AND THE TECHNOLOGY LEARNING AREA |
Applying empowerment education to technology education with respect to food and nutrition education.
The process used in empowerment education, the process advocated for nutrition education (NNES, 1996) and the process advocated for the technology learning area (Curriculum Corporation, 1994a) are all potentially compatible. These processes are outlined below and their compatibility elaborated upon in the sections which follows.
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Empowerment process (Wallerstein, 1992) · Identifying the problem · Analysing the root causes of concern · Arriving at (group) goals and analysing the factors impacting on them · Action stage |
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Establishing the design brief |
Identifying the problem Students identify the problem to be solved - they analyse their own diets, or the societal issue of concern to them, and identify the issue of concern to them. That is, they set their own design brief. They become investigators into the problems that they identify as being important. The students, or student groups, will typically have different issues of concern according to their analyses, their lifestyles, their values. This is a very different scenario to students being given a design brief which instructs them, for example, to design make and appraise healthy snacks for teenagers, or snacks that are low in fat and/or sugar and/or salt. Whilst setting design briefs that dictate low fat/sugar/salt, or whatever nutritional concern the teacher might decide upon, can address national goals and targets for a healthy population, they do not address the fact that not all our students have diets high in fat, sugar and salt., Indeed, some girls particularly have diets that are dangerously low in fat. |
Gathering, analysing and evaluating information Setting goals |
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Investigating |
Analysing the root causes of concern Students analyse the root cause of concern when they further investigate the issue of concern. For example, an analysis of their diet might reveal that some changes would enhance their wellbeing. The real problem is not that they do not know WHAT to eat, but rather the real issues are more related to their cultural and social lives - for example, that is what is in the cupboard when they get home, that is what my family eats, that is what is sold at the school canteen, advertising, media, economics and so forth. These are the real issues to deal with - research shows that knowledge and problem solving skills in relation to nutrition education are only part of the issue. Addressing cultural, social, emotional and economic concerns are often the real problem. |
Identifying barriers and enablers |
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Devising |
Arriving at (group) goals and analysing the factors impacting on them Students determine their own goals according to their analyses of the issue and the options considered. If concerned with their own personal diet, they might set goals related to devising modifications of current eating patterns, working with their parents to make it easier for them to eat a healthier diet (what is bought, the positioning of “healthy” foods in the refrigerator, where they eat out etc), or if concerned with the diets of their peers, they might set goals related to bringing about change in the school canteen, or the foods served in popular TV shows etc. |
Planning |
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Producing Evaluation |
Action stage Students take the action to achieve their goals and reflect on their actions. An important aspect of these steps is that they are real situations in the students' lives, not hypothetical text book case studies. |
Acting Reflecting |