Scholar of environmental justice in education explores transformation across socioecological contexts.
The UCLA Department of Education has appointed Chris Jadallah as an assistant professor of environmental justice in education at the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies. His research examines the social, cultural, and political dimensions of science and environmental education, with a specific focus on community-based and place-based learning environments. Working across a variety of socioecological contexts – from diversified farming systems to river restoration efforts – Professor Jadallah interrogates how issues of power, participation, and place structure and mediate learning opportunities, with an eye toward socioecological transformation.
Jadallah’s work leverages critical and sociocultural perspectives on learning and qualitative methods with the goals of creating and deepening opportunities for individuals and communities to contribute their knowledge, practices, and perspectives toward social and environmental justice; disrupting hierarchies in environmental decision-making that privilege dominant forms of expertise over the local knowledge and practices; and shining a light on the relationships between broader systems of power and moment-to-moment processes of interaction and learning.
Central to Professor Jadallah’s research is a commitment to community-engaged scholarship, collaborating with community partners to simultaneously co-design, implement, and study initiatives that build capacity for more just and sustainable futures. Previous to moving to Los Angeles, he grew and cultivated several Palestinian heirloom plant varieties in community with other South Asian and East Asian diaspora farmers in Northern California, where he was born and raised. Maintaining a land stewardship practice is an important dimension of his identity as a scholar and a descendant of Palestinian farmers.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the UCLA Department of Education and look forward to building relationships with new people and places across the vibrant city of Los Angeles,” says Jadallah.
Professor Jadallah achieved his Ph.D. in Science and Agricultural education at UC Davis, and his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Conservation and Resource studies at UC Berkeley. He has been honored as an International Society of the Learning Sciences Emerging Scholar (2023-2024), and served as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow (2018-2023).
Recent publications by Jadallah include, “Enduring tensions between scientific outputs and science learning in citizen science,” in the journal Biological Conservation; “Collaborative research as boundary work: learning between rice growers and conservation professionals to support habitat conservation on private lands,” in Agriculture and Human Values; and “Social learning in conservation and natural resource management: Taking a sociocultural perspective,” in Ecology and Society.