Ethnography and environmental education: understanding the relationships between schools and communities in Costa Rica

Environmental education has been at the centre of international and national policies of sustainable development for the last several decades, and has stimulated debate regarding both its inclusion in curricula and proposed methods for its implementation. Research has given critical attention to diverse theories and practices of environmental education, but has tended to take a narrow methodological focus on specific curricula and policies or on activities within strictly delineated sites such as classrooms or natural areas. In contrast, this research is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in a rural community in Costa Rica, and argues that using a wider ethnographic approach allows for a fuller exploration of the ways in which environmental education programming is negotiated and practised.