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Does Going Green Wear a Skirt? High School Girls, Sustainability, and Ritual Critique

Haverkos, Kimberly A.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1342665267

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, Educational Leadership.
How do performances of girlhoods interact with performances of sustainability? The research presented in this dissertation suggests that going green does wear a skirt—that the girls in this research performed sustainability because it was a “natural” and expected performance of girlhoods within the particular school spaces studied. However, girls’ performances of sustainability did not provide these girls with access to science as previous research has indicated. In the current educational environment, there is a push for more students, particularly girls, to enter the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields. Knowing the complicated relationship between girlhoods and science, this dissertation looked at how girls’ interactions with sustainability might provide a link to that STEM field. Focusing on girls at two private schools in the Midwest, one all-girls school and one co-ed school, the research gathered in this study looked at girls’ performances of girlhoods, science, and sustainability. Through the lenses of ritual critique, standpoint feminism, and eco-justice, the girls’ performances illuminated the ways in which girls and sustainability continue to be marginalized by science, limiting the possibility of girls accessing science, or STEM more broadly, through issues of sustainability. By examining the interactions between performances of girlhoods and sustainability, the research suggests girls are performing sustainability and going green because it is a “natural” part of feminine nurturing and caring. The legitimacy of science as it is conceived at present is upheld at the expense of both girls and sustainability because this conception of science is divorced from rituals of sustainability. While sustainability may not be a way into science for these girls, it is a way to challenge expected gendered performances of the “good girl student” within these schools. The author suggests a re-articulation of STEM to mean Sustainable Transformative Educative Movements in which girls can legitimate their experiences and knowledges through sustainability as service.
Richard Quantz, PhD (Committee Chair)
Nazan Bautista, PhD (Committee Member)
Kathleen Knight-Abowitz, PhD (Committee Member)
Sally Lloyd, PhD (Committee Member)
178 p.
Education; Gender; Science Education; Sustainability
Girlhoods; Sustainability; Ritual Critique; Science Education; Performances; STEM

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Haverkos, K. A. (2012). Does Going Green Wear a Skirt? High School Girls, Sustainability, and Ritual Critique [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1342665267

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Haverkos, Kimberly. Does Going Green Wear a Skirt? High School Girls, Sustainability, and Ritual Critique. 2012. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1342665267.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Haverkos, Kimberly. "Does Going Green Wear a Skirt? High School Girls, Sustainability, and Ritual Critique." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami1342665267

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami1342665267
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© 2012, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.
Release 3.2.12