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Abstract
This paper explores pre-service PE teachers’ conceptions of outdoor education (OE) in Singapore. Survey questionnaires were administered to 120 pre-service teachers; 14 teachers participated in follow-up semi-structured interviews. The findings indicate that OE is predominantly situated within the outdoor camp environment. Pre-service teachers regularly envisioned the purpose of OE as to instil a sense of discipline among students and to ameliorate the negative health impacts of an urban and wealthy lifestyle. We propose that the dislocation of OE from local and situated school contexts as well as the instrumental nature of OE pedagogy runs contrary to aims of fostering acquisition of life skills and character development. We concomitantly question how the pre-service teachers’ envisioning of OE can convincingly support holistic learning outcomes deemed beneficial to Singaporean youth and society more broadly.
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