ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Kay Milton's approach to personhood and its implications for environmental education theory and practice. Following a brief introduction to environmental education and the challenges that researchers have faced in assessing the development of pro-environmental behavior, it discusses how Milton's sophisticated analysis of emotion and environmental care helps us to understand this process more clearly. Milton suggests that active environmental care is the product of an emotional process wherein people perceive in nature qualities of "personhood", qualities such as individuality, capacity for emotion, and volition. This perception of personhood emerges from interactions such as those enjoyed by Li Bo, during which humans experience a "responsive relatedness" with the non-human world: Li Bo planted a seed, and the seed responded by transforming into a pumpkin plant—thereby transforming Li Bo in the process. The chapter concludes by suggesting how Milton's ideas can be applied to enhance the practice of environmental education.
