Enacting Environmental Justice Through the Undergraduate Classroom: The Transformative Potential of Community Engaged Partnerships (original) (raw)
Related papers
Empowering students to confront environmental injustice: Dialogue, theory, empathy, and partnership
SN Social Sciences
Many students find environmental justice to be emotionally overwhelming and/or politically alienating, and there is currently little work that provides instructors with effective techniques for addressing these types of challenges. In this paper, upon situating the environmental studies classroom and the broader undergraduate experience in sociohistorical context, we identify four sequential strategies for engaging and empowering students on environmental justice issues. First, instructors can facilitate an open and honest dialogue by strategically framing course content for the unique composition of the audience, sharing their own racialized experiences (or working with a guest speaker who would be willing to do so), and using interactive assignments to encourage student participation. Second, social theory can be presented to students as complimentary (rather than competing) ideas which can be used for creative, real-world problem solving. Third, instructors and students can cultivate empathy by acknowledging different standpoints, particularly those that have been historically marginalized. Lastly, by working in partnerships with community-based organizations, instructors and students can think and work beyond hero/savior and perpetrator/victim narratives. These strategies are not intended as a set of silver bullets, but rather as a series of potential starting points that are informed by recent scholarship on these topics.
2013
A tremendous amount of work goes into writing a dissertation. I've logged countless hours in libraries or sequestered in my office with books stacked up to my waist and multiple cups of green tea occupying my desk. However, writing a work of such size is never a singular process. Many people form an important web through both my life and this work and as such, have greatly shaped it's progression. My luxury of digging into the world of environmental education would be impossible, first of all, without the generous support I received from Louisiana State University, and the tremendous dedication of a few very special people. First, I would like to thank Dr. Fredrich Weil for offering me some very enlightening conversation and opportunities for research, as well as wry Jewish wit. His path led me to pursue environmental research. This research focus would never have led to a series of successful publications without the constant support of my advisor, Dr. Sarah Becker. Her relentless pursuit of coaching me on the editing process, over time, taught me how to synthesize my research into a publishable format and to impress editoral boards with my innovative ideas and expressive description. Further, Sarah was my "voice of reason" during many difficult life moments during these past four years, both personally and professionally. Her insight, her daily struggle being a single mom and managing a career gave her a maturity that regularly inspired me to be a better person, to take the higher road and think in terms of the bigger picture when the daily grind of grad school poverty affected my spirit. I owe an important gratitude to Dr. Troy Blanchard and Dr. Susan Dumais for agreeing to be on my dissertation committee and for pointed moments of important theoretical insights related to the cultural side of environmental destruction and the focus on youth as a site of injustice which guided my research into these important areas. Additionally, I would also like to thank my graduate school collegue Don Asay for his collaboration and for being my friend these past four years. Finally, I must thank Dana Berkowitz for her classes in feminism and gender theory as well as her passion, ambition, and sharp critique. And last, but certainly not least, I must thank my athletic orange tabby Stand-by Mancat, for sitting in my lap, and being my compainion and sense of stability through countless hours of dissertation work and grad school life. Without these efforts this work would not be possible. iv
Towards a Linking Activist Pedagogy: Teacher Activism for Social-Ecological Justice
The world is currently in the midst of a social-ecological crisis. We cannot ignore that the primary cause of this change in our planet's ecological balance and the increase in social injustices is our heavy dependence on non-renewable fossil fuels and a capitalist economic system, which encourages exploitation of both human and more than human resources with no regard for the consequences. In such a reality, it is alarming that education treats knowledge as disconnected fragments and that environmental and social issues are often addressed separately in education. In order to live in environmentally healthy and socially just communities, we need ways of thinking and teaching that integrate rather than fragment issues. There is a need to recognize that the ecological crisis is a “cultural crisis”. With the need for such an approach in mind, Morgan Gardner (2005) formulated the term “linking activism” to describe one's “blended social-ecological justice practice” when “being positioned in a single construct” (p.3). I extend this into a consideration of environmental and social-justice educators as agents of change whose daily activism works to change the current cultural paradigm and bring social-ecological order and harmony. This paper will argue for the importance of engaging in linking activism in education by critically examining the mainstream environmental educational field in order to critique its paradigm that is imprinted by the current dominant culture, which in turn perpetuates social-ecological oppression.
Using University-Community Partnerships to Stem Environmental Inequities and Injustice
International Journal of Social Science Research, 2013
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to discuss the roots of the movement by reviewing the following: (1) theoretical perspective of community engagement, (2) the environmental justice movement and (3) the challenges of the environmental justice movement that can be addressed through effective collaborations between universities and the communities they serve. A survey design was used to collect and analyze the data. Two hundred out of four hundred and twenty five participants elected to participate in this study. Statistically significant differences were found in the perceptions regarding exposure to environmental waste, preventive technology, community resources, personal access to technology, community lab access, computer training classes and empowerment through technology.
Environmental justice (EJ) issues and perspectives, which emphasize the disproportionate environmental hazards experienced by low-income communities and communities of color, are often excluded from higher education sustainability discourses and curriculum. Utilizing a national sample of 297 interdisciplinary environmental and sustainability (IES) degree programs, this study identifies program-level values and student racial/ethnic demographics, as well as institutional structural characteristics influencing the inclusion of EJ content in IES curriculum. The findings have important implications for IES curriculum and program development, and racial/ethnic and class dynamics in this emerging field.
Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2015
Opportunities to advance environmental justice and sustainability pedagogy in academic settings are challenged by: 1) the balkanisation of such conceptions into different academic discourses, and 2) the exclusion of community discourses outside academia. Two dominant academic discourses in environmental justice originate from either anthropocentric (human) or ecocentric (non-human) conceptualisations. An interdisciplinary undergraduate teaching project that sought to integrate such discourses and privilege the voice of the community is described. In the course of an environmental ethics class, two faculty from philosophy and nursing initiated an assignment to produce short documentary interviews and transcripts (n =18) with community members in a US City 'Defining environmental justice' for archiving as open-source material in a University Library. Of the video-transcripts produced, most (n = 16) explored anthropocentric positions. In this presentation, the dominance of anthropocentric discourses is explored as both an opportunity and a challenge for advancing the pedagogy of environmental justice and sustainability.
Engaged scholarship for environmental justice: A guide
2019
This guide argues that engaged scholarship, in which academics and other professional researchers collaborate with community members and organizations, should be the preferred approach for researchers who are committed to environmental justice. This is because environmental justice not only requires us to share environmental burdens and benefits more equitably, but also demands that we democratize control over environmental knowledge and decision making to include historically marginalized communities. The means and ends of engaged scholarship can best help researchers fulfill this dual commitment to the democratic process and equitable environmental outcomes. The guide is intended for academic scholars, other professional researchers, and their community partners interested in collaborating on this kind of work. The first part of the guide defines and describes the development of EJ and engaged scholarship, showing why they are well-suited to one another. In the process, it offers a brief summary of the major literature on both topics. Part two offers a brief review of some of the characteristic research methods of engaged scholarship on EJ, such as community mapping, environmental exposure monitoring, photovoice and participatory video, storytelling and community arts, and more. Part three summarizes the challenges that university-community partners face in their work together and how they can address them. It also discusses potential difficulties of conducting this kind of research in academic institutions that have yet to fully embrace engaged scholarship. This part draws on solutions developed by practitioners and suggests areas for further transformation of academia to make it more hospitable to engaged work. The final part lists useful resources on environmental justice and engaged scholarship and a list of references.
Teaching and Learning Guide for: Environmental Justice
Sociology Compass, 2009
Author's Introduction Over the last 25 years, the environmental justice movement has emerged from its earliest focus on US social movements combating environmental racism to an influential global phenomenon. Environmental justice research has also undergone spectacular growth and diffusion in the last two decades. From its earliest roots in sociology, the field is now firmly entrenched in several different academic disciplines including geography, urban planning, public health, law, ethnic studies, and public policy. Environmental justice refers simultaneously to a vibrant and growing academic research field, a system of social movements aimed at addressing various environmental and social inequalities, and public policies crafted to ameliorate conditions of environmental and social injustice. Academia is responding to this social problem by offering courses under various rubrics, such as 'Race, Poverty and the Environment, Environmental Racism, Environmental Justice', 'Urban Planning, Public Health And Environmental Justice', and so on. Courses on environmental justice offer students opportunities to critically and reflexively explore issues of race and racism, social inequality, social movements, public ⁄ environmental health, public policy and law, and intersections of science and policy. Integrating modules on environmental justice can help professors engage students in action research, service learning, and more broadly, critical pedagogy. This article offers an overview of the current state of the field and offers a range of resources for teaching concepts of environmental racism, inequality and injustice in the classroom.
Social justice education is undertheorized in science education. Given the wide range of goals and purposes proposed within both social justice education and social justice science education scholarship, these fields require reconciliation. In this paper, I suggest a student empowerment framework for conceptualizing teaching and learning social justice science education in classroom settings. I utilize this framework to analyze the case study of a high school environmental science classroom in the United States where the teacher and students created environmental action projects that were relevant to their community. I examine how social, political, and academic empowerment were or were not enacted within the classroom and argue for educators to give heed to all three simultaneously to mediate student empowerment while working toward social justice science education.