- Title
- Place matters: pedagogies of food, ecology and design
- Creator
- Green, Monica
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- Text; Journal article
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/104061
- Identifier
- vital:10993
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2012.697546
- Identifier
- ISSN:1469-5871
- Abstract
- This study uses theories of place inhabitation, relationships to food, place ecologies, and place-based pedagogies to examine the educational value of food gardens and related environmental and health initiatives in primary (elementary) schooling in Australia. It assumes that food gardens and their school ground contexts are important ecopedagogical sites for renewing children’s relationships with proximal, everyday places. The study highlights how schools are engaging with socioenvironmental challenges through pedagogical frameworks that support education for sustainability. These frameworks are significant in that they position children as active agents who experience deep levels of embodied learning. A key premise of the thesis is that young learners are experientially capable of developing an ecoethical awareness if they are to become ecologically proactive subjects and citizens. Empirical work drew on case study approaches and arts-based auto-ethnographic methodologies to identify the pedagogical potential of food gardens and school ground ecologies. Fifty-three children aged 8–12 years, three gardening/environmental education teachers and three principals from three Australian primary schools (2×Victoria; 1×Tasmania) worked ethnographically with the researcher during 2007–2009. Data were primarily derived from semi-structured, face-to-face interviews. Other key sources included children’s mapping work, field notes, photos, and the researcher’s journal. Key features of the data collection were: many of the students participated in ‘walking interviews’ that encouraged garden- and school ground-based stories at sites of their choice, coupled with 15 days of participant observation of garden and classroom-based lessons to provide further contextualization. Analysis of interviews and lessons involved a ‘storyline’ approach to interpreting findings. Theoretically informed discussions of the empirical data highlight the following: across the three schools, recognizing the role and significance of teachers’ work and the value of integrated approaches to pedagogy are central requirements for designing, implementing, and evaluating place-oriented curricula. In each case study, relational pedagogies of connection and responsibility afford learning opportunities that can bring children into deepened contact with local places and people. Collectively, the initiatives undertaken by the schools and their wider communities are ‘positive’ and ‘hopeful’, and their examples show how school garden-based ecopedagogies can play a critical role in the renewal of more sustainable people–place relations.
- Relation
- Environmental Education Research Vol. 19, no. 2 (2013), p.
- Rights
- Copyright Taylor and Francis
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
- Subject
- Food gardens; Pedagogy; Place; Children and sustainability; 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy; 1303 Specialist Studies In Education; 0502 Environmental Science and Management
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