ABSTRACT
Outdoor and adventure education is a long rope comprising many strands. That rope remains unfinished. Thanks to the creativity of practitioners it is still being extended as long-standing modes of practice are remodelled and renewed. Nothing stands still. Outdoor and adventure education has been unrelentingly reshaped by 'praxis', much as it has been buffeted by changes occurring in the wider social, economic and physical environment. Given the availability of the literature underscored at the close of the last paragraph, this chapter opts to concentrate on ideas that shaped current provision. By stages the machines that tumbled forth following Newcomen's breakthrough eliminated many time-honoured restraints upon mankind's productive capacity, thereby manufacturing the conditions for a seemingly limitless multiplication of goods, wealth and people. Indivualisation and the realignment of the clientele in relation to age and gender may now be combining to modify the foci of outdoor and adventure education.
