Using the Agency/Structure Dialectic to Interpret Undergraduates' Envisioned Models of Social Change for Sustainability

• In Event: Roundtable Session 52
  In Roundtable Session: Mobilizing Youth as Agents of Social Change in Environmental Education

Abstract

Many environmental educators assume social change for sustainability is best approached from a community scale. While this may help students examine the potential of local action, it may not speak to students who feel excluded from local participation. This interpretive case study of a “sustainability semester” in the American Midwest examined how undergraduates envision models of social change at local, community, and global scales. Results suggest that students’ local actions are uniquely reflective of their abstract mental models of social change. The discussion considers how educators might direct action-oriented environmental education programs by first eliciting students’ models of social change and moving forward instead of defaulting to models that may not resonate with students who are positioned as outsiders.

Author

• Hannah K. Miller, Michigan State University