Ignorance in environmental education research

In this essay I suggest that the practice of environmental education research might be improved by efforts to identify what Jon Wagner (1993:16) calls the ‘blank spots’ and ‘blind spots’ that configure the collective ignorance of environmental education researchers. In Wagner’s terms, what we know enough to question but not answer are our blank spots; what we do not know well enough to even ask about or care about are our blind spots—areas in which existing theories, methods, and perceptions actually keep us from seeing phenomena as clearly as we might. By way of example, I argue that much research on significant life experiences does little to reduce ignorance in environmental education. I conclude by briefly appraising some strategies that might help environmental education researchers to recognise ways in which the field’s dominant research traditions and models produce partialities and distortions.