School agroecology as a motor for community and land transformation : a case study on the collaboration among community actors to promote education for sustainability school networks
Espinet, Mariona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
Llerena del Castillo, Germán (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Date:	2013
Abstract:	The Science Education Department from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and the local administration of the Sant Cugat del Vallès municipality in Catalonia, Spain have been collaborating for the last seven years through the program School Agenda 21 to promote education for sustainability programs in schools and the community. The collaboration has focused on School agroecology which has facilitated the establishment of links between the schools and the land so that a new community could be built. A new network has been created with the participation of 22 public schools (0-18 years), five agro-environmental educators, researchers from the university, administrators from the local administration, and other relevant community stakeholders. This paper presents a case study of this collaboration in order to identify in one hand the community and land changes as a consequence of this collaboration and on the other hand the tensions experienced by the different stakeholders of the collaboration. The research methodology is oriented through a qualitative interpretive paradigm and has adopted a bricoleur model for the management of data collection strategies which include participant observation, document analysis, and formal/informal reflective interviewing, Data analysis has followed the development of assertions as a way to build knowledge from the case. The results of the case indicate that School agroecology is a social context that facilitates the construction of a community where the different stakeholders have the opportunity to make changes in the land, in education, and more specifically in science education. This case study is also part of the ongoing European CoDeS network whose main aim is to collect exemplar case studies on school community collaboration towards sustainability. One important focus of this network is to identify collaboration models in which science education has a relevant role.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Comunicació de congrés
Subject:	School agroecology ; Education for sustainable development ; Environmental education ; Case study ; School vegetable gardens
Published in:	European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) Conference. Nicosia, Xipre, 10a : 2013

6 p, 128.0 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Social and Legal Sciences > Gresc@ (Research Group on Education for Sustainability, School and Community)
Contributions to meetings and congresses > Papers and communications > UAB papers and communications