Becoming Relational in Outdoor Education: Not Just Women’s Work

This chapter explores how relational work in communities of practice (CoP) can enhance learning and teaching in outdoor education. It challenges a view that interpersonal skills supporting collaborative endeavour are women’s work. I draw on the notions of relational agency, relational expertize, and communities of practice to expand understanding of affective and collaborative pedagogy in outdoor education. These lenses are used to revisit a study investigating sense of competence conducted at a university in Australia. I suggest that outdoor educators can generate more productive engagement and expand their repertoires of practice by valuing differing participant values or standpoints in education and community contexts. I contend that outdoor educators and outdoor education practice can benefit from re-envisaging relational work as everybody’s concern, not just women’s work.