Understanding educational and wellbeing implications of learning outside the classroom through cross-national collaboration

人们对课堂外学习可对儿童的福祉、创造力及其终身学习的动力作出的贡献产生了越来越浓厚的兴趣，这与一种关切有关，即狭隘地注重认知成果可能无法培养出灵活、有创造力和适应力的年轻人，使他们愿意并能够为社会作出贡献，并科普迅速变化的世界。将儿童与自然（重新）联系起来，以培养对受威胁的全球环境的尊重和关怀的愿望，也在我们的伙伴国家中引起了共鸣。例如，课堂外英语学习倡议得到了跨党派政治路线的支持。在新加坡，正在建立自然走廊，使之成为花园中的城市，并正在实施一项新的主动学习方案，以解决人们对普遍的说教式教学能在多大程度上培养创造力和创业精神的关切。“Friluftsliv”，即户外生活，在斯堪的纳维亚半岛一直受到重视;丹麦的基层运动正在通过户外学习增加儿童的课程体验。然而，如果不密切关注国家政策、进程和人民如何为课堂外的学习创造不同的机会，就很难理解主流教育目标和国家文化传统之间与户外活动有关的相互作用的复杂性，也很难建立理论。斯图尔特和布鲁克斯等澳大利亚学者警告说，从研究中概括原则而不适当考虑文化情况是误导性的，而美国对社区教育的研究重新定位了“户外”的概念。“虽然研究领域正在加强和多样化，但这项研究如何建立在现有知识和文化因素的基础上，缺乏连贯性和一致性。其原因包括缺乏比较方法，辩论机会有限，缺乏跨国合作以学习不同的文化和教育体系。现在是时候探索我们的各种文化传统，特别是关于户外和自然，以及我们的政策背景如何应对这些教育挑战，这些挑战同时具有高度的全球意义。通过我们提议的国际网络，我们将得到支持，以解决以下问题：我们目前对课堂外学习影响儿童教育和福祉的方式有何了解;我们如何能够利用关于课堂外学习的现有国际证据并推进研究议程;地点、文化因素和课堂外学习如何相互作用;基于社区的课外学习可能对社会凝聚力产生的影响;户外学习环境如何与教学法、课程和教学法相互作用。我们的合作将有助于解决相关的研究和方法问题。这些国家和学者被特意选为网络伙伴，以代表对户外活动的文化态度和一系列教育政策框架的一致传播。核心伙伴关系由拥有ESRC和其他外部资助研究项目经验的出版作者组成，并包括从业人员和政策制定者，以帮助实现研究的实际影响。以前的讲习班、共同编辑国际特刊以及英国教育研究协会的“思想交流”奖，在核心伙伴之间建立了工作关系;这笔资金将利用我们现有的网络，建立一个强大的，有重点的伙伴关系，将产生合作论文，为早期职业研究人员建立交流机会，制定跨国研究方案，从而对我们各自国家和其他国家的政策和实践产生重大影响。

There is intense and gathering interest in the contribution that learning outside the classroom can make to children's wellbeing, creativity and their motivation for lifelong learning, linked to a concern that a narrow focus on cognitive outcomes may be failing to develop flexible, creative and resilient young people who are willing and able to contribute to society and to cope in a rapidly changing world. A desire to (re)connect children and nature to nurture respect and care for a threatened global environment has also struck a chord in our partner countries. For example, the English Learning Outside the Classroom initiative is supported across party political lines. In Singapore, nature corridors are being created to make it a city in a garden and a new Programme for Active Learning is being implemented to address concerns about how far creativity and entrepreneurial spirit can be fostered by prevalent didactic teaching. 'Friluftsliv', the open air life, has long been valued in Scandinavia; grassroots movements in Denmark are augmenting children's curriculum experience through outdoor learning. However, the complexity of the interactions between mainstream educational goals and national cultural traditions relating to the outdoors is difficult to understand and theorise without close attention to how national policies, processes and people construct different opportunities for learning outside the classroom. Australian academics, such as Stewart and Brookes, have cautioned that generalisation of principles from research studies without due regard for cultural situations is misleading, while US studies of community-based education reposition conceptualisations of the 'outdoors.' Although the research field is strengthening and diversifying, there is a lack of coherence and congruence in how this research builds upon existing knowledge and accounts for cultural factors. The reasons for this include a lack of comparative methodologies, limited opportunities for debate and an absence of cross-national collaboration to learn from different cultural and education systems. It is time to explore how our various cultural traditions, particularly regarding the outdoors and nature, and our policy contexts are meeting these educational challenges, which are simultaneously highly situated and of global significance. Through the international networking that we are proposing, we would be supported in addressing issues such as: what we currently know about the way in which learning outside the classroom influences children's education and wellbeing; how we can build upon existing international evidence regarding learning outside the classroom and move the research agenda forward; how place, cultural factors and learning outside the classroom interact; the impact on social cohesion that community-based learning outside the classroom might afford; how outdoor contexts for learning interact with pedagogy, curriculum and didaktik. Our collaboration will help to address the associated research and methodological issues. The countries and scholars have been deliberately selected as network partners to represent a coherent spread of cultural attitudes to the outdoors and range of educational policy frameworks. The core partnership comprises published authors who have ESRC and other externally-funded research project experience and includes practitioners and policy-makers to help realise practical implications of the research. Previous workshops, co-editing international special issues, and a British Educational Research Association 'Meeting of Minds' award have developed working relationships among the core partners; this funding would leverage our existing network to a strong, focused partnership that will produce collaborative papers, establish exchange opportunities for early career researchers, formulate cross-national research programmes and thus have significant impact on policy and practice in our respective countries and beyond.