Thesis advisor: Stephen Pope / Agendas in ethics are often set by questions raised in the wider society. The growth and flourishing of environmental ethics is a good example of this phenomenon. In recent decades, the growing concern among scientists, politicians, economists, and the media regarding the future of life on the planet has raised all kinds of questions about the origin of the so-called ecological crisis. Complex analyses and different sets of solutions have followed. Yet the problems seem far from being solved. Ethicists and theologians have joined the conversation and have also proposed interpretations and complex, often contradictory, solutions to the problems raised by this crisis. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2001. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 45 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 22-27).

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Philosophy. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 314-322). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1251845491&SrchMode=1&sid=16&Fmt=2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1195153143&clientId=5220

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- McMaster University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 265-273). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Masters of Philosophy)--Washington State University, May 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Masters of philosophy)--Washington State University, May 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--New York University, 2009. / Adviser: Dale Jamieson. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A. in philosophy)--Washington State University, May 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-56).

This study probes the ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of three novice environmental education practitioners in South Africa. Two of the cases examined work in a local government context, and the third in an environmental non-governmental organisation context. All three practitioners are studying a one-year professional development course in environmental education. The research asks how their ethical deliberations ‘come to be what they are’, at the interface of their workplace and course-based learning processes. Working within a relational, social realist ontology, the study takes a sociocultural-historical approach to learning, development and social change. Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) provides theoretical tools and a descriptive language to approach the rich, qualitative data derived from workplace and course observations, extensive interviews, and document review. Critical discourse analysis was used as a secondary analytical tool to probe ethical and environmental discourses that were found to be influential in the course and workplace activity systems. Data from the three case studies was analysed in stages. In the first stage, CHAT provided a theoretical perspective and language of description to analyse the interacting activity systems in which each learner-practitioner’s ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations occurred. This provided a platform for the second stage of analysis which was framed by Margaret Archer’s (1995) social realist theory of morphogenesis/ morphostasis, followed by a summative retroductive analysis, to give an account of the interplay of historically-emergent social and cultural structures and individual reflexivity in relation to the ethical dimensions of environmental education practice. The study traces how ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations occur at the untidy, unpredictable intersection of workplace, course and personal contexts, and are strongest when they are situated in authentic contexts that resonate with learner-practitioners’ ‘ultimate concerns’ (after Archer, 2003; 2007). In this study, the learner-practitioners’ ‘ultimate concerns’ included family, personal well-being, social justice, cultural identity and religious commitments. The scope and depth of learner-practitioners’ social-ecological knowledge was also identified as a key factor influencing ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations, although the mediation of such knowledge can be hindered by language and conceptual ii barriers, amongst others. The study also noted how ethical positions circulating in the workplace, course and personal contexts were diverse, uneven and dynamic. Some ethical positions were found to be more explicitly differentiated than others, either resonating with or being overlooked by the learner-practitioners as they deliberated the ethical dimensions of their environmental education practice. In situations where there was limited depth, conceptual clarity and/ or confidence to engage directly with ethical concerns, there was a tendency towards (inadvertent) ethical relativism. Insights derived from the study suggest that these factors have limiting effects on the ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of novice environmental educators. These insights point to the need for ethical deliberations to be re-personalised in context and underpinned by depth knowledge. A relational and pragmatic approach to environmental ethics (that recognises the validity of judgemental rationality – which can be fallible – and which seeks out practical adequacy) is put forward as appropriate and potentially generative in environmental education and training processes. This would need to be supported by careful attention to the influence of environmental discourses and practices in shaping ethical deliberations, and may also be helpful in developing a much-needed accessible, everyday language of ethical engagement. This study’s contribution to new knowledge in the field of environmental education is through its account of ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations emerging (in the Archerian morphogenetic sense) in complex, indeterminate ways at the interface of sociocultural and social-ecological contexts. The ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations of novice environmental educators occur in relation to their ‘ultimate concerns’ and are advanced or hindered by the historically-emergent practices, discourses and material realities of their workplace, personal and educational contexts. These insights require that the complex interplay of intersecting contexts and concerns that shape ethics-oriented reflexive deliberations be acknowledged and carefully mediated in both workplace-based and coursebased professional development processes.