Can We Picture Equity? Critically Examining Cross-Cultural Short-Term Project Collaborations

Authors

  • Sara Clarke-De Reza Washington College
  • Andrew D. Coppens University of New Hampshire
  • Shakuntala Devi Gopal SUNY Buffalo
  • Sameer Honwad SUNY Buffalo
  • Madhura Niphadkar Foundation for Environment Research and Conservation (FERC)
  • Shraddha Rangnekar Foundation for Environment Research and Conservation (FERC)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v34i3.659

Keywords:

Podcast, Education, Environmental Science

Abstract

This paper explores equity challenges common to short-term cross-cultural research partnerships. We focus on a project-based activity in which U.S. undergraduate students and college faculty taught middle-school students in Goa, India how to make podcasts about complex environmental problems. Project team members conducted a collaborative auto-ethnography focused on questions of power, leadership, collaboration, and equity, and examined exit-interview photo elicitation data to identify the core challenges of ethical and equitable short-term cross-cultural research and programming. Our use of photographs as conversation prompts helped to highlight contradictions and asymmetries along axes of power, cultural imperialism, knower-knowledge, age, race/ethnicity, social class, and gender. We reflect on possibilities for educational research that rejects a “voluntourism” model and moves, if imperfectly, toward more equitable international collaborations.

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Author Biographies

Sara Clarke-De Reza, Washington College

Sara Clarke-De Reza, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Education and Director of the Museum, Field, and Community Education program at Washington College in Chestertown, MD, where she teaches courses on the historical and cultural foundations of American education, as well as educational research and design. Her scholarship explores collaborative design for learning at the intersections of formal and informal learning environments.

Andrew D. Coppens, University of New Hampshire

Andrew Coppens, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Education Department at the University of New Hampshire with an appointment involving teaching and research in cultural psychology and the learning sciences. His research focuses on cultural processes of informal learning and development in the family and community contexts of nondominant communities. He has conducted research on young children’s development of collaborative helping with rural, middle-class, and Indigenous-heritage communities in the US, Mexico, Ecuador, Germany, India, and Bhutan.

Shakuntala Devi Gopal, SUNY Buffalo

Shakuntala Devi Gopal is a PhD Candidate in the Education Department at SUNY Buffalo with a focus on the Learning Sciences. Shakuntala research interests include pathways to teaching science that honor alternative epistemologies and cultural ways of learning, the sociopolitical agendas that undergird science education efforts, and the use of storytelling as a pedagogical tool for teaching science. Her dissertation research examines the social, political, and cultural environment that science teachers in Guyana must navigate while they teach complex socioscientific issues like climate change.

Sameer Honwad, SUNY Buffalo

Sameer Honwad, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences in the Department of Learning and Instruction, SUNY Buffalo. He teaches classes on Design Based Research and on inclusive learning environments design. His research focuses on how learners from diverse backgrounds situated in different parts of the world learn about complex science phenomena within informal learning environments, such as museums, community centers and afterschool programs. He has long-term research-community partnerships with Indigenous communities in Idaho, rural communities in Bhutan, and urban communities in New Orleans.

Madhura Niphadkar, Foundation for Environment Research and Conservation (FERC)

Madhura Niphadkar, a FERC member, holds a PhD in Ecology from the ATREE-Manipal PhD Program in Interdisciplinary Ecology. She has over 15 years of experience in using remote sensing techniques for mapping diverse ecological phenomena from fires in chaparral ecosystems to biodiversity in tropical forests at multiple scales. Madhura works on remote sensing applications to conservation issues and currently focuses on invasive plant species mapping in tropical forests and grasslands. She is interested in collaborations with field ecologists to find landscape-level solutions to local challenges.

Shraddha Rangnekar, Foundation for Environment Research and Conservation (FERC)

Shraddha Rangnekar, a FERC founding member, holds a Masters in Zoology from Goa University and is currently a Partner with an ecotourism initiative called Mrugaya Xpeditions, based out of Goa. Her work includes organizing experiential learning programs for school and college students as well as the general public. The activities include natural history exploration, including popularizing the joys of birding in Goa and the mighty Sahyadris.

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Published

2022-10-11

How to Cite

Sara Clarke-De Reza, Coppens, A. D. ., Gopal, S. D., Honwad, S., Niphadkar, M., & Rangnekar, S. (2022). Can We Picture Equity? Critically Examining Cross-Cultural Short-Term Project Collaborations. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 34(3), 203–238. https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v34i3.659

Issue

Vol. 34 No. 3 (2022): Special Issue on Listening to and Learning from Partners and Host Communities: Amplifying Marginalized Voices in Global Learning

Section

Special Issue: Listening to and Learning from Partners and Host Communities

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Sara Clarke-De Reza, Andrew D. Coppens, Shakuntala Devi Gopal, Sameer Honwad, Madhura Niphadkar, Shraddha Rangnekar

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