Significant Life Experiences Revisited Once Again: Response to Vol. 5(4) 'Five Critical Commentaries on Significant Life Experience Research in Environmental Education'
AbstractThis article is a commentary on commentaries: a personal response to a set of critical commentaries on significant life experience research which formed a special issue of Environmental Education Research , Vol. 5(4), November 1999, and a symposium on the same subject at the Annual Meeting 2000 of the American Educational Research Association. The journal issue and the symposium session were prepared in response to research reports and reviews of the topic of significant life experiences that were carried in Vols 4(4) and 5(2) of the journal. The article begins with a brief history of this debate. With a focus on the 'meta-commentary' to Vol. 5(4) by Stephen Gough, it then responds to a series of major and recurring points of criticism against research on this topic.