Theorising outdoor education: purpose and practice

Many individuals freely opt to take part in outdoor adventure activities. A high proportion of these first encountered such activities as a consequence of a school or youth group initially offering them an introductory ‘taster’. This chapter concentrates on facilitated interventions that offer outdoor adventure experiences explicitly for developmental purposes. Like Roberts (2012), the author makes a distinction between ‘learning by doing’, that is developing skills and knowledge in order to learn a subject or craft, and ‘experiential education’ that Roberts notes is concerned with the emerging identities of young people, their relations with others and the world around them, and their trajectory as they negotiate a place in the adult world. Whilst learning the skills and knowledge of an outdoor adventure (OA) activity is a necessary and beneficial aspect of outdoor adventure education (OAE) it is the broader purpose these new skills are used for and what this means to young people that lies at the core of OAE.