Bowers advocated for a critical pedagogy of place that acknowledged our enmeshment in cultural and ecological systems, and the resulting need for this to figure in the school curriculum.
In the years since, the general ideas of critical pedagogy of place have been incorporated into many scholars' critiques of place-based, land-based, and environmental education.
[2] For example, stories of eco-heroes such as the Grizzly Man and Into the Wild's main character, Chris, center on humans attempting to overcome, or conquer, nature.
In particular, land- and place-education focused on areas settled by non-Indigenous peoples need to better incorporate the decolonization of the land and work to better center Indigenous narratives.
In 2014, Whitehouse et al. examined Australian environmental education and demonstrated how the program both holds up colonialist ideals and incorporates Aboriginal knowledge bases.
[9] Bang et al., in their work with Native Americans in the U.S., described how a critical land-based perspective can center environmental education for marginalized people.
[10] Working from the perspective of African communities, Mauro et al. describes how a local-centered approach can create a more impactful educational experience.
With respect to land- and place-based education, this means that they are, therefore, born out of a Western tradition that has ideals in contrast to many local, Indigenous cultures.
He writes that Critical Pedagogy of Place seeks to combine critical pedagogy's emphasis on challenging "assumptions, practices, and outcomes taken for granted in dominant culture and in conventional education" with place-based education's focus on helping students become citizens that understand their actions "might have some direct bearing on the well-being of the social and ecological places people actually inhabit.
"[16] Greenwood argues that, in the process of raising students' sense of awareness and consciousness of power structures, critical pedagogy often neglects the idea that "human culture has been, is and, always will be nested in ecological systems.
[18] Educators can begin this process by helping students unlearn dominant narratives and instead learn about more socially just and sustainable ways of living in the world.
"[18][19] These two goals challenge both place-based and critical pedagogy educators to "expand the scope of their theory, inquire, and practice to include the social and ecological contexts of our own and others ‘ inhabitance.
[21] Recent scholarship in this field has taken a post-modern perspective on a critical pedagogy of place, calling for the changing of social imaginaries that not only better complicate the relationship between humans and nature, but also focus on a pluralistic view of the world.
Starting from the premise that epistemological orientations impact memory organization, ecological reasoning, and the perceptions of humans in nature, Bang and her colleagues examined how students navigate multiple beliefs in community-based science education.