Australian Journal of Adult Learning - Cultural codes as catalysts for collective conscientisation in environmental adult education

Oct 15, 2026

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Examines how cultural codes in environmental adult education can be used to frame collective identity, develop counterhegemonic ideologies, and catalyse educative-activism within social movements. Three contrasting cases are analysed across urban Victoria (Canada), northern California’s redwoods, and Hawai’i’s coral reefs and beaches. The study highlights art, humour, drama, symbolic appeals, and embodied learning as mechanisms for mobilising publics, media, governments, and grassroots actors toward sustained environmental conservation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Social movements and adult learning

Conscientisation and educative-activism

Cultural codes, framing, and counter-frames

Cultural learning through humour, art, and symbolic action

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 52, Number 1, April 2012 Cultural codes as catalysts for collective conscientisation in environmental adult education: Mr. Floatie, tree squatting and Save-our-Surfers Pierre Walter Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada This study examines how cultural codes in environmental adult education can be used to ‘frame’ collective identity, develop counterhegemonic ideologies, and catalyse ‘educative-activism’ within social movements. Three diverse examples are discussed, spanning environmental movements in urban Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, the redwoods of northern California, and the coral reefsand beaches of Hawai’i, respectively. The first, Mr. Floatie and his fight for sewage treatment, illustrates how art, humour and drama can be employed to mobilise the public, media and government to action. The second, Julia Butterfly Hill and her 738-day squat ina redwood tree, shows how cultural codes embodied in both tree and woman catalysed social action for forest preservation. The third, the grassroots organisation Save Our Surf, demonstrates the effectiveness of education and activism through immediate, multiple Cultural codes 115 and short-term symbolic appeals for help, leading to long-term success in Hawaiian coastal conservation. Introduction In several decades of scholarship and activism on adult learning in new social movements (the women’s, peace, civil rights, anti-racism, GLBT rights, anti-globalisation, Indigenous rights, environmental and other ‘identity’ movements), one of the central concerns has been, and remains today, the role of social movements in facilitating individual and collective learning, and, conversely, the role of adult learning and activist-educators in advancing social movements (Foley 1999, 2001; Hill & Clover 2003; Branagan & Boughton 2003; Hall & Turay 2006; Ollis 2008; Flowers & Chodkiewicz 2009) . Social movements are recognised as powerful sites of ‘cognitive praxis’(Holford 1995) and ‘collective learning’(Kilgore 1999). They are catalysts for personal transformation and wider social change (Welton 1993), and pedagogical sites in which adults engage in purposeful, embodied learning (Ollis 2008) . In contrast to the economic determinism of class struggle in ‘old’labour, workers’ party and trade union movements, new social movements are seen as ‘political’ and ‘cultural’ movements, where the construction of collective, oppositional identities—that is, symbolic actions in civil society—challenge dominant state and corporate ideological hegemony (Beuchler 1995) . In the environmental movement, as in other social movement contexts, the process of‘educative-activism’ and ‘conscientisation’ is critically important (Clover 2002) . Conscientisation is Paulo Freire’s (2007) notion of ‘reading the world’ to understand the underlying political, economic and social structures of oppression and their relation to environmental issues, and to take action to overturn these. Educativeactivism for progressive social change works to revive and legitimise 116 Pierre Walter people’s local, often invisible environmental knowledge, and to create alternative, indigenous ‘epistemic communities’ challenging dominant knowledge systems (Hall 2006) . Humour, music and art are central to much of the ‘cultural learning’ which takes place within new social movements, including the environmental movement (Fien & Passingham 2002; Branagan 2005; Clover & Stalker 2005; Clover & Stalker 2008; Ehrich 2010) . The arts and other forms of symbolic action not only help to create new knowledge and collective identities—to develop ‘counter-hegemonic’ ideologies within counterpublics—but also catalyse action for collective change (Fraser 1990; Mayo 1999) . In social movements,‘cultural codes‘ or ‘frames’ provide alternative cognitive frameworks for personal transformation and collective thinking, identity and action

FAQs

What is the paper’s core focus on environmental adult education?

It investigates how cultural codes can frame collective identity and support counterhegemonic ideologies, enabling educative-activism in social movements.

Which three examples are used to illustrate the argument?

Mr. Floatie for sewage treatment, Julia Butterfly Hill’s tree squatting for forest preservation, and the Save Our Surf grassroots organization for coastal conservation in Hawai’i.

How does conscientisation relate to action in this study?

Conscientisation is described as reading the world to understand structures of oppression and environmental issues, leading to action to overturn them.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Aldword