Identity, Community, and Sustainability: A Three-Phase Approach to Integrating Critical Pedagogies and Agency to Foster Holistic Identity Development

This study examines how critical pedagogical practices of testimonies and contradiction and resistance coupled with agentive techniques engaged youth in holistic identity development in a sustainable education context. Using a three-phase design, I analyzed the structure of the Urban Energy Engineering (UEE) citizen science program that engages youth in community-centered energy engineering. The design sought to answer the overarching question: How does critical pedagogy in which students build on their cultural and community knowledge to co-construct knowledge about sustainability while engaging in community-centered projects that promote agency impact their holistic identity development? Using a for intervention model, I used archived data for the summer iteration to develop two analyses to examine how the program engages youth in identity development, agency, and positionality in their community. These analyses influenced my design innovation and implementation with the UEE youth during the spring semester. Findings of my design innovation are organized into three sections (a) coupling of practice towards holistic identity, (b) understanding the relationship between identity and community, and lastly, (c) understanding the relationship between identity and sustainability correlating with my research questions. Lastly, I discuss the design principle necessary to engage youth in holistic identity development (a) Facilitators should provide their own experience and (b) Frame the levels of the individual to the community in agentive practice and critical pedagogical practices.