachers also
talk about mathematics, chemical processes and physical phenomena outdoors. Contact with nature is seen
as a vehicle for developing a desire for outdoor activities, and to foster children to respect and care for nature,
understand the interrelationships in nature and become predisposed to develop a future commitment to the
environment. At Coltsfoot preschool they work on a daily basis with conserving resources by saving electricity,
water and materials, sorting and recycling rubbish, and composting. Children are acknowledged as competent
and capable, and as possessing the right to participate in practices that develop their abilities and learning,
to take part in activities promoting democracy, and to influence the everyday activities and objectives at the
preschool with their ideas. Children are seen as social agents and active learners in their own right, and as
people who deserve to be listened to and to have an impact on the preschool practice. As a result of this, the
preschool teachers strive to find ways to handle the contradictions of traditional and multiple contemporary
understandings of children and childhood.
Children's Opportunities for Outdoor Play and Preschool Education for Sustainability
The following is an example from one of the studied preschools:
In the forest you can easily and inexpensively integrate all curriculum goals, and we are in a healthy
environment without the usual interruptions that otherwise happen when we are inside. Even if we already
have planned some activities, the children and the weather decide. Self-esteem and cooperation are
strengthened, and when it comes to gender questions, the forests are not so gender-coded. Everyone is
dressed in long pants, boots, and rain clothes. What we have done is as follows:
One of the children takes responsibility for the group; she or he chooses the path we should take to get to
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our meeting place, a large rock where there are cups, water, and fruit. We have climbed with ropes up on
the mountain, at easy places and then more difficult ones. We've built huts and climbed trees. We play that
branches are dragons, horses, or other things. We have picked and talked about mushrooms, blueberries,
and lingonberries, and lily of the valley berries (they are poisonous). We have picked rosehip, dried it, and
made a drink out of it. We have tasted wood sorrel and resin and other plants from the forest, and gone
‘fishing’ in ponds. We have talked about the water cycle; followed tracks, both natural and human made;
picked up garbage; taken care of ‘abandoned animal’ – [soft toys]. We collect natural things and then organize
them by different shapes and colours. Children jump from boulders and so on.
During all this, we have woven math into all the activities: Who goes first and last; who's in the middle; high up
in a tree; measure the height of the tree; a heavy stone; a light stick. ‘Get a thick stick and thin pine-needles!’
‘Add two leaves and one stone, put them beside each other, and repeat the pattern!'
On forest days, conflicts between children are much less frequent than other days. (Preschool teacher,
working with children aged 5, in Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Sandberg, 2013: 46)
The preschool teacher in this excerpt shows that children's outdoor play and learning are seen as important
parts of the everyday preschool activities. Playing in a natural environment such as the woods creates
possibilities that are different from those created by indoor play and learning. Play is mostly described as
free play: playing in the woods, climbing and jumping, building huts and using natural materials. Learning in
the outdoors can, as the preschool teacher describes it, ‘inexpensively integrate all curriculum goals', and
this refers to both individual learning and cooperative learning. The children's involvement in the activity is
described as the individuals taking turns taking responsibility for the group. Playing in nature is seen as ‘not
so gender-coded', which is exemplified in the excerpt by children's outdoor gear.
Contradictions of Understandings – Striving to Solve the Complexity
In this excerpt the difficulties associated with children's participation and agency in the preschool practices
are described:
Children are particularly vulnerable to environmental degradation and it is important to introduce a focus on
the child into the work. Things like ‘children are our future’ and ‘surely we should listen to children’ are easy
to say, but difficult to achieve in practice. An important start is to work for both the immediate present and
the long term, to give the children a platform where they can show their strength and ability. Children have
the right to knowledge and the right to be aware of the changes taking place in society and of their ability to
influence these changes. To handle these changes, children need to develop relationships with the outside
world and have tolerance for the changes and differences they will encounter in the future. In the educational
activities in the preschool, an important issue is how to prepare children to be able, in the future, to come
together and discuss how they want to shape their future and live their lives. (Preschool 14, in Ärlemalm-
Hagsér, 2014: 107–8)
In this excerpt the preschool teachers clearly express the right of children to take part in discussions and to
be agents of change in a sustainable world and future, because they are ‘particularly vulnerable'. Children
are seen in this excerpt as a multiplicity of becomings, both exposed and vulnerable as competent agents
of change. Also, what does it mean to ‘develop relationships with the outside world’ and what world is this
referring to? Can this statement be extended to the nonhuman world or to people in other geographic regions?
And is tolerance the same thing as interconnectedness or solidarity? Tolerance is a problematic word. Who
is to tolerate whom? In the last sentence of the excerpt, the preschool teacher stresses the importance of
having places for democratic communication. When the children have grown up, they will be able to meet with
others and discuss how they can shape their lives.
In the next excerpt, the need to develop children's knowledge about sustainable lifestyles in the preschool
practice is raised:
Our work is based on making children aware of how our way of life can be adapted to achieve sustainability.
Working towards sustainability with the children in the preschool consists of taking part in environmental
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education and planned activities as well, participating on a daily basis in the conservation of resources, sorting
rubbish, recycling, and discussing how, together, we can take care of nature and the environment, and the
effects this will have on us in the future. (Preschool 13, in Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2014: 108)
Here children are ‘taking part’ in activities related to waste management. The way in which learning practices
concerning everyday sustainability take place and are managed can also in a sense be seen as a system
of regulations where children's behaviours are handled and disciplined, while at the same time children are
fostered to be stewards of nature and to take care and practice responsibility.
INTERPRETING OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES IN SWEDISH PRESCHOOLS IN LIGHT OF A CRITICAL

PERSPECTIVE
In this broad analysis, education for sustainability in Swedish preschools can be interpreted as ambiguous in
relation to: (i) children's participation and agency, (ii) children and nature, (iii) education for sustainability. The
unreflected pedagogical, didactic and ethical dilemmas involved in the Swedish ECEC practices need to be
brought to light.
Children's Participation and Agency
At Coltsfoot preschool, children's participation and agency are highly valued. As a result, there is an ambiguity
about when children are to be active. On the one hand, there are taken-for-granted assumptions about
when and where children should be given opportunities to participate and have agency (an affirmative
approach) (Fraser, 2003, 2009), but on the other hand, preschool is viewed as a place where transformative
opportunities (e.g., children's involvement in decision-making) sometimes arise. This is something that is
evident in the rhetoric of children's rights. The preschool teachers strive, however, to find ways to handle
the contradictions between traditional understandings of children and childhood, and multiple contemporary
ones. Social sustainability issues such as equality and equity are not problematized in relation to children's
participation and agency. Instead, the outdoor activities are viewed as ‘not so gender-coded', and
unsustainable binary ontologies, epistemologies and practices are not challenged (see for example Mellor,
2005; Plumwood, 2002).
Children and Nature
The way outdoor activities in Swedish preschools are understood here can be interpreted as a discursive
consensus that ECEC is a place for freedom and just being a child, a place that is pristine, healthy
and stimulating, and that develops connections to nature (Ärlemalm-Hagsér, 2013b). The children–nature
relationship is not problematized and no critical questions about environmental values, or about children's and
teachers’ worldviews, are raised (compare Elliott, 2008). No power structures, reflections about the outdoors
as unequal, or ethical or didactic dilemmas are raised. These understandings of the outdoor activities contain
notions and ideas from the early preschool days and Rousseau's (1892) and Froebel's (1995 [1826]) ideas
about contact with nature as ‘good’ and ‘educational'.
Another perspective that is visible in the narratives is the pedagogization of play. Outdoor activities do not
solely consist of playing in the woods and having a good time. They also need to be educational, as in the
example of learning mathematics and the statement that all of the goals in the Swedish preschool curriculum
can be achieved in an outdoor pedagogical practice. Preschools can in this sense be viewed in their specific
historical, social and cultural context (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005) where early learning, especially about
science, is stressed as important to enable students to meet later demands in school and contribute to the
development of society.
Education for Sustainability
Education for sustainability in Swedish preschools manifests itself in relation to the child and nature. As a
project, it is defined in terms of cultivating individual responsibility in a modern, pluralistic and contradictory
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world where the roles of preschools and children with regard to present and future sustainability are vague
and elusive. Swedish preschoolers are ‘taking part’ in numerous activities concerning sustainability; only
seldom are critical issues of social, economic, political or environmental unfairness raised (Fraser, 2003,
2009). Transformative questions such as ‘why is there so much garbage to recycle at a preschool’ are not
asked. Anthropocentric assumptions are not questioned, such as the preoccupation with how humans will
be affected in the future by unsustainable (consumer) lifestyles or by differing sets of intrinsic values or
understandings of human–nature relations. As a consequence, if we are to respond to Davis’ (2014) call for an
expanded rights framework in ECEfS, we still have a long way to go in developing practices that acknowledge
injustice from different perspectives, and especially in recognizing the nonhuman world as equally important
and as possessing rights.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have discussed ECEfS from two perspectives: young children's participation and agency,
and the relationship between children and nature. We have argued for the need for further critical discussion
about: (i) ECEfS within an ‘expanded rights framework', (ii) children's relationships to nature, (iii) children as
participants and agents of change within cultures for sustainability (whole-institution approach).
Contemporary ontological and epistemological understandings of children and childhood, developed in both
policy and research, have influenced early childhood education research in EE as well as EfS (Davis, 2014;
Davis and Elliott, 2014; Green, 2015; Somerville and Williams, 2015). These standpoints have resulted in an
understanding of children as active and capable and as possessing the right to take part in decision-making
on matters that influence them, and the view that children can be seen as a multiplicity of becomings.
Child participation and agency is an important part of ECEfS, even if children's participation and agency
are still contested and can be critically interpreted as a site of struggling for recognition (Fraser, 2003,
2009), and/or as part of a production of subjectivities that are aligned with neoliberal individualism (Dahlberg
and Moss, 2005). As argued earlier, studies of children's outdoor play and learning encompass diverging
understandings of children from different theoretical perspectives. We have raised several crucial aspects
of how children's participation and agency, outdoor play and learning within preschool practices contain
unreflected assumptions about gender, environmental ethics and worldviews. Additionally, we have discussed
ways of problematizing environmental issues and creating possibilities to handle them by fostering children's
behaviours and attitudes regarding sustainable management of resources and protection of nature. Ideas
about children and their interconnectedness to nature have been made visible; now there is a need for critical
discussions among teachers, and between teachers and children, about different aspects of unfairness in
social, ecological and economic issues.
Childhood does not take place in a political vacuum and children throughout the world are affected by
environmental problems and inequalities (Davis, 2011) that are consequences of political decisions currently
being made or not being made. Children have the right to participate in decision-making and to be considered
as agents of change within cultures for sustainability at home, in preschool and in the community.
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• sustainability
• children
• early childhood education
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• preschool education
• early childhood
• childhood
• environmental ethics
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EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY