The role of borders in environmental education: positioning, power and marginality

Tzou, Carrie; Bell, Philip

doi:10.1080/17457823.2012.693697

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…To be clear, outcomes are not always positive from the perspective of the learner. For example, youths' interest in local environmental issues may be a catalyst for participation in an after school environmental club, but youth agency within that context might be stifled (knowingly or unknowingly) by club organizers, or youths may be marginalized as their identities are recast in ways that reflect societal stereotypes (see Tzou & Bell, ).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What comes to mind when you think of science? The perfumery!”: Documenting science‐related cultural learning pathways across contexts and timescales

Bricker¹,

Bell

2013

J Res Sci Teach

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In this paper, we explore the details of one youth's science-related learning in-and out-ofschool at the time of her participation in an ethnography of youth science and technology learning across contexts and over time. We use the Cultural Learning Pathways Framework to analyze the youth's interests, and the related sociocultural, historical, material, and affect-laden practices in which she and her family participated. The following question guided our analysis: How do everyday moments-experienced across settings, pursuits, social groups, and time-result in scientific learning, expertise development, and identification? We found that this youth's interest in various aspects of the sciences was years in the making, embedded in situated events that were part of a space-time continuum bound by passion for the practices involved, influenced by specific cultural practices, and explored with the help of close family collaborators. We also found that school science activity in which the youth in question participated both supported and could have potentially constrained her science-related cultural learning pathways. # 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 51: 2014

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Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“What comes to mind when you think of science? The perfumery!”: Documenting science‐related cultural learning pathways across contexts and timescales

Bricker¹,

Bell

2013

J Res Sci Teach

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“…Our ideas are informed and inspired by boundary studies in general (Akkerman & Bakker, 2011) and the work of Tzou and Bell (2012) in particular, though they do not use the term 'identity boundary work' per se. In their ethnographic study of high school youths' meaning-making in an environmental justice program that included classroom instruction and community service work, Tzou and Bell (2012) illustrate how the program's activities and lectures inadvertently created borders between youth and the natural world. The service learning trips and classroom activities perpetuated a 'rhetoric of fear and privilege' that emphasized environmental hazards, dangers, and human-made toxins that positioned 'youth and their communities in disempowering ways' (p. 267).…”

Section: Identity Boundary Work: Playing In Spaces Of 'Unthinkable' Smentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Unthinkable’ Selves: Identity boundary work in a summer field ecology enrichment program for diverse youth

Carlone

Huffling

Tomasek

et al. 2015

International Journal of Science Education

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Abstract:The historical under-representation of diverse youth in environmental science education is inextricably connected to access and identity-related issues. Many diverse youth with limited previous experience to the outdoors as a source for learning and/or leisure may consider environmental science as 'unthinkable'. This is an ethnographic study of 16 diverse high school youths' participation, none of who initially fashioned themselves as 'outdoorsy' or 'animal people', in a four-week summer enrichment program focused on herpetology (study of reptiles and amphibians). To function as 'good' participants, youth acted in ways that placed them well outside their comfort zones, which we labeled as identity boundary work. Results highlight the following cultural tools, norms, and practices that enabled youths' identity boundary work: (1) boundary objects (tools regularly used in the program that facilitated youths' engagement with animals and nature and helped them work through fear or discomfort); (2) time and space (responsive, to enable adaptation to new environments, organisms, and scientific field techniques); (3) social support and collective agency; and (4) scientific and anecdotal knowledge and skills. Findings suggest challenges to commonly held beliefs about equitable pedagogy, which assumes that scientific practices must be thinkable and/or relevant before youth engage meaningfully. Further, findings illustrate the ways that fear, in small doses and handled with empathy, may become a resource for youths' connections to animals, nature, and science. Finally, we propose that youths' situated identity boundary work in the program may have the potential to spark more sustained identity work, given additional experiences and support.

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“…Ultimately, we identified eight peer-reviewed articles that met all of our criteria—six describing applications of culturally sustaining pedagogies and two (Carlone et al 2015; Tzou & Bell, 2012) that provided implications for future users of these pedagogies. After narrowing down our corpus to these eight articles, we engaged in an iterative process of analysis shaped by the arguments of Paris (2012) and Ladson-Billings (2014) that practitioners of CSP must conceptualize culture as heterogeneous and dynamic rather than as homogeneous and static.…”

Section: Latinidad and Creativity In Environmental Education Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Conceptions of Creativity and Latinidad in Environmental Education Through the Lens of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

Roman

Arias

Sedlacek

et al. 2022

Review of Research in Education

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Environmental education seeks to foster meaningful connections to local and global environments through creative nature experiences. Responding to critiques of historical inequities, practitioners are prioritizing equitable access for historically marginalized youth, particularly from Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities; this identity-centered prioritization, while essential, generates questions of normativity, diversity, relevance, and engagement within identity groups. Drawing on creativity as meaningful person-world encounters characterized by pluriperspective, future-oriented, nonlinear, and open-ended qualities, this chapter uses culturally sustaining pedagogy to explore how environmental education studies (a) operationalize Latinidad and associated constructs, (b) enact creative experiences in environmental education, and (c) qualify the roles of Latinx communities in shaping these creative experiences. We review studies of environmental education with Latinx youth in the United States that explicitly employ culturally sustaining approaches to engage these communities. We bring together these frameworks as a strategy to move beyond discrete notions of Latinidad in environmental education and toward nuanced conceptions of what it means to acknowledge and cultivate environmental literacies in these diverse comunidades.

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The role of borders in environmental education: positioning, power and marginality

Cited by 18 publications

References 21 publications

“What comes to mind when you think of science? The perfumery!”: Documenting science‐related cultural learning pathways across contexts and timescales

“What comes to mind when you think of science? The perfumery!”: Documenting science‐related cultural learning pathways across contexts and timescales

‘Unthinkable’ Selves: Identity boundary work in a summer field ecology enrichment program for diverse youth

Exploring Conceptions of Creativity and Latinidad in Environmental Education Through the Lens of Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

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