Date of Award

5-2026

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

School

Center for Science and Math Education

Committee Chair

Dr. Maria Wallace

Committee Chair School

Center for Science and Math Education

Committee Member 2

Dr. Rachel Gisewhite

Committee Member 2 School

Center for Science and Math Education

Committee Member 3

Dr. Kendrick Buford

Committee Member 3 School

Center for Science and Math Education

Abstract

This qualitative study analyzes how implementing place-based education (PBE) in undergraduate coursework shapes faculty identity narratives and nature–culture positionalities across conceptual lenses of past, present, and future. Three faculty members at a regional Mississippi university engaged in a PBE professional development program; narratively driven pre- and post-implementation interviews were given to participants, then examined via thematic analysis. Framed primarily through lenses of constructivism, with support from critical pedagogy of place, relational and ecological epistemologies, and scholarship on faculty identity, this study posits two research questions—1: How does teaching PBE influence faculty identity narratives across past, present, and future temporalities? 2: How does teaching PBE shape faculty interpretations of nature–culture relations and their positionalities to nature in teaching practice?

Findings show that faculty identity work is explicitly temporal and place-based. Participants centered their narratives around past childhood memories and local histories, present roles as community-engaged educators, and future-oriented hopes and anxieties about environmental and social conditions. Across these three temporalities, faculty positioned nature in four recurring ways: as subject, object, resource, or victim. These positionalities shifted with context, institutional expectations, and perceived responsibilities to students and communities, highlighting tensions between relational ideals and entrenched scientific and institutional framings.

This study contributes to place-based education and faculty identity literature by foregrounding temporality as a core dimension of PBE-related identity construction and by positing a set of relational stances with nature in higher education teaching. Implications include insights on the development of teaching identities that foreground temporal understandings, local histories, and critical engagement with nature–culture relations to support more equitable, place-responsive STEM education.

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