The formation of environmental teachers and educators: generative dialogues for praxis

Abstract

In this paper we argue that analyzing the scientific production (presented communications) from the Brazilian Environmental Education Research Meeting (EPEA) is relevant in bringing the contexts of practice to an updated discussion on Environmental Education Research (EER) in Brazil, paving the way for theoretical formulations in a perspective of praxis. We characterize the works presented in the Research Discussion Group on “The formation of environmental teachers and educators” of the X EPEA and elaborate a set of generative questions as a potential research agenda, or methodological framework for the (de)(re)construction, or (re)formulation of research and actions in the scope of environmental education with a focus on the formation of environmental educators. Among the discussed current/remaining conceptual-methodological limits of the EER focusing on the formation of environmental teachers and educators we highlight: the persistence of the historical gap between theory and practice; the disarticulation of “new” theories in relation to the geo-epistemological contexts of the environmental field; the absence of North-South dialogues and the non-presence of South epistemologies. The main emphasis of the questions raised and the proposed research agenda is the potential to overcome these limits aiming environmental praxis.