Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T09:02:09.421Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An emerging signature pedagogy for sustainable food systems education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2017

Will Valley ,
Hannah Wittman ,
Nicolas Jordan ,
Selena Ahmed  and
Ryan Galt
Will Valley*
Affiliation:
Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Hannah Wittman
Affiliation:
Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Nicolas Jordan
Affiliation:
Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, USA.
Selena Ahmed
Affiliation:
Sustainable Food and Bioenergy Systems, Montana State University, USA.
Ryan Galt
Affiliation:
Department of Human Ecology, University California Davis, USA.
*
*Corresponding author: will.valley@ubc.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Concerns are growing over the ability of the modern food system to simultaneously achieve food security and environmental sustainability in the face of global change. Yet, the dominant tendency within university settings to conceptualize and address diverse food system challenges as separate, disconnected issues is a key barrier to food system transformation. To address this fragmented approach, educators in North American institutes of higher education have begun new degree programs, specializations and certificates related to food systems. These programs, which we term sustainable food system education (SFSE) programs, have a common goal: to support post-secondary students across a range of disciplines in developing the knowledge, skills and dispositions to effectively address complex challenges in the food system. Graduates of these programs will be able to engage in collective action towards transforming the food system. As educators participating in flagship SFSE programs, we identify common pedagogical themes evident in SFSE programs, including our own. We then propose a signature pedagogy (SP) for sustainable food systems education. Signature pedagogies are conceptual models that identify the primary elements by which professional education in a specific field is designed, structured and implemented. On the basis of our analysis of SFSE programs, we identified systems thinking, multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity, use of experiential learning approaches and participation in collective action projects as central themes within a SFSE SP. By making these themes and their function explicit within a pedagogical framework, we seek to spur critical and creative thought regarding challenges of professional education in the field of sustainable food systems. Scholars and practitioners are encouraged to review, critique and implement our framework to advance the dialogue on SFSE theory and practice.

Keywords

sustainable food systems educationsignature pedagogysystems thinkinginterdisciplinarytransdisciplinaryexperiential learningcollective action
Type
Review Article
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 33 , Issue 5 , October 2018 , pp. 467 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, P. 2008. Mining for justice in the food system: Perceptions, practices, and possibilities. Agriculture and Human Values 25:157–161.Google Scholar
Allen, P., FitzSimmons, M., Goodman, M., and Warner, K. 2003. Shifting plates in the agrifood landscape: The tectonics of alternative agrifood initiatives in California. Journal of Rural Studies, International Perspectives on Alternative Agro-Food Networks: Quality, Embeddedness, Bio-Politics 19:61–75.Google Scholar
Andreotti, V. 2014. Critical literacy: Theories and practices in development education. Policy and Practice-A Development Education Review 19:12–32.Google Scholar
Bawden, R. 2005. Systemic development at Hawkesbury: Some personal lessons from experience. Systems Research and Behavioral Science 22:151–164.Google Scholar
Bawden, R. 2010. Messy issues, worldviews and systemic competencies. In Blackmore, C. (ed.). Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice. Springer, London. p. 89–101.Google Scholar
Bawden, R.J. 2007. A paradigm for persistence: A vital challenge for the agricultural academy. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability 5:17–24.Google Scholar
Bawden, R.J. and Packham, R.G. 1993. Systemic praxis in the education of the agricultural systems practitioner. Systemic Practice and Action Research 6:7–19.Google Scholar
Blay-Palmer, A., Sonnino, R., and Custot, J. 2016. A food politics of the possible? Growing sustainable food systems through networks of knowledge. Agriculture and Human Values 33:27–43.Google Scholar
Born, B. and Purcell, M. 2006. Avoiding the local trap scale and food systems in planning research. Journal of Planning Education and Research 26:195–207.Google Scholar
Bradley, K. and Herrera, H. 2016. Decolonizing food justice: Naming, resisting, and researching colonizing forces in the movement. Antipode 48:97–114.Google Scholar
Bronstein, L.R. 2003. A model for interdisciplinary collaboration. Social Work 48:297–306.Google Scholar
Brown, J.S., Collins, A., and Duguid, P. 1989. Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher 18:32–42.Google Scholar
Cabrera, D., Colosi, L., and Lobdell, C. 2008. Systems thinking. Evaluation and Program Planning 31:299–310.Google Scholar
Checkland, P. 1981. Systems Thinking, Systems Practice. J. Wiley, Chichester [Sussex]; New York.Google Scholar
Clark, S., Byker, C., Niewolny, K., and Helms, J. 2013. Framing an undergraduate minor through the civic agriculture and food systems curriculum. NACTA Journal 57:56.Google Scholar
Cook, S. and Brown, J. 1999. Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing. Organization Science 10:381–400.Google Scholar
Creswell, J.W. 2013. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks.Google Scholar
de Oliveira, V., 2012. Editor's preface ‘HEADS UP’. Critical Literacy: Theories and Practices 6:1–3.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. 1966. Democracy and Education. Free Press, New York.Google Scholar
EU SCAR 2013. Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems Towards 2020: An Orientation Paper on Linking Innovation and Research. Publications Office, Brussels.Google Scholar
Flood, R.L. 2010. The relationship of ‘systems thinking’ to action research. System Practice and Action Research 23:269–284.Google Scholar
Francis, C., Breland, T.A., Østergaard, E., Lieblein, G., and Morse, S. 2013. Phenomenon-based learning in agroecology: A prerequisite for transdisciplinarity and responsible action. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 37:60–75.Google Scholar
Francis, C., Lieblein, G., Gliessman, S., Breland, T.A., Creamer, N., Harwood, R., Salomonsson, L., Helenius, J., Rickerl, D., Salvador, R., Wiedenhoeft, M., Simmons, S., Allen, P., Altieri, M., Flora, C., and Poincelot, R. 2003. Agroecology: The ecology of food systems. Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 22:99.Google Scholar
Francis, C.A., Jordan, N., Porter, P., Breland, T.A., Lieblein, G., Salomonsson, L., Sriskandarajah, N., Wiedenhoeft, M., DeHaan, R., Braden, I., and Langer, V. 2011. Innovative education in agroecology: Experiential learning for a sustainable agriculture. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 30:226–237.Google Scholar
Fraser, E., Legwegoh, A., KC, K., CoDyre, M., Dias, G., Hazen, S., Johnson, R., Martin, R., Ohberg, L., Sethuratnam, S., Sneyd, L., Smithers, J., Van Acker, R., Vansteenkiste, J., Wittman, H., and Yada, R. 2016. Biotechnology or organic? Extensive or intensive? Global or local? A critical review of potential pathways to resolve the global food crisis. Trends in Food Science and Technology 48:78–87.Google Scholar
Freire, P. 1970. Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Seabury Press, New York.Google Scholar
Galt, R.E., Clark, S.F., and Parr, D. 2012. Engaging values in sustainable agriculture and food systems education: Toward an explicitly values-based pedagogical approach. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 2:43–54.Google Scholar
Galt, R.E., Parr, D., Kim, J.V.S., Beckett, J., Lickter, M., and Ballard, H. 2013. Transformative food systems education in a land-grant college of agriculture: The importance of learner-centered inquiries. Agriculture and Human Values 30:129–142.Google Scholar
Gilbert, M. 2006. Rationality in collective action. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 36:3–17.Google Scholar
Gregory, W.J. 1996. Dealing with diversity. In Flood, R.L. and Romm, N.R.A. (eds). Critical Systems Thinking: Current Research and Practice. Plenum Press, New York. p. 37–62.Google Scholar
Grossman, J., Sherard, M., Prohn, S.M., Bradley, L., Goodell, L.S., and Andrew, K. 2012. An exploratory analysis of student-community interactions in urban agriculture. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 16:179–196.Google Scholar
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. 1995. Individual agency, the ordinary, and postmodern life. Sociological Quarterly 36:555–570.Google Scholar
Guthman, J. 2011. If they only knew. The unbearable whiteness of alternative food. In Alkon, A.H. and Agyeman, J. (eds). Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. p. 263–281.Google Scholar
Hamm, M.W. 2009. Principles for framing a healthy food system. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition 4:241–250.Google Scholar
Harmon, A., Lapp, J.L., Blair, D., and Hauck-Lawson, A. 2011. Teaching food system sustainability in dietetic programs: Need, conceptualization, and practical approaches. Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition 6:114.Google Scholar
Hilimire, K., Gillon, S., McLaughlin, B.C., Dowd-Uribe, B., and Monsen, K.L. 2014. Food for thought: Developing curricula for sustainable food systems education programs. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems 38:722–743.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, C. 2010. Conceptualizing and creating sustainable food systems: How interdisciplinarity can help. In Blay-Palmer, A. (ed.). Imagining Sustainable Food Systems: Theory and Practice. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., Burlington, VT; Farnham, Surrey, England. p. 17–36.Google Scholar
Institute for the Future 2011. Future Work Skills 2020. University of Phoenix Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
iPES-FOOD 2015. The New Science of Sustainable Food Systems: Overcoming Barriers to Food System Reform. International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems Retrieved from http://www.ipes-food.org/images/Reports/IPES_report01_1505_web_br_pages.pdf [2015-06-09].Google Scholar
Jacobsen, K., Niewolny, K., Schroeder-Moreno, M., Van Horn, M., Harmon, A., Chen Fanslow, Y., Williams, M., and Parr, D. 2012. Sustainable agriculture undergraduate degree programs: A land-grant university mission. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 2:13–26.Google Scholar
Jordan, N., Grossman, J., Lawrence, P., Harmon, A., Dyer, W., Maxwell, B., Cadieux, K.V., Galt, R., Rojas, A., Byker, C., Ahmed, S., Bass, T., Kebreab, E., Signh, V., Michaels, T., and Tzenis, C. 2014. New curricula for undergraduate food-systems education: A sustainable agriculture education perspective. NACTA 58.Google Scholar
Jordan, N.R., Bawden, R.J., and Bergmann, L. 2008. Pedagogy for addressing the worldview challenge in sustainable development of agriculture. Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education 37:92–99.Google Scholar
King, P.M. and Kitchener, K.S. 1994. Developing Reflective Judgment. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Kolb, D.A. 1984. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.Google Scholar
Lang, D.J., Wiek, A., Bergmann, M., Stauffacher, M., Martens, P., Moll, P., Swilling, M., and Thomas, C.J. 2012. Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: Practice, principles, and challenges. Sustainability Science 7:25–43.Google Scholar
Levkoe, C. 2014. The food movement in Canada: A social movement network perspective. Journal of Peasant Studies 41:385–403.Google Scholar
Levkoe, C.Z. 2011. Towards a transformative food politics. Local Environment 16:687–705.Google Scholar
Levkoe, C.Z., Andrée, P., Bhatt, V., Brynne, A., Davison, K.M., Kneen, C., and Nelson, E. 2016. Collaboration for transformation: Community–campus engagement for just and sustainable food systems. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement 20:32–61.Google Scholar
Lieblein, G. and Francis, C. 2007. Towards responsible action through agroecological education. Italian Journal of Agronomy 2:83–90.Google Scholar
Liu, J., Mooney, H., Hull, V., Davis, S.J., Gaskell, J., Hertel, T., Lubchenco, J., Seto, K.C., Gleick, P., Kremen, C., and Li, S. 2015. Systems integration for global sustainability. Science 347:1258832.Google Scholar
Loos, J., Abson, D.J., Chappell, M.J., Hanspach, J., Mikulcak, F., Tichit, M., and Fischer, J. 2014. Putting meaning back into ‘sustainable intensification’. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12: 356–361.Google Scholar
McIntyre, B.D., Herren, H., Wakhungu, J., and Watson, R. (eds). 2009. Synthesis Report: A Synthesis of the Global and Sub-global IAASTD Reports, Agriculture at a Crossroads. Island Press, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
McNall, M., Reed, C.S., Brown, R., and Allen, A. 2008. Brokering community–university engagement. Innovative Higher Education 33:317–331.Google Scholar
Meadows, D.H. 2008. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, Vt.Google Scholar
Meek, D. and Tarlau, R. 2015. Critical food systems education and the question of race. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5:131–135.Google Scholar
Mezirow, J. 1991. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Mooney, P.H. and Hunt, S.A. 2009. Food security: The elaboration of contested claims to a consensus frame. Rural Sociology 74:469–497.Google Scholar
National Research Council (NRC) 2009. Transforming Agricultural Education for a Changing World. National Academies Press, Washington, DC, USA.Google Scholar
Niewolny, K., Grossman, J., Byker, C., Helms, J., Clark, S., Cotton, J., and Jacobsen, K. 2012. Sustainable agriculture education and civic engagement: The significance of community-university partnerships in the new agricultural paradigm. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 2:27–42.Google Scholar
Parr, D.M., Trexler, C.J., Khanna, N.R., and Battisti, B.T. 2007. Designing sustainable agriculture education: Academics’ suggestions for an undergraduate curriculum at a land grant university. Agriculture and Human Values 24:523–533.Google Scholar
Reynolds, M. and Holwell, S. (eds) 2010. Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide. 1st ed. Springer, New York; London.Google Scholar
Rojas, A. 2009. Towards integration of knowledge through sustainability education and its potential contribution to environmental security. In Allen-Gil, S., Stelljes, L., and Borysova, O. (eds). Addressing Global Environmental Security Through Innovative Educational Curricula. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht. p. 131–153.Google Scholar
Rojas, A., Sipos, Y., and Valley, W. 2012. Reflection on 10 years of community-engaged scholarship in the faculty of land and food systems at the University of British Columbia-Vancouver. JHEOE 16:195–214.Google Scholar
Sage, C. 2012. Environment and Food. Routledge, London; New York.Google Scholar
Saldana, J. 2013. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. 2nd edn. SAGE, Thousand Oaks, CA; London.Google Scholar
Self, J., Handforth, B., Hartman, J., McAuliffe, C., Noznesky, E., Schwei, R., Whitaker, L., Wyatt, A., and Webb Girard, A. 2012. Community-engaged learning in food systems and public health. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 3:113–127.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1981. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Clarendon Press, Oxford; New York.Google Scholar
Shiva, V. 1993. Monocultures of the Mind: Perspectives on Biodiversity and Biotechnology. Zed Books, Penang, Malaysia; London, UK; Atlantic Highlands, NJ, USA.Google Scholar
Shulman, L.S. 2005. Signature pedagogies in the professions. Daedalus 134:52–59.Google Scholar
Sipos, Y. 2009. Non-traditional pedagogies in advanced education: Engaging head, hands and heart for environmental and educational benefit. In Allen-Gil, S., Stelljes, L., and Borysova, O. (eds). Addressing Global Environmental Security Through Innovative Educational Curricula. Dordrecht: Springer, Netherlands. p. 155–164.Google Scholar
Slocum, R. 2007. Whiteness, space and alternative food practice. Geoforum, Post Communist Transformation 38:520–533. doi: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2006.10.006.Google Scholar
Spiro, R.J., Coulson, R.L., Feltovich, P.J., and Anderson, D.K. 1988. Cognitive Flexibility Theory: Advanced Knowledge Acquisition in Ill-structured Domains. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL.Google Scholar
Stoecker, R. 2008. Challenging institutional barriers to community-based research. Action Research 6:49–67.Google Scholar
Ulrich, W. and Reynolds, M. 2010. Critical systems heuristics. In Reynolds, M. and Holwell, S. (eds). Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A Practical Guide. Springer, London. p. 243–292.Google Scholar
Wayne, J., Raskin, M., and Bogo, M. 2010. Field education as the signature pedagogy of social work education. Journal of Social Work Education 46:327–339.Google Scholar
Williams, B. and Hummelbrunner, R. 2010. Systems Concepts in Action: A Practitioner's Toolkit. Stanford Business Books, Stanford, Calif.Google Scholar
Yamashita, L. and Robinson, D. 2016. Making visible the people who feed us: Educating for critical food literacy through multicultural texts. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 6:269–281.Google Scholar