Postmodern challenges and modern horizons: Education ‘for being for the environment‘

SUMMARY: This article argues that a ‘humanly-constructive’ critical theory of environmental education called ‘a critical ecological ontology for educational inquiry’ provides a necessary complement to the ‘socially-critical’ perspective. This humanly-constructive curriculum theory focuses on our individual and collective ‘being-in-the-world’. It invites learners, teachers and researchers to study how their ‘lived experience’ of socio-environmentally problematic circumstances is shaped and stretched globally by various economic and technological imperatives. In so doing, ‘a critical ecological ontology’ highlights the personal politic required for a socio-ecological praxis. Of particular relevance to the socio-ecological politic ‘for being’ are interpretations of postmodern agency that emerge from three practical applications of ‘a critical ecological ontology’. This dialogue of theory and practice is necessary in the critical curriculum project of environmental education.