Animals in Schools

Animals in Schools explores important questions in the field of critical animal studies and education by close examination of a wide range of educational situations and classroom activities. How are human-animal relations expressed and discussed in school? How do teachers and students develop strategies to handle ethical conflicts arising from the ascribed position of animals as accessible to human control, use, and killing? How do schools deal with topics such as zoos, hunting, and meat consumption? These are questions that have profound implications for education and society. They are graphically described, discussed, and rendered problematic based on detailed ethnographic research and are analyzed by means of a synthesis of perspectives from critical theory, gender, and postcolonial thought. Animals in Schools makes human-animal relations a crucial issue for pedagogical theory and practice.

Helena Pedersen, who holds a Ph.D. in education, is a researcher in the School of education at Malm University. Recent and forth coming works appear in the volumes Social Justice, Peace and Environmental Education: Transformative Standards (Routledge, 2009); Zootopian Visions of Animal Encounter: Farewell to Noah (Lexington Books, 2010); Global Harms: Ecological Crime and Speciesism (Noah Science Publishers, 2008); and Values and Democracy in education for Sustainable Development (Liber, 2008). Helena Pedersen received the American Socialogical Associations award for Distinguished Graduate Student Scholarship (the Animals and Society Section) in 2006.