Growing Impact: Understanding Evaluation in Youth Programs in Urban Farming & Gardening
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Educational programs in an urban farm or garden setting can provide youth with opportunities for personal development, experiential learning, engaging in environmental behaviors and enhancing nutritional literacy. Evaluation tools and processes are used to measure program impact, report to funders, and promote the need for such programs. Therefore, it is important that program evaluations accurately convey the impacts and outcomes. In what ways do evaluations capture or fail to capture the extent of program impacts cited by staff and youth involved in the programs? This question was explored through a qualitative study of two paid summer youth programs in urban farming and gardening in Columbus, Ohio. Theoretical frameworks of place-based education (PBE) and positive youth development (PYD) were used to guide analysis of semi-structured interview data. Staff and youth alike felt that the program played a key role in developing youths’ sense of confidence, nutritional literacy, and vocational skills, but staff and youth perspectives differed in the way they characterized the role of youth in carrying out the program’s social impact goals. Staff tended to describe youth as the primary beneficiaries of the program’s social impact; youth described themselves as actors increasing food access in the community through their work in the program. More holistic evaluation tools and processes that amplify youth voices and take into account sense of ownership, autonomy, and community impact have the potential to demonstrate additional value of such programs in urban agriculture and within the field of youth development.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 2019 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Wilson, Meghan |
|---|
Subjects
| Subject | urban agriculture |
|---|---|
| Subject | youth programs |
| Subject | evaluation |
| Subject | high school |
| Subject | experiential education |
| Subject | positive youth development |
| Subject | education |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Wilson, Meghan. (2019). Growing Impact: Understanding Evaluation in Youth Programs in Urban Farming & Gardening. Unpublished Honors Thesis. Stanford University, Stanford CA.
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Graduate School of Education
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- Contact
- mnwilson@stanford.edu
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