Regenerative education: Qualitative exploration with school-based professionals, students and parents

Earth is an interconnected and finite social-ecological system. The dominant social paradigm ubiquitous in education, however, teaches us that Earth’s resources are limitless and for human use alone. This incongruity perpetuates colonizing and extractive practices that deepen the ecological crisis and amplify existing inequities experienced by marginalized communities and species. Approaches to teaching are needed that equip educators and youth to contribute to building an equitable and regenerative future for themselves, their communities, and Earth. Regenerative education is one such approach where educators draw from human psychology, social justice, neuroscience, and bioscience to prepare students to use critical, creative, and systems thinking to identify and implement strategies to address the ecological crisis and related social inequalities in their everyday lives. We used purposive and snowball sampling to recruit k-12 school based professionals and participants.