Loyola University Chicago

Faculty Center for Ignatian Pedagogy

What is Environmental Justice Pedagogy?

Environmental Justice Pedagogy (EJP) is a framework centered around rectifying environmental injustices both inside and outside the classroom. The two biggest injustices are the racialization of nature and the use of past environmentalist movements as tools to facilitate prejudice. Particularly against those who live and interact with nature in their daily lives. It is important that we acknowledge that, while caring for a working towards a world where environmental sustainability is a priority, in the past this was only done to satisfy a certain group of people. True environmental justice includes all people in its framework.

How do we understand Environmental Justice Pedagogy?

Environmental justice plays a huge role in the Jesuit goal of cura personalis, or caring for the entire person. Yet, there is more than just mere implementation that needs to occur. It’s true that Loyola University Chicago already has a department that deals with environmental justice; however, testimonies from members of this department-as well as those who have interacted with it-show that there is a dire need for improvement. Perhaps the biggest piece of the puzzle is acknowledging that non-white people can and should be included in discussions of environmental sustainability beyond the topic of environmental justice. By acknowledging that nature is for everybody and that everybody lives in/is affected by nature, the effective implementation of EJP becomes more likely.

What are the key tenets of Environmental Justice Pedagogy?
  • Acknowledge how environmentalist movements in the past have been used as tools of prejudice, bias, and exclusion.
  • Acknowledge the disconnect between those who conducted/planned past environmentalist movements and those who interacted with nature daily.
  • Emphasize the de-racialization and de-genderization of the outdoors and nature as social concepts (as well as our understanding of them). Nature is for everybody.
  • Incorporate practices of environmental sustainability and environmental justice into the educational process in the classroom.
    • What differentiates EJP from Environmental Justice as a whole.
Sustainability in the Jesuit Tradition of Laudato Si
What are some resources?

Texts/Manuscripts/Articles/Journals

  • Strong Winds and Widow Makers: Workers, Nature, and Environmental Conflict in Pacific Northwest Timber Country, Steven C. Beda, 2023
    • Often cast as villains in the environmentalist battles of the Pacific Northwest, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda's sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just because they felt that their livelihood was threatened, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of their lives and identity.
  • Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors, Carolyn Finney, 2014
    • In this book, Finney explores the question of why African Americans seem to be so disconnected to the concept of nature and “the great outdoors” in American Society. The result is a fascinating and truly thought-provoking recounting of the history of how nature and the “wilderness” as a social concept was racialized in way the at the very least pushed African Americans to the margins or excluded them all together. Finney also highlights the continual exclusion of black environmentalists from scholarly and professional circles-unless environmental justice is the main issue at hand-despite there simply being no reason for this to continue.
  • Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation, Karl Jacoby, 2001
    • In this book, Jacoby explores the in-depth history of the rise of conservation in the US at the end of the nineteenth century through detailing the founding and development of the Adirondacks, Yellowstone, and Grand Canyon national parks. Specifically, he highlights the efforts of environmentalists, many of whom were from middle- and upper-class urban backgrounds to preserve what they saw as “untouched” wilderness. In short, Crimes Against Nature outlines the beginning of the trend further highlighted in Strong Winds and Widow Makers, which began to plant the seeds of distrust and hostility towards efforts to protect natural landscapes from those who lived there and interacted with said landscapes on a day-to-day basis.
  • The Links Between Environmental Justice and Feminist Pedagogy: An Introduction
    • Given the emphasis on education and consciousness-raising that pervades many environmental justice movements, it seems inevitable to draw parallels between feminist pedagogy and environmental justice. Both environmental justice issues and feminist pedagogy address intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and nation; both combine theory and practice; both involve radically rethinking deeply held assumptions; and both reveal the ideologies and power dynamics that inform language, policies, and practices. This cluster of articles examines the mutually enriching relationships that are possible between environmental justice issues and feminist pedagogy.
  • Creating a Classroom for Social Justice: Secondary Teacher Perceptions of the Environmental Outcomes of Culturally Relevant Education
    • This descriptive phenomenological study aimed to explore secondary teacher perceptions of the environmental outcomes of implementing culturally relevant education (CRE) in the curricula. Descriptive phenomenological data analysis strategies resulted in three constituencies, and the essential structure was conceptualized as follows: Secondary teachers who meaningfully embed CRE as a social justice pedagogical practice observe safe classroom spaces that bond students through empathy and an empowering learning community that raises students' critical consciousness. However, a pedagogical shift in traditional teacher-centered roles is required for these CRE environmental outcomes to emerge.
  • Environmental Sustainability and Social Justice in Higher Education: A Critical (Eco)feminist Service-Learning Approach in Sports Sciences
    • Education for environmental and social sustainability in Higher Education requires a new approach that encompasses both care for nature and social inclusion. Eco-pedagogy offers a critical framework within which to provide specific teaching and learning initiatives. This article aims to explore the effects of a critical (eco)feminist approach implemented through a critical feminist service-learning program. We use qualitative study with an ethnographic-interpretative approach. The results show an increase in awareness and sensitivity towards environmental education and social justice in the students' understanding, attitude, and commitment to sustainability.
  • Environmental Justice Research -- Limitations and Future Directions Using Qualitative Research Methods
    • The purpose of the study is to review some of the existing gaps in the third generation of critical environmental justice (EJ) research and then propose promising combinations of theoretical concepts by adjoining (EJ) literature with other bodies of work with the use of qualitative research methods. Design/methodology/approach: This paper is a critique of the third generation of critical EJ literature. It demonstrates how the scope of this scholarship, particularly the third world EJ studies, can be expanded further by deploying various combinations of other theories and qualitative research methods.
  • Learning and Teaching through the Online Environmental Justice Atlas: From Empowering Activists to Motivating Students
    • The chapter analyzes how the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas.org), an online interactive platform developed to visualize, and study struggles against environmental injustices worldwide, is used in higher education curricula to teach environmental justice and sustainability themes.
What are other universities doing?