Environment Discourse and the 'Other': Implications from a Study in Indonesian Language Education

Abstract

Environment education research shares some similarities with second language (L2) research. It has been dominated by the positivist paradigm (Robottom & Hart 1995) and is concerned to understand learner attitudes (Connell, Fein, Sykes & Yencken 1998). It has also represented attitudes as unproblematically positive or negative, or more or less favourable/positive/negative prior to and following pedagogical intervention (Clarke 1996, Bradley et al. 1999, Mantle-Bromley 1995, Robinson-Stuart & Nocon 1996, Nocon 1995). These findings reflect the parameters of a bivalent conceptual framework of attitude orientations which has been questioned since the 1950s through recognition of attitude ambivalence (Priester & Petty 1996, Cacioppo & Bernston 1994, Katz 1988). But beyond the currency of the cognitive models used to explore attitudes in both fields, a significant limitation upon attitude research may be the configuration of the problem. Rather than understanding negative environment attitudes as the product of individual cognition, they might be better explored as the product of participation in discourse (Fuller 2000, Gill 1999, Barron 1995, Macnaghten 1993). This paper argues through an analysis of learner discourse about Indonesians, that attitudes cannot unproblematically be represented as negative or positive. Postcolonial theory including Said's 'Orientalism' and Bhabha's 'ambivalence' informs this analysis which shows that 'attitudes' are ambivalent and reflect the dynamics of subjectivity.