Date of Award
Spring 5-5-2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education/Leadership in Urban Schools
First Advisor
Patricia Krueger-Henney
Second Advisor
Wenfan Yan
Third Advisor
Tricia Kress
Abstract
This qualitative, ethnographic, youth-centered study explored how ethnoculturally diverse urban high-school-aged youth express their relationships to nature. Participatory and youth-centered methodologies and data sources, including Photovoice, photo-elicitation interviews, and classroom artifacts, centered the voices of a diverse group of urban youth and their experiences in local forest reservations. Diverse urban youth are typically marginalized from environmental education, place-based learning, and representation in outdoor-related research. Therefore, it is critical that educational researchers include the voices of these students in conversations about nature to broaden the sociocultural framework around what “nature” is, how it is experienced, and by whom. This theoretical framework of this relational study drew on critical pedagogies of place and biophilic theory to situate the voices of socially marginalized youth, tell their outdoor stories, and make “space for place” in urban education.
Recommended Citation
Turchon, Andrew T., "“We All Have Our Boulders To Pass, And This Was One Of Mine”: Ethnoculturally Diverse High-School-Aged Youth And Their Reclamation Of Nature" (2025). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 1109.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/1109
Comments
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