The Environmental education in Galicia: controversies about the development of the field and its current state

Abstract

In a socio-economic and political context such as the current one, which demands transformation towards other models of society, environmental education in Galicia, which could be a powerful tool for change, is suffering a worrying setback compared to achievements in previous decades (SGEA , 2011). This article seeks to shed some light on this reality, presenting some of the main conclusions of the research "Environmental education in Galicia: sociobiographical analysis of its construction as a field", doctoral thesis conducted in the framework of the USC SEPA Research Group, with charge to the aids of the Galician Plan 2011/2015 (Call 2011). The text includes those interpretive points that contribute to the line of reflection proposed at the III International Congress of Environmental Education of Portuguese-speaking Countries and Communities, around the paradox of a loss of weight of environmental education in environmental and educational policies while worsening of the problems that constitute the environmental crisis. Behind the official deterministic discourses, which argue and justify the dismantling of the camp on the basis of "necessary" and "inevitable" austerity policies, hide dynamics and power struggles that have been conditioning its trajectory and that are interesting to make explicit.