Tensions in Socioecological Care: A Case Study of Engagement in a Critical Place-Based Science Camp

• In Event: Learning With Place and Nature in Posthuman Environmental Education

Abstract

This study explores the complexities of developing and enacting socioecological care in the context of a critical place-based science camp with middle school youth. We draw on Indigenous, feminist, and multispecies understandings of care as an embodied, dynamic, complex, ethical practice of understanding and assuming responsibility within more-than-human entanglements. A case study of one youth’s experiences and sensemaking, through analysis of video records, interviews, and student artifacts, revealed the complexities of touch, disciplinary engagement, and assuming responsibility in relation to socioecological care. We conclude by reflecting on the inherent tensions and messiness involved in care and the importance of grappling with this messiness with youth.

Authors

• Tessaly Jen, Vanderbilt University

• Heidi Carlone, Vanderbilt University