TY - JOUR
T1 - Scaffolding collective agency curriculum within food-systems education programs
AU - Jordan, Nicholas R.
AU - Valley, Will
AU - Donovan, Dennis
AU - Clegg, Daniel J.
AU - Grossman, Julie
AU - Hunt, Natalie
AU - Michaels, Thomas
AU - Peterson, Hikaru
AU - Rogers, Mary A.
AU - Sames, Amanda
AU - Stein, Mary
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2023 Jordan, Valley, Donovan, Clegg, Grossman, Hunt, Michaels, Peterson, Rogers, Sames and Stein.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Collective agency (CA) can be defined as the shared understanding, will, and ability of a heterogenous group to take action and work together toward a common goal. We are motivated by the premise that CA is central to meeting the challenges inherent to 21st century food systems. These challenges include maintaining sustainable agricultural production and meeting nutritional needs of a growing population while protecting the climate, wildlife, soil, air and water quality, and enhancing equity, inclusion and justice for those who work in or engage with these systems. Given the importance of CA in food systems, university programs focused on food systems must address it. To date, despite many calls for higher education to build skills in CA, implementation has been minimal. Single courses addressing CA exist in some program-level curricula, but we know of no previous efforts in food-systems degree programs to systematically cultivate CA across their curriculum through scaffolding, i.e., interconnection and integration of learning activities across courses, so as to enhance their complementarity and impact. We (a consortium of university faculty building food systems curricula, located at University of British Columbia, Montana State University, and University of Minnesota) developed our approach to teaching CA through an action-research process, conducted during 2019–2022. In this paper, we report on our process and outline an emergent conceptual model of a curriculum for CA that can be embedded within broader, program-level food systems curricula. We describe its elements and share our experiences in implementing these elements. We conclude by describing current efforts to further develop CA curricula in the context of food-systems degree programs.
AB - Collective agency (CA) can be defined as the shared understanding, will, and ability of a heterogenous group to take action and work together toward a common goal. We are motivated by the premise that CA is central to meeting the challenges inherent to 21st century food systems. These challenges include maintaining sustainable agricultural production and meeting nutritional needs of a growing population while protecting the climate, wildlife, soil, air and water quality, and enhancing equity, inclusion and justice for those who work in or engage with these systems. Given the importance of CA in food systems, university programs focused on food systems must address it. To date, despite many calls for higher education to build skills in CA, implementation has been minimal. Single courses addressing CA exist in some program-level curricula, but we know of no previous efforts in food-systems degree programs to systematically cultivate CA across their curriculum through scaffolding, i.e., interconnection and integration of learning activities across courses, so as to enhance their complementarity and impact. We (a consortium of university faculty building food systems curricula, located at University of British Columbia, Montana State University, and University of Minnesota) developed our approach to teaching CA through an action-research process, conducted during 2019–2022. In this paper, we report on our process and outline an emergent conceptual model of a curriculum for CA that can be embedded within broader, program-level food systems curricula. We describe its elements and share our experiences in implementing these elements. We conclude by describing current efforts to further develop CA curricula in the context of food-systems degree programs.
KW - agri-food system transformation
KW - holism
KW - pluralism
KW - politics
KW - wicked problems
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85161072546&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85161072546&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1119459
DO - 10.3389/fsufs.2023.1119459
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85161072546
SN - 2571-581X
VL - 7
JO - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
JF - Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems
M1 - 1119459
ER -