‘We actually climbed a mountain’: critical reflections on expectations, absence and the potential of humanising pedagogies in a postgraduate outdoor environmental education programme

In this article, we examine teaching and learning with underrepresented international students in a postgraduate outdoor environmental education (OEE) programme in England. Using adapted duoethnography, two academics and a graduate share our perspectives through collaborative dialogue, critically reflecting on our roles, identities and lived experiences. A residential field trip emerges as a focal experience for shared insight, prompting dialogue about culturally shaped human-nature relationships. It also sparked difficult discussions about racial identity and belonging to outdoor places in the UK. We consider how programme teaching responded to a mainly Nigerian cohort and how a Western-centric curriculum marginalises or excludes the global majority. We highlight humanising pedagogy as a way to connect theory and practice with students’ lives, and explain how the research informed programme development, curriculum decolonisation, and more inclusive, socially just teaching.