Reimagining Non-Formal Science Education: A Case of Ecojustice ...

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION, 15(3), 261–275, 2015 C OISE Copyright ISSN: 1492-6156 print / 1942-4051 online DOI: 10.1080/14926156.2015.1062937

Reimagining Non-Formal Science Education: A Case of Ecojustice-Oriented Citizenship Education Erin Sperling and J. Lawrence Bencze Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Abstract: This article presents a study of youth participating in a program that engages in a form of ecojustice education, addressing social inequities, along with science-linked concepts, through a localized and culturally oriented food-based curriculum. A community-based food justice organization provides a rich space for encountering and examining the intersection of science education and citizenship education. Analyses of qualitative data indicate that youth became oriented toward activism as they accommodated new identities in experiencing the edible dynamic. This ethnographic study contributes to literature on the complexity of local and global issues, highlighting the value of place-based education toward increased social justice in society. Résumé: Cet article présente une recherche sur un groupe de jeunes ayant participé a` un programme e´ ducatif qui vise a` l’éco-justice alimentaire et qui s’en prend aux iniquités sociales ainsi qu’à certains concepts liés aux sciences, par le biais d’un curriculum dont les bases reposent sur la nourriture en tant que fondement culturel et communautaire. Un système communautaire e´ quitable en matière d’alimentation fournit un riche milieu permettant de percevoir et d’analyser le point de croisement entre l’enseignement des sciences et l’éducation a` la citoyenneté. L’analyse qualitative des données indique que les jeunes s’orientent de plus en plus vers l’activisme au fur et a` mesure qu’ils accueillent de nouvelles identités en matière d’alimentation. Cette e´ tude ethnographique contribue a` la littérature sur la complexité des questions locales et globales, en mettant l’accent sur la valeur d’une e´ ducation localement ancrée lorsqu’il s’agit d’améliorer la justice sociale dans la société.

In ecojustice education, there is impetus to engage learners with knowledge and skills of scientific, social, and economic systems and their interrelations (Martusewicz, Edmundson, & Lupinacci, 2011). These driving forces are the foundation from which citizens can begin to address challenges that have arisen in opposition to the well-being of individuals, societies, and environments. Some examples of these challenges on the global scale are environmental racism, inequitable access to resources, and other pursuant impacts of climate change (Klein, 2014). At the local level, challenges can be more targeted, such as appropriation of fresh water for industrial pollutant dispersion by corporations. Ecojustice education, among other approaches to environmental and sustainability education, offers a particular holistic view of humans as part of the ecosystem, as integral and integrated components of the science, technology, society, Address correspondence to Erin Sperling, Department of Curriculum Teaching and Learning, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at http://www.tandfonline.com/ucjs.

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and environment (STSE) paradigm. Most notably, ecojustice education also acknowledges that humans can access power to become agents of change. There are five aspects of ecojustice education that apply to both the institutional and public spheres, providing the potential for a larger moral and conceptual framework for understanding how to achieve goals of social justice. It demands the following: 1. Eliminate the causes of eco-racism. 2. End the North’s exploitation and cultural colonization of the South. 3. Revitalize the commons in order to achieve a healthier balance between market and nonmarket aspects of community life. 4. Ensure that the prospects of future generations are not diminished by the hubris and ideology that drives the globalization of the West’s industrial culture. 5. Reduce the threat to what Vandana Shiva refers to as “earth democracy”—that is, the right of natural systems to reproduce themselves rather than to have their existence contingent upon the demands of humans (as described by Martusewicz et al., 2011). This need for infusing the political into the curriculum is echoed by George Richardson and David Blades (2006) when they call for a curriculum of world citizenship to support a “metaethical principle of human survival” (p. 116) and to acknowledge that the survival of many species on earth is inseparable from human survival. In previous studies (i.e., Bencze, Sperling, & Carter, 2012; Sperling & Bencze, 2010) that engaged students through an action-oriented, researchbased curriculum, we found that there are certain constraints in formal schooling that inhibit youth from full participation in civic engagement with ecojustice issues. In particular, limitations of time in combination with an official science curriculum that does not blatantly require student action around issues, or even take up a particularly political stance, caused a disconnect between intentions of ecojustice education and reality (Hodson, 2010; Levinson, 2010). Thus, non-formal education may provide rich sites of citizenship development around STSE issues and may support the development of ecojustice-oriented attributes in youth to emerge. Additionally, because of intentions and activities by many community-based organizations, we may see different potential in these spaces for civic engagement and agency. The body of literature and research on development of learning through participation in social groups is still growing, but many scholars have identified active participation in social movements as a necessary part of democratic learning, in that it is accessible to all toward the well-being of all (i.e., Levkoe, 2013; Merrifield, 2002; Schugurensky, 2003). A non-formal education site offers different networks for learning from the formal school space and exposes youth to contextual issues in their community. This contextualized learning may offer moments of intersecting citizenship education with ecojustice. Using food as a learning experience, space, and tool offers interesting overlaps with the education spheres of science, citizenship, and ecojustice. With food, we can engage in such conversations of production, growth, and environmental impact through a scientific lens. We may also encounter questions of access to healthy food and the local and global sustainability of foods through a citizenship lens. The demands of ecojustice overlap each of these areas and also provoke the notion of creating change where well-being is at stake. This study attempts to understand youth agency in an afterschool setting. First we introduce the theoretical framework, followed by the research context, methodology, discussion of results, and finally the significance of the study. How and why youth become engaged in these demands of

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ecojustice and to what degree they are able of creating and using science knowledge is analyzed through an ethnographic study with a participant-observer. The research questions are as follows: How does a non-formal education space provide opportunities for citizenship engagement? What are ways in which youth participants become engaged in citizenship? Data included interviews, observations, and document analysis. The outcomes of this project ideally contribute to the body of knowledge of the growing need for youth to become engaged as citizens and in issues of local and global import. This article is part of a larger study that views food as a vehicle for civic, scientific, and environmental literacy toward increased social justice in society.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK There are multiple ways in which youth are engaged in non-formal educational experiences. In many ways, non-formal education has historically provided real-life experiences for youth, by meeting them in their communities, often in a form of place-based education (Gruenewald, 2003). Place-based education connects to the realities of youth (or any learners), incorporates experiential and embodied learning, and has been noted as being one of the most successful ways of engaging in learning and collaboration (Rahm, 2010). Place-based education locates the community as a site of learning that often offers opportunities for collaboration that are not as common to formal learning spaces. Collaboration is further understood as important to ecojustice education as a tool for addressing power imbalances. Higgins-D’Allesandro (2010) refers to “learning programs to immerse youth in community problem solving promot[ing] the development of youth cognitive and social capabilities as well as enhancing civic understanding and the willingness to work for social justice” (p. 572). There is a sense of freedom from the top-down, official curriculum in non-formal education that allows for localized, youth-driven curriculum that inherently works toward ecojustice by (becoming and) knowing one’s own environment, both physical and social (Barton, 2003). Through non-formal educational opportunities, youth are exposed to systemic power dynamics and encouraged to research and act on STSE issues that they feel are most relevant and prudent for them (Weinstein, 2010). This article explores one case of non-formal education that provides opportunities for youth, attempting to meet many of the desirable outcomes for ecojustice education—intersecting science and citizenship education—with the more explicit inquiry into moments of civic engagement and enactments of agency. The research was built from a theoretical framework known as STEPWISE (Science and Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing to Individuals, Societies and Environments), which prioritizes citizen research-informed social actions to address possible personal, social, and environmental problems linked to decisions by powerful people/groups about science and technology (Bencze, 2007). Laurence Simonneaux (2014) refers to this framework as the “hot end” (p. 105) in the variation of objectives beyond socioscientific issues (SSI) education as a pioneer of the activist trend, encouraging students to take actions to address SSIs. STEPWISE encourages facilitated, youth-directed research and activism to address SSIs and in this case had the potential to merge with a community-based organization with a mandate for food justice in a marginalized community. Marginality in this case pertains to a spectrum of broadly fluid and intersecting subjectivities; for example, within the realm of citizen access, we may consider the resources of healthy food, workplace stability, and immigration status.

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The focus on marginality in formal science education has been explored in recent years by scholars such as Hodson (2003), Barton (2003), Aikenhead (2001), and others. However, the context of an urban, non-formal multicultural site in Canada may contribute to the literature in new ways, as we explore below. By working with youth who are marginalized, through various identity markers, we explore how students negotiate processes of socioscientific knowledge production, claim ownership of it, and take action based on that ownership, particularly through the experience of a food justice curriculum. In an increasingly globalized world, there is a gap in the literature concerning youth inclusion in non-formal science education. The discourse is particularly minimal around science praxis for English-language learners (ELLs). There is a small body of research about ELLs in formal science—particular with respect to content learning (i.e., Cummins, 2010)—but there are still questions about sustainability education and civic agency for ELLs in science. For individuals who may not share a common first language, an actionoriented pedagogy, with food in hand and place in mind, provide opportunities to challenge dominant notions of culture and access, furthered by incorporating notions of antiracist theory. Kent den Heyer (2006) wrote about the heightened challenges to civic engagement with increased marginalization: “Given the immensity of challenges so many collectively face . . . and most peoples’ more modest zones of influence, this hyperindividualized heroic and idealized notion of agency likely contributes to the widely acknowledged political apathy of youth” (p. 87). Building on the framework of primary and secondary research for action of Bencze and Alsop (2009), the food justice location offers particular entry points for students to which they may previously be un(der)exposed, through the possibility of a student-directed, place-based action project. From here, we consider popular/non-formal education as a site and pedagogy for addressing issues. How does science education provide an entry point and/or set of tools that are valuable in the citizen-engagement project? Where does science education enhance or detract from this agenda, especially with food as the guiding theme? In particular, how does science education contribute to youth agency in relation to SSIs and what are challenges to student agency that are inherent to science education? Are there models of citizenship education that are more or less tightly supported by STSE-related curriculum foci through food? Ultimately, where do the youth participants in this program thrive as citizens and where do they meet the greatest challenges? The community-based food justice organization provides a rich space for encountering and examining the intersection of science education and citizenship education, although neither are explicit goals of the program. As part of the STSE paradigm, ecojustice education (among many types/approach to environmental and ecojustice education) offers a particular and more holistic view of the human as a part of the ecosystem. Though we have shaped the paradigm, we also operate within it. Given the current state of declining health in all matters of our global system, ecojustice attempts to interrupt these cycles to move toward a more just future, taking into consideration how even uses of language and discourse interrupt our potential to attain social and environmental justice. Language reproduces patterns of thinking and continues to frame how we think, with the result that the same destructive values and thought patterns that perpetuate industrial/consumer culture are being globalized (Martusewicz et al., 2011). Additionally, educational experiences that, either intentionally or not, connect to the realities of youth (or any learners) have been noted as being the most successful ways of engaging them in learning and collaboration (Rahm, 2010). Ecojustice offers a framework to critique industrial consumer systems that are in place and that are causing destructive forces against


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humanity and the non-human world. Because many of these systems are also the basis for our education structure, such as standardization and individualization (Martusewicz et al., 2011), there are certain constraints within the formal, institutionalized education system that inhibit fully sustainable and ecojustice-oriented education. Thus, the non-formal and popular education sites can be rich contexts for citizenship development around STSE issues and can work in supporting development of strong citizenship attributes in youth that emerge through STSE issues. For example, access and exposure to conflict and structural power imbalance is made more obvious; spaces of culture are created more organically as opposed to forcibly; strength may be built through localized, community-based scientific and other knowledge forms; radical transformation is not only possible, it is expected (Kahn, 2010). Thus, food as a topic offers an entry point here as well as being a bridge. Food justice education is one space where ecojustice has a foothold, in that the very materiality of food demands some degree of action to take place, seeking out just and sustainable solutions to environmental, social, and economic issues (Alkon & Agyeman, 2011). Understanding the food system and the multiple components of it, both living and nonliving, human and nonhuman, requires a view of complexity. One way of understanding food in ecojustice education is through actor–network theory (ANT) (Latour, 2005). ANT, developed within the fields of science and technology studies, is used to understand interactions in systems, referred to as networks. The theory can be described as “material-semiotic,” meaning that it considers both the material and symbolic meaning of actants in a network and how these come together to act as a whole. Food studies, in the sense of the edible dynamic, can be understood through ANT, because it is a fine example of an ongoing relationship between the material and the symbolic. Actor–network theory provides a way of mapping the complexities of ecojustice and food systems by identifying components in a network to be named and located relationally. ANT importantly includes human and non-human entities in its framework. Figure 1 is an example of a network map of a food production chain along with the contingent social and ecological components. Though we can see that there are individual components, we can also envision a great deal of overlap in these pieces and how they influence each other. For example, human health is related to economic factors, such as the cost of food products, which impacts the level of accessible nutrition. However, scientific literacy and knowledge of the construction of nutrition as well as nutrition discourse helps to create deeper connections to industrial and corporate impacts (Beagan & Chapman, 2012). For example, the production Canada’s Food Guide (Health Canada, 2011) is influenced by lobby groups who have interest in what Canadians are recommended to consume. From an ecojustice perspective, ANT can be useful; in order to begin to address and contravene the complexities of issues such as climate change and food insecurity, all actors may be included in the analysis and plan for action. Because we aim to name all actants and all aspects of the network need translation, ANT allows for voice of actors that would not otherwise be heard. In translation, the components of the network and the problem that is faced may be named and negotiated. Actors are then further defined and mobilized (Latour, 2005). For example, the voices of migrant workers in the fields of Global North farms are often silenced or made invisible. Latour (2005) referred to this as punctualization, a “shrinking” of a network into a single point/actant (hiding the network to which it is connected). With an ANT map those bodies and voices become as evident as the food, the fields, and the production chain itself. This is highly related to issues of social justice and environmental sustainability, which seek to reveal inequities imposed by

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FIGURE 1 A Visual Representation of the Edible Dynamic, and How ANT May Envisage Some Aspects of Food Systems. From Centers for Disease Control (n.d.).

systems. The multifactorial relationship of science education and food systems education can also be approached using ANT, by helping learners to unpack complex systems in and by which they are implicated, naming components and power brokers.

RESEARCH CONTEXT Canada is a country of immigrants, and especially so in urban centers. The city of Toronto has one of the most diverse populations in the world, where many newcomers are from places where English is a foreign language. Based on the 2011 census data, approximately 45% of the population in the city of Toronto identified their mother tongue as being something other than English or French (up 9% from 1996), with 28% speaking a language other than English or French most often at home (Statistics Canada, 2012). The context of this study envelops several spaces. These include the urban environment, with a community-based organization, delivering a non-formal education program for teenage girls in a low-income, high-immigrant neighborhood.


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Each of these components, along with many others that are known and as yet to be discovered, will impact the experiences and outcomes of this research project. This project explores a case of non-formal education that provides opportunities for youth in a community that has been marginalized in access to resources such as fresh and healthy food. This study aimed to meet many of the desirable outcomes for ecojustice education—intersecting science and citizenship education. It was situated in a community-based organization (CBO) that offered afterschool education programming to youth, in this case, girls. The CBO provides programming, according to their public website, that encourages access and exposure to conflict and structural power imbalance that is perhaps more obvious than the formal system; organically creates spaces of culture, as opposed to forcibly; and works at building strength through localized, community-based scientific and other knowledge forms. How and why the youth become engaged in these processes and to what degree they are able to create and use knowledge from the sciences and fields of technology through an ecojustice activism project is analyzed through a critical ethnography methodology. The mission statement of the CBO states (paraphrased here to maintain anonymity) that its aim is to increase access to healthy food while maintaining and building dignity, health and community, and challenge inequality. It is a community food center, providing food as well as programming to people of all ages, to offer education connected to all aspects of food security, from gardening to talking to government, from prenatal nutrition workshops to healthy eating for seniors. It began as a food bank but goes beyond hamper handouts to passive recipients—creating gardeners, cooks, and engaged citizens. Food helps to build skills, confidence, hope, health, and understanding across cultures. The CBO is located in a low-income neighborhood of a large urban center and operates to first and foremost serve the residents of that neighborhood. In terms of scientific literacy, as researchers from the outset we saw the CBO’s focus on nutrition and food growing as part of this piece but became aware of other moments of science learning as our participation increased, such as making participants aware of the chemical composition of foods, carbon footprints in food transportation, and indigenous plant growing practices, to name a few. The community population is diverse—overall program participants come from 32 countries and speak 16 languages. These different groups are brought together by a lack of adequate income with which to purchase nutritious food that ensures good health. For example, the median after-rent income per person per day for community members is $5.80 and 66% of participants report that they have no money left for food or any other expense after they have paid rent (CBO website). The CBO is a critical resource for many of the most vulnerable people in this urban community. The CBO offers a diverse range of programming for community members. These range from a drop-in for those in need to come in 4 days a week for healthy, hot meals, to community advocacy groups to bring issues to the attention to power brokers. There are pre- and neonatal nutrition programs, a cooking group for Aboriginals, and an afterschool program for kids. This particular program for youth under investigation was founded 3 years ago. The program founder describes that the program . . . is aimed at high school girls who are from the community who can benefit from opportunities to learn about cooking, food issues and gain self-confidence to address issues for themselves and their families. . . . It is meant to be a welcoming space where youth could learn about and develop agency around food issues . . .where girls could have the necessary social support to

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develop . . . skills [and] gain confidence to think of themselves as leaders on food issues within their social group and beyond. (McGregor, 2012, pp. 28–29)

We contacted the organization based on previous knowledge of their work and met to discuss the partnership, after the program had already started in October. At the initial meeting, the programmers were amenable to our participation and assistance in the program and were interested in integrating our approach into their program. This approach included a series of activities to promote research-informed activism, which began with facilitated examples of activism, followed by secondary and primary research, which would culminate in youth-directed research-informed activism projects (Bencze, 2007). We worked with the program from October until mid-summer during the school years of 2011 to 2013. The participants completed the program in early June. The youth participants were recruited from local public and Catholic board high schools early in the school year through awareness activities, such as organized lunch-time presentations or information tables in the main hallway set up by the program facilitator at the school. Ideally, the participants were not involved in many other activities that would inhibit their participation in the program. There were 8 to 15 participants through the year, with 8 consistently. The program met weekly for 2 hours after school on Wednesdays. The first author has been involved as a volunteer/researcher for 3 years of the program. As a result of research under the umbrella of the STEPWISE project, we had been able to incorporate an additional March Break camp into the programming for the participants to increase contact time with the youth as well as to encourage their exposure to the university setting. Consequently, we had already gathered data around issues concerning the CBO–institutional relationship as well as the girls’ implementation of research-based activism (Sperling & Bencze, in press). The data from earlier research helps to inform this project. The first author invited all youth program participants to participate in the research project at the same time. She then made it possible for participants to submit their research consent forms to her privately through a folder system, whereby no participants would know whether any others had been given parental consent. As a participant-observer, the researcher interacted equally with all youth regardless of their involvement in the research project and was able to contact them beyond the program for further interactions for data gathering. Research participants were given the option of removing themselves from the research project for any reason they indicated; however, all those who had consent remained in the project. In the first year of the research there were 10 youth with parental consent to participate. In the second year, there were 4. All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the participants.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND METHODS This case uses the approach of critical ethnography for both data collection and analyses. This method was preferred given the opportunity to work more deeply and over time with the organization, as well as it seemed to be aligned, broadly, with goals of the community-based organization as well as the research team, which has a pronounced ideological goal of well-being. “Critical ethnography has broadened, drawing its strength not only from its openly ideological agenda but also from its embrace of human agency, which it locates within the shifting, contextual, and multilayered terrain of power and oppression” (Barton, 2001, p. 906). Critical ethnography helps to locate the research context, from both place-based and ecojustice perspectives, and to also locate


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TABLE 1 Intersecting Hodson (2003) With Westheimer and Kahne (2004) Hodson (2003) Westheimer and Kahne (2004) Personally responsible Participatory (action-oriented) Justice oriented

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

X

X X

X

Note. For the purposes of attending to ecojustice education in this article, the authors were particularly attentive to expressions of two intersections: participatory and level 4, preparation for and taking action; and justice orientation and level 2, recognizing stakeholders in scientific decisions and the link to wealth and power. Other levels of citizenship participation will be explored in other papers.

the researchers in it. “Politics alone are incomplete without self-reflection. Critical ethnography must further its goals from simply politics to the politics of positionality. The question becomes, How do we begin to discuss our positionality as ethnographers and as those who represent Others?” (Madison, 2005, p. 7). Data collection included interview transcripts, field observations, youth-created artefacts, and facilitator planning documents, along with official documents produced by the CBO and cultural artefacts of the organization, such as photographs. The research took place over a year and included interviews with program staff, volunteers, and participants, including program entry and exit interviews. Interviews ranged from 30 to 90 minutes in length, with some exceptions for longer conversations. Each program session was approximately 2 hours, after school. The study also includes an analysis of the demographics of the community in which the CBO is located. These were coded and analyzed using a constant comparative methodology and triangulated for emerging themes (Charmaz, 2006; Lincoln & Guba, 2000). ANT was used as a secondary methodology for acknowledging interconnections between themes and codes. This study represents a portion of the culmination of 3 years of work and research with the community-based organization. Each year a new group of 8 to 15 teenage girls participated in the programming offered. This article represents the initial analysis of the overall data. A useful tool for categorizing the emergent themes is Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) matrix for analysis of varying levels of citizenship participation. The three categories, personally responsible, participatory, and justice-oriented, speak to the challenges of civic participation experienced by youth in particular, as well as offering connections to the potential of ecojustice education. This matrix can be intersected with Hodson’s (2003) levels of STSE commitment, where, in this case, STSE represents food-related issues. This creates Table 1, which was used by Sperling and Bencze (2010) to analyze the outcome of students in a formal science education setting previously.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION As a part of a study encompassing 3 years of data collection, this portion of analysis represents one view of the outcomes. A few themes emerged offering insight into the intersection of citizenship

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and science education in a non-formal setting, one of which is the notion of the pedagogy of food (Sumner, 2008). The location of the curriculum based in a food justice organization offers a particular set of opportunities for engagement with science content knowledge and with systems thinking. A curriculum based in food creates space for youth and facilitators to engage in (scientific) discourses related to nutrition, agricultural practices, climate and ecology, among others, as a component of what Belasco (2007) refers to as the edible dynamic that is food studies. Additionally, the pedagogy of food allows for renewed examinations of self and identity that can lead to moments and positionings of empowerment. These two themes, the engagement with the edible dynamic and the positioning of participants in power, both reinforce the reframing of nonformal science and ecojustice education as a site for citizenship engagement and development. Engagement With the Edible Dynamic for Ecojustice Anecdotally, the youth participants and the facilitators experienced the edible dynamic of food. One participant, Judy, had a growing connection to kale over the course of the program that began with helping to make and eat a kale salad early in her participation. She revisited and reflected on the connection at different intervals over time. It began with her initial encounter with kale, a leafy green vegetable in the cabbage family, when we made crispy seasoned kale chips as a program snack. She had never had it before and with her nose wrinkled could “not imagine that I will like to eat this stuff!” However, she was curious and brave; she tried it anyway and actually loved it (Judy, November 29, 2012). Many months later, she recounted buying kale and making a salad for her whole family to eat and that she was “excited to share it with them” (Judy, April 17, 2013). This was an expression of her ongoing and growing discourse of “eating healthy.” She consistently referred to whether or not things are healthy. Additionally, her demeanor changed over the course of the program, from quiet and reserved to more outgoing. She indicated that she takes interest and pride in learning what is healthy and trying to share it with others. For example, she shared a story with the group that when her little brother was hungry she told him it was “better to eat a salad for a snack than cookies, but he didn’t listen” (Judy, April 10, 2013). In this way, Judy was expressing many of the qualities of a personally responsible citizen, by being adventurous, pushing her personal boundaries, recalling stories and connecting to her own history/experiences, changing her personal habits, and setting goals. Other participants attained this level of engagement, through activities such as learning about and using a worm composter and creating, sharing, and connecting their food stories. From an ANT perspective, the participants ascribed meaning to particular actants based on their experiences of it and the messages that were being portrayed by the CBO. The idea that kale is healthy and was in some ways a gateway or connector to other ways of being healthy, for self and others, was a common example among the group of participants, and they began to translate their appreciation for kale as an action toward not only their own healthy eating within the local network but expanded their networks to include family and friends of varying ages, to encourage healthy eating. The food stories became a touchstone, or token, activity within the program because it brought the girls into a physical enactment of their collective experiences. By noticing and making connections in their own histories, interests, and experiences, they identified themes, such as friendship, heritage (see Figure 2), and farming through a place-based pedagogy that encouraged them to see many parts of their own food networks. Recalling and linking different stories, such as “Went Ackee tree picking” to “My grandparents on my father’s side have a farm in


FIGURE 2

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Youth Participants Are Creating, Collaborating, and Connecting Food Story Themes.

Philippines” to “Went apple picking on a farm with grandparents, aunts and uncles and my baby cousin from South Africa and played with the chipmunk at the farm,” became part of the heritage stories network that the participants built and shared. This activity also developed aspects of their participatory citizenship, as defined by Westheimer and Kahne (2004), which includes sharing stories and creating collaborative themes, as well as later planting crops for harvest in a community greenhouse and teaching friends and family about food and nutrition. By comparing our observation of their participation in the activity to their reflections on their participation later in the program through interviews, this activity appeared to give the participants power in creating or identifying their networks. They discovered similarities and differences between themselves and other participants’ experiences and memories and consistently referred back to them positively. They created connections that were particular to their own group and appeared comfortable and excited to be sharing these connections. Several participants were excited about the activity that involved comparing various aspects of a McDonald’s hamburger and fries with the homemade version, which was prepared for with a viewing of parts of the documentary film Food Inc. (Kenner & Pearlstein, 2008). This film highlights some of the negative aspects of the industrial farming complex, such as the treatment of animals, the social and economic impacts on farmers, and the nutrition of the food products. Thus, the participants were being presented with an option of by-passing fast food. The comparison of cost, time to prepare, and nutritional value were presented, along with taste. One of the youth commented that “hamburgers made from scratch were great even though it was work. . . . But, soo worth it! But then we also had to eat McDonalds—COULDN’T do it!! Haven’t had it in almost 2 years and never going back!!” (Yolanda, January 2011). Yolanda was a participant who came to the program with a strong sense of food as a commodity and even as a health indicator, but she did not have a justice-oriented embodiment of citizenship at the beginning. She, among

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other participants, was able to develop some of these orientations, by pushing the boundaries from individual to community. An example of this boundary-pushing was that several of the youth began to develop connections and volunteered to work with local community interventions, creating tools to interrupt common assumptions, such as research-informed videos, and considering soil and animal health in decisions, not only impacts on humans. Positionings of Empowerment The youth participants are learning in the place of a community food center, which also means that they are earning valuable volunteer hours and experiences to meet the requirements of their high school program. In order to graduate from the school system they must accumulate 40 hours of volunteering. Several of the students have indicated their interest in pursuing volunteer work with the CBO beyond the scope of the program, into the summer or other time, helping with the food bank, drop-in center, weekly food market, or community gardens. A few of the students have maintained their involvement beyond the scope, even, of volunteering, by just attending and participating on other programs. One student actually applied for a position to work with the organization at the end of her high school because her sense of social responsibility in connection to food issues had grown so much through the program. Though there are many examples over the years of the youth experiencing moments and ongoing participation in ecojustice through the pedagogy of food, certain challenges appear to exist that impede the full leadership and citizenship engagement of the youth. Additionally, deeper connections to science and technology were not always observed. These impediments include the complexity of administrative challenges, the recruitment and attrition of participants, and, as is often the case in educational endeavors, limited time to create a holistic experience. The complexity of administrative challenges included technology and time constraints. By this, we refer to the comfort level of the facilitators in helping the students to complete studentdirected, research-informed activism, as described in the STEPWISE framework as the ultimate outcome for education that is directed toward personal, social, and environmental well-being. This also works in tandem with the desirable outcomes of ecojustice education, where learners identify the issues based in their communities and take action on them. In partnership with the postsecondary institution, the youth had opportunities to create videos based on research that they had selected based on their own experiences as teenagers. In one case, they chose to investigate the demographics of people who choose fast food or a vegetarian restaurant for lunch. In another case they surveyed people to see whether they read labels on food products. From the data that resulted from these investigations, the youth worked in teams to create videos for information and educational purposes. These experiences were highly facilitated, because it was the first time many had participated in such activities of inquiry and video-making. From this level of participation, ideally the program would have allowed for the youth to take up a research question of their own interest (as opposed to the collective group) and follow a similar framework of inquiry and activism in support of food justice. However, there was some concern expressed by the program facilitator that there were other areas of the program curriculum that took precedence and were easier to facilitate, such as work in the community garden; thus, the student-directed component of activism, as outlined by the STEPWISE model, was never realized. For this reason, it seems that the justice-oriented opportunities for students to become more civically engaged was less strong than it might be. That being said, the hesitation on the


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part of the facilitators, and the students’ level of comfort within this new framework, as well as the constraints of time and resources must be honored and respected.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Using ANT as a framework of analysis, the edible dynamic that is food becomes much clearer as having social, cultural, political, and environmental impacts that can be addressed at the local and global levels. Additionally, from a social justice perspective, non-formal education can bolster the learning of students who may experience marginalization in a traditional science classroom. There has been little work thus far on the impact of non-formal food education as a motivator for an ecojustice agenda for youth and as a mobilizer for scientific literacy. Food, it is becoming clearer, is the great vehicle for the edible dynamic; it is systems thinking in action, and in hand and belly. This is a powerful skill toward ecojustice-oriented thinking and learning. By connecting youth to their plates, bodies, and communities through social well-being, they may begin to see themselves in new ways and make choices to act. As we began to see in this study, participants in non-formal education programs may also view themselves as participants in their own communities, as choice- and change-makers, and become part of the growing discourse of ecojustice. By helping youth to become participatory and justice oriented, participants in food justice and other themes of education may become powerful actors in the community food network, over time, as they are able to tap into existing knowledges and begin to grow their own knowledge. They may come to value and take support from other actors, such as community gardens, local farmers, and their own kitchens, the short-term and long-term. Thus, in the realm of science education, the non-formal and informal experiences of learners may feed back into the formal classroom, as students make connections from their variously contextualized experiences. This is something for further study and analysis.

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