Social reform, militarism and other historical influences on the practice of outdoor education in youth work

Loynes, Christopher ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9779-7954 (2007) Social reform, militarism and other historical influences on the practice of outdoor education in youth work. In: Becker, Peter, Braun, Karl-Heinz and Schirp, Jochem, (eds.) Abenteuer, erlebnisse und die pädagogik: kulturkritische und modernisierungstheoretische blicke auf die erlebnispädagogik. BSJ-Jahrbuch . Budrich-Verlag, Leverkusen, Germany, pp. 115-133.

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Abstract

Some of the shifts in modern society are understood to have placed the individual more centrally in the project of building an identity and choosing courses of action in life. This has led to a modern moral panic concerning “problem” youth and the problems of youth. The roots of informal education outdoors are based in a moral panic of the late Victorian era. A concern for a social decline amongst the working classes, in particular a rise in the values of self-interest and focussed on young men, coupled with a concern for the fitness of the British army, largely made up of these young men, led to several influential „moral entrepreneurs” developing early forms of outdoor education to tackle these issues. I will suggest that informal education is again drawing on these early roots in outdoor education to respond to modern social issues concerning young people. I will argue that the meanings and values attached to the organisations involved in these endeavours, state, private and voluntary, and the structure of the activities that were used as the content of their programmes were specific to that Victorian culture in that time and place. However, I will suggest that the organisations and activities have often persisted in some form and are involved in and used as vehicles for personal development today. Sometimes the meanings and values that they hold persist with them despite the cultural changes in the society within which they operate. Sometimes the meanings and values change but the same activities are practised as tradition. These may hold tacit understandings structured in to them that are not necessarily constructive given their current use.

Item Type:	Book Section
Publisher:	Budrich-Verlag
ISBN:	9783938094204
Departments:	Academic Departments > Science, Natural Resources & Outdoor Studies (SNROS) > Outdoor Studies
Additional Information:	Manuscript made open access with kind permission from publisher BSJ.
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2010 14:07
Last Modified:	11 Jan 2024 20:00
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/780

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