Environmental Values Education: A Critical Analysis of the Representation of Indoctrination in an Australian Preschool

Abstract

Within the Australian context of a significant expansion of early childhood education and the lead up to the Copenhagen Climate Summit, a story alleging environmental indoctrination in an Australian preschool was featured in two Australian newspapers. The story elicited considerable online responses. This paper uses Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2007) to examine the lexico-grammatical construction of the indoctrination debate in the newspaper article and the subsequent online responses. The paper then situates the debate within the broader the broader context of environmental values education theory.