Agency, Power, and Social Interactions Across Different Contexts: The Roma in SE Europe, Youth in Urban Agriculture, & Nutrition Educators in Public Schools

This study chronicles my work with young people in community gardens and farms. It aims to answer the question: What literacy practices do young people working within food justice and sustainability initiatives activate? How do they define what it means to be food literate? Drawing from critical food literacy studies, I focus on the social, historical, cultural, and political forces that influence what gets defined as literacy in these spaces. The hope is that this study will help deepen our understanding of what goes into responsive/responsible programming for young people and their communities working towards sustainable and just futures.

Schools often rely on community partners to provide nutrition-education programming. This study investigates implementation challenges and tensions between school staff and seven SNAP-Ed nutrition-education providers. Case studies were conducted at 19 School District of Philadelphia schools to understand the context in which nutrition education programming occurs. Findings highlight how interactions and relationships influence implementation and how partnerships play out at the classroom-level. Data reveal tensions around how program effectiveness, program purpose, and program staff roles are understood. They elaborate on how school-community partners can best leverage federally-funded programming and staff to benefit students.

(95 words) The Roma, also commonly known as the Gypsies, are often discriminated against both in public and in educational settings, and are ideologically portrayed as passive, needy consumers of social welfares. Through the members of three Romani households in a southeastern European neighborhood, this study highlights the voices of the households members and challenges the traditional deficit viewpoint about the Roma. Furthermore, this study argues that the Roma actively demonstrate themselves in their resilience and agency to handle hardship in life, an alternative perspective to reshape our understanding of the Roma outside the traditional school setting.