Experiential learning : towards a multi-disciplinary perspective

Whilst experiential learning (EL) has spread across the globe, influencing and being influenced by incursions into and across numerous fields and disciplines, including outdoor learning, problematic issues remain concerning definitional and boundary parameters. For some this is not seen as a weakness: the elusive and insurgent nature of EL resists the homogenising grasp. While addressing these issues this paper sketches a brief lineage, establishes evidence identifying major tides and smaller undercurrents of change. Substantive shifts towards a new revisionary postmodernism, a new ecological fluidity, are identified. This evolving holistic thinking embraces rather than replaces earlier thinking. The paper concludes by introducing new modelling that attempts to mirror and embrace this ecological multi-disciplinary complexity and fluidity.