Abstract  

This thesis contends that the scholarisation of childhood, defined as the gradual, incremental processes that channels learning into a schoolcentric gaze whereby outdoor learning is only valid when viewed through the metrics of academic performance. Through this restricting and narrowing of learning it erodes the organic, spontaneous nature of outdoor learning, institutionalising it into a systematic and linear model of schooling. Against this backdrop, the study explores the voices of parents in the UK and Ireland, whose motivations for seeking outdoor nature-based learning experiences and provisions for their children reveal resistance to this normative pattern. Their voices are considered alongside the neoliberal marketisation of schools, combined with Foucault’s theories of power and resistance and Ingold’s concept of meshwork to help articulate a counter-discourse. This reframing repositions Outdoor Learning away from the normative patterns of schooling and towards a modality that allows children, education, and pedagogies to flourish. This in turn prepares children and young people not only for the demands of a fast-paced, AI-informed workforce, but also for lives enriched by creativity, autonomy, and alternative ways of knowing.