the conceptions about animal welfare education


or why and how to enlighten the conception of educators


Issue : any educator has specific pre-conception of animal welfare education. Some of them consider that animal welfare is a scientific concept which supposes to transmit ethological and zootechnic knowledge ; others consider that animal welfare is related to regulations, and necessitates to transmit knowledge about legislation ; others associate animal welfare with models (as the model of the five freedom) and teach them, … Anicare tools and methods can be in conflict with these different approaches. To make enlighten the different conceptions of animal welfare education in a group has four main interests : it allows the trainer (1) to assess the points of view and knowledge of the trainees, or in other words to make a diagnosis,
which allows the trainer to define his own pedagogical strategy (2) to know how to help to enlarge and transform their conceptions for the appropriation of new approaches, (3) to motivate the learner, the fact to be interested in what he thinks, in his difficulties helps him to become aware of what concerns him, interests him, causes him problems, (4) to encourage the acceptance of divergent opinions. It will enable them to show their diversity, and eventually to take a low posture with the participants : a pedagogical approach based on controversies is particular, and can be criticised by the participants because it can be in conflict with their own opinions.

Objective :
For the trainer :
To collect educators conception about animal welfare education ;
To enlighten the main obstacles that the trainer will have to overcome and the levers on which it can rest;


For the trainee :
To enable to clarify his own conception, his own posture
To consider the conceptions of the others
To develop ethical, critical and… thinking mindset approaches in future situations throughout life in an autonomous way.

Methods :
A panel of methods offers the possibility of highlighting the trainees' conceptions. They invite them to become aware of them by provoking evocation, surprise (suggesting a pedagogical approach which surprise the participants), and/or a a self and hetero-confrontation.

Tools :
We can’t be exhaustive about the number of tools offering the possibility to enlighten the representations of teachers about animal welfare education. We will suggest mainly those that have been tested.

A Q-sort about animal welfare education (appendix 1)
films of teachers demonstrating their different conceptions of animal welfare education : the movies proposed by Anicare can be used as such ; they enable to analyse the diversity of conceptions, postures and enable the trainee to reflect in his or her own posture.
A photo-language with the assignment as : “one that makes you talk about what would be animal welfare education and one that would be what should not be animal welfare education”.


Pitfalls and advices:
The representations don’t emerge necessarily when it is programmed. It is important to maintain listening and observation because the representations can appear at any time of the pedagogical approach. The less their expression is solicited, the more authentic they are.

Examples/testimonies :

“I confronted teachers to three movies of the testimony of a teacher explaining his own way to educate about animal welfare education. The teachers have been highly critical about some of them. As a second step, I conducted a practice analysis group. One of the teachers agreed that we analyze his practice to teach animal welfare. The exchanges revealed that he had similar practices, based on the same principles that he had criticized during the first stage. I believe that he was really more open to the proposals that I made afterwards.”