Danielson, Stentor (2019, October). Assessing discourses of environmental justice in the university classroom. Environmental Justice, 12(5), 212-217. (Link: https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2019.0004) (https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/env.2019.0004)
Abstract: Teaching environmental justice (EJ) in the university classroom requires an extensive focus on discourses about justice. Students must be familiarized with the various discourses that shape EJ conflicts, and given the tools to analyze these discourses to discern where justice lies. Effective teaching and learning can benefit from assessment of students’ own preferred discourses about the topic. This article reports on the results of using Q method—an increasingly popular approach to discourse analysis that straddles the qualitative–quantitative divide—to examine student discourses about EJ in two EJ classes at a predominantly white mid-size public university. I examine both the process of integrating formal discourse analysis into the classroom and the benefits for teaching and learning that it provides.
Stentor Danielson <stentor.danielson@sru.edu> is in the Department of Geography, Geology, and the Environment, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA 16057 (USA).