Going Out in Order to Get In : An In-Depth Investigation of the Potential of Outdoor Education to Foster the Social Inclusion of Socially Excluded Children

Sammanfattning

A substantial period of an individual’s early years occurs in school, whereas experiencing social exclusion has profound psychological consequences. Despite this, it is not always perceived to be immoral or harmful, and there is a scarcity of interventions. This master’s thesis addresses this gap by exploring the potential of Outdoor Education to foster the social inclusion of socially excluded children, based on the outdoor educators’ perception and their understanding of the problem. Semi-structured interviews with five outdoor educators from Switzerland were conducted and analyzed using the problematization approach inspired by Foucault (1985) and Bacchi (2009). The findings identified three different categories in the problematization of social exclusion: social exclusion because of norm deviation, social synchrony, and social structure. Within these categories, the Outdoor Educators highlighted different aspects of their problem, focusing either on the excluded child, the excluder, or group dynamics, wherein their suggested approaches and implementation in the outdoors were influenced by their problematization. Importantly, the categories often overlapped, revealing deeper issues within school structures, such as limited opportunities for social role shifts, strengths-based activities, or group cohesion. Furthermore, insecurities - whether in the excluded child or the excluder - emerged as central to the exclusion problem. Thus, this study shows that Outdoor Education has the potential to foster social inclusion of socially excluded children; however, it does not solve ‘magically’ when going outdoors but depends on the form of Outdoor Education and whether or not the outdoor educator is attuned to the problem.