Case Study Pedagogy in Disaster Education

Abstract

Research in cultural anthropology and the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS) has demonstrated that environmental disasters are not only techno-scientifically and socio-politically complex but also epistemically complex -- involving perspectival diversity; multiple, often conflicting forms of evidence; data gaps and disinformation; and role transitions and confusions. Disasters, this research has demonstrated, are highly fraught knowledge problems that nevertheless call for pragmatic response. In this article, we describe an approach to disaster education that stems from this premise, mobilizing an Environmental Injustice Case Study Framework that draws out multiple dimensions of disaster, foregrounding the need for interdisciplinarity while immersing students in the challenges and paradoxes of disaster knowledge production. We offer both an instructional approach and a theoretical perspective on what case study pedagogy in disaster education accomplishes, and can contribute to science education writ large. Our argument is that critical approaches to case study pedagogy can scaffold many kinds of learning in both disaster and science education, helping students integrate diverse kinds of data, analysis, interpretation, and judgment, while building metacognition and epistemic reflexivity.