Moralizing meat consumption: Bringing food and feeling into education for sustainable development (original) (raw)
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Using the author's own struggle to move toward a vegetarian diet as a backdrop, the article focuses in on the implications that one's disconnection from their food has upon their consumption choices. It aims to illuminate the troubling connection between the consumption of nonhuman animals and structures of violence, domination, and productification that pervade human society, and takes aim at the notion that direct action is the best means through which meat consumption may eventually be eliminated. The article contends that the critical animal educator must help to engage learners in inquiry and "empowering discourse" (DeLeon & Love, 2009) at the point where they are likeliest to be able to reflect critically upon the issue; it may be that the most radical approach, if one is to consider actual outcomes, is not direct action, but direct engagement of students in a critical consideration of their diets which may well affect their ambivalence to eating animals and lead to different choices about their consumption.
Reflections on the Eating of Animals and the Role of Education Therein
2011
Using the author's own struggle to move toward a vegetarian diet as a backdrop, the article focuses in on the implications that one's disconnection from their food has upon their consumption choices. It aims to illuminate the troubling connection between the consumption of nonhuman animals and structures of violence, domination, and productification that pervade human society, and takes aim at the notion that direct action is the best means through which meat consumption may eventually be eliminated. The article contends that the critical animal educator must help to engage learners in inquiry and "empowering discourse" (DeLeon & Love, 2009) at the point where they are likeliest to be able to reflect critically upon the issue; it may be that the most radical approach, if one is to consider actual outcomes, is not direct action, but direct engagement of students in a critical consideration of their diets which may well affect their ambivalence to eating animals and lead to different choices about their consumption.
Using the author's own struggle to move toward a vegetarian diet as a backdrop, the article focuses in on the implications that one's disconnection from their food has upon their consumption choices. It aims to illuminate the troubling connection between the consumption of nonhuman animals and structures of violence, domination, and productification that pervade human society, and takes aim at the notion that direct action is the best means through which meat consumption may eventually be eliminated. The article contends that the critical animal educator must help to engage learners in inquiry and "empowering discourse" (DeLeon & Love, 2009) at the point where they are likeliest to be able to reflect critically upon the issue; it may be that the most radical approach, if one is to consider actual outcomes, is not direct action, but direct engagement of students in a critical consideration of their diets which may well affect their ambivalence to eating animals and lead to different choices about their consumption.
Cultural Studies of Science Education
Public debate often centers on issues that affect our lives and which reflect interests of various social groups and scientific communities, leading to controversies about what we may call socially acute questions (SAQs). In this paper we focus on two SAQs linked to the dominant model of meat production and consumption in Western countries, namely its impact on the environment and the health problems associated with high-meat diets. Given the importance of education in relation to these SAQs, our main objectives here were to examine the extent to which a Cartography of Controversy (CoC) approach is a useful tool for exploring and visualizing the views and ideas of preservice teachers about the controversies associated with this model of meat production and consumption, and to compare their initial maps with our own, one that is informed by a more detailed socio-epistemological analysis. As a complement to this inquiry, we also present the SAQ–Eating Meat project, the aim of which is...
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Addressing the consumption of animals as an educative and environmentally crucial question, this paper empirically examines the meaning of meat and animal consumption for learners in school settings. This study is based on focus groups with Swedish upper secondary students and is centred around their responses to a vegan month at their school as an initiative to emphasise the environmental consequences caused by human consumption of animal products. In order to make sense of the students responses in light of the disruption of animal products in the school restaurant, the school initiative is analysed as a dislocatory intervention. The analysis shows that 'eating environmentally' in education caused conflictual responses closely connected to political and gendered aspects of animal consumption. In conclusion, the author argues that a neutral or un-political position is not possible when animal consumption is on the educational table, and moreover, that there is a need to take political-conflictual responses seriously within education.
Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 2014
In Canada, there exists a noteworthy educational initiative referred to as Environmental Studies Programs (ESPs). These secondary school programs are interdisciplinary, helping to link subject matter and encouraging student responsibility. This paper will present student reports from five case studies where I investigated how ESP participation impacts secondary students' attitudes about the environment, and their willingness to make pro-environmental and pro-social choices. "Food" emerged as a primary theme, along with several subthemes: Farm School; Food Production; Outcomes of Action; Locavore; and Reports of Limited Behaviour Change. The discussion integrates the study results with relevant literature, provides pedagogical recommendations for teachers, and offers ideas for future research. Résumé Il existe au Canada une initiative en éducation digne de mention dénommée Programmes d'études environnementales. Ces programmes en école secondaire sont interdisciplinaires : ils contribuent à établir un lien avec la matière des cours obligatoires et suscitent le sens des responsabilités des élèves. Le présent article expose des rapports préparés par des élèves dans cinq études de cas où j'ai examiné les effets d'une participation à des programmes d'études environnementales sur les attitudes d'élèves du secondaire par rapport à l'environnement, et sur leur volonté de faire des choix favorables à l'environnement et à la société. La nourriture est un thème qui y a été désigné essentiel, tout comme plusieurs sous-thèmes : la ferme-école, la production alimentaire, les résultats d'un acte, la consommation d'aliments produits localement et les signalements de changement comportemental restreint. La conclusion confronte les résultats de l'étude aux publications pertinentes, présente des recommandations pédagogiques pour les enseignants et suggère des idées en vue de recherches ultérieures.
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Since October 2011, we offer an optional course “CookUOS—Cooking in context of health literacy and education for sustainable development” at University of Osnabrueck assuming, that cooking and eating is a feasible method to convey ESD by combining theory with an emotional activity everybody knows (Neumann et al. 2016). CookUOS works as a “bus” to pitch science to the participants. They develop figurative and decision-making competencies, self-responsibility and self-efficiency by practice-related tasks. During interdisciplinary colloquia, CookUOS initiates by means of an obligate transdisciplinary change of perspectives a multiprofessional and interdisciplinary exchange between the participants. This paper votes for the implementation of more theory practice-based approaches in higher education to recruit multipliers. A cooking course following theoretical lectures in the curricula of higher education fosters knowledge, competencies and skills we need now and in the future to achiev...