Getting an Alpine Start on Recidivism: Delinquency, Adolescent Development, and Experiential Education

Abstract

As research in the field of outdoor education grows it offers more and more findings regarding the value of wilderness-based programs for students who don’t quite fit into traditional school systems. Using field notes from a summer gardening project carried out with three volunteers from a day program at the Midland Juvenile Care Center I explore the intersectionality of outdoor education and critiques regarding the system of juvenile justice and the label “at-risk.” The theory of cultural compatibility is used in conjunction with Erickson’s theory of adolescent development to explain the failures of outdoor education to reduce recidivism in juvenile offenders while offering a prescription to more effectively use nature based education in public school systems in order to prevent the isolation of individuals before they become caught up in the cycle of juvenile justice.