TITLE:
Plant Justice: A Case Study in Radical Pedagogy and Food Justice in an Alternative Education Setting
AUTHORS:
Nancy Neiman, Jean Schroedel
KEYWORDS:
Critical Pedagogy, Food Justice Movement, Alternative Schools, Environmental Justice, Racial Justice, Community Engagement in Higher Education, Critical Ecology
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.10 No.8,
August
22,
2019
ABSTRACT: Through interviews and college student journal data, this article assesses an interdisciplinary food justice education program in terms of a set of connected goals: to create a truly democratic classroom space, to build strong trusting relationships (social capital), to build a sense of community within the classroom and at the school, and finally to leverage all of these goals into political capital that empowers the community to engage in oppositional politics to address environmental and social inequities facing the students’communities. Our investigation of the program suggests it has had positive effects in termsof increasing the self-confidence of studentsandbuilding a stronger sense of community at the school and the local community. These outcomes appear to hold despite the fact that the majority of college interns struggle to identify oraccept a clear mission for the program. We argue that it is in part this ongoing struggle thatunderscores the program’s democratic, engaging, and political nature and has contributed to its success.