Ecosocialization–an Ecological Turn in the Process of Socialization

This paper describes a conceptual extension of the socialization process and its implications for education. The motivation to the coining of ecosocialization comes from a recent turn in different branches of science, which forces us to problematize the anthropocentric view of life. The theoretical analysis combines the frameworks of phenomenology and ecology. Phenomenology emphasizes perception and experience to remind us that we exist in the world through our bodies, while ecology examines interactions between different life forms in ecological communities. Parallel to the human-human and human-society interactions, we are ecosocialized by human-other beings and human-ecosystem interactions. These latter interactions also make us what we are, even before any intentional education efforts. Although socialization and ecosocialization are parallel processes, they are unfolded and driven by different mechanisms. The conceptualization of ecososialization is argued to play an important role in addressing the ecorisis in an educational context, both in research and practice.