A new paper in the Journal of Planning Education and Research from UB Food Lab alumni Dr. Carol Ramos-Gerena and Ms. Insha Akram argues for pluralizing planning education in the US.

The authors note that “[p]lanning in the United States is primarily taught using domestic examples, often excluding perspectives from other world regions. If planning schools in the United States include international cases, they are typically limited to electives or costly study abroad experiences that reinforce a universal and Western view of planning. As scholars from non-sovereign and occupied territories who studied planning in the United States, [the authors] propose pluralizing planning education through dialogic pedagogies with knowledge from the borderlands. [They] contribute a practical pedagogical intervention to encourage engagement with diverse geopolitical contexts and worldviews that challenge what and how students learn about planning.”

The article is open access for anyone to read and share. 

Dr. Ramos-Gerena is currently faculty at the University of Puerto Rico and Ms. Insha Akram is a doctoral student at the University of Washington Seattle.