Bridging Environmental Education and Nonviolent Communication: The Role of Empathy and Place in Ecological Identity From the Inside Out

Empathy is central to environmental education (EE) because it forges human–nature connection, fosters ecological identity, and motivates proenvironmental behaviour. While EE often cultivates empathy through experiences in nature, it rarely teaches empathic skills explicitly; conversely, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) cultivates empathy as a practice but focuses primarily on human relationships rather than the more-than-human world. This study investigated how bridging NVC and EE could inform curriculum that intentionally cultivates empathy for more-than-human relationships. Using a participatory cooperative inquiry design, ten NVC practitioners engaged as coinquirers in iterative cycles of place-bonding, creative journalling, focus groups, interviews, and dialogue. An arts-based crystallization approach integrated multiple forms of data to illuminate converging patterns of meaning. Participants reported a heightened sense of connection with place compared to daily life or NVC practice alone. Key findings included the emergence of place-responsive language, an understanding of empathy as a natural relational process, and the perception of Earth as an attachment figure. Taken together, these findings suggest a shared relational grammar in which ecological identity develops through processes of relational emplacement—an empathic placement of self within the more-than-human world. This framing points toward a relational ontology underlying both EE and NVC and informs implications for collaborative curriculum development and interdisciplinary research into ecological empathy.Keywords: environmental education, nonviolent communication, place responsive, ecological empathy, ecological identity, human-nature attachment

Author dc:creator

• Morse, Debra, Ann

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Leighton, Hilary

• School of environment and sustainability

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25316/IR-20949

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:null:10613/29420