The authors argue that traditional environmental education fails urban youth in several ways:
- Narrow agenda: Traditional EE focuses on "green" approaches and labels urban youth with "nature deficit disorder," failing to recognize the lived experiences of youth in socially and ecologically complex urban environments.
- Neoliberal influence: EE often emphasizes individual behavior change and consumer choices rather than addressing systemic issues or collective action, reinforcing neoliberal values of personal responsibility.
- Romanticized view of nature: EE often privileges a romanticized view of "natural" environments with minimal human influence
The authors developed their critical urban environmental pedagogy (CUEP) over five years of teaching, curriculum development, and participatory research in New York City high schools. Using data from photovoice projects, they demonstrate how urban youth grapple with understanding gentrification as a manifestation of neoliberalism that simultaneously benefits some while harming communities.
The three key components of their CUEP approach are:
- Critical and social theory: Introducing concepts like neoliberalism, socialization, and oppression helps students contextualize the structural forces shaping their neighborhoods and make connections between their experiences and larger systemic issues.
- Participatory action research (PAR): Using methodologies like photovoice, narratives, and mental mapping centers youth knowledge and allows them to investigate local neighborhoods and community identities, raising inherently political issues about who benefits and who is harmed by urban development.
- Political ecology lens: This approach helps students question the network of power relations through which unjust socio-environmental conditions are produced and maintained in cities, while challenging neoliberal urbanization processes and resulting environmental injustices.
The authors acknowledge tensions that arise when implementing this approach to teaching, which seeks to challenge unequal power relations, within traditional educational institutions, particularly with academically advantaged students who have benefited from the meritocratic structures of schooling. However, they argue that this critical work is necessary to help students develop a deeper understanding of the connections between socio-environmental conditions and neoliberal policies.
Environmental educators working in urban settings can apply this CUEP approach by:
- Introducing reading materials from various disciplines (history, geography, politics, economics) to help students understand how neoliberalism shapes their daily lives and environments.
- Using participatory methodologies like photovoice to center youth experiences and knowledge in investigations of local places. Photovoice is a participatory research method where community members take photographs to document their perspectives on social issues, then engage in critical dialogue about these images to catalyze community change.
- Creating opportunities for students to develop critical analysis skills to examine power dynamics in environmental which question who benefits and who is harmed by current socio-environmental conditions.
- Being prepared to work through tensions that arise when challenging dominant narratives about environment, nature, and individual responsibility.
- Recognizing that critical pedagogy requires educators to give up some control over content and be comfortable with moments of discomfort.
By implementing these strategies, environmental educators can help urban youth develop a more complex and relevant understanding of their environments while empowering them to question and challenge the forces shaping urban spaces.
The Bottom Line
This article reimagines environmental education (EE) for urban youth by moving away from traditional models rooted in nature studies and individual pro-environmental behaviors. The authors propose a critical urban environmental pedagogy (CUEP) that integrates critical pedagogy with participatory methodologies to investigate socio-environmental issues relevant to youth in urban environments. Through their work with high school students in New York City, they developed a framework with three key components: (1) introducing critical pedagogy and social theory; (2) using participatory methodologies to investigate local places; and (3) nurturing a political ecology lens to understand urban socio-environmental conditions. This approach helps reveal the diverse forces shaping urban environments while empowering youth to critically analyze how they are impacted by these forces, particularly neoliberal policies like gentrification.