This article explores the tension - in both positive and negative senses - of an aquarium's internal and external equity work. The article parses out this tension, especially reflecting on where the equity work lives, where it gets messy, and who is doing the work. It centers on the tensions around positionality for a woman of color initially…

The aquatic husbandry field, historically dominated by White males, is a unique amalgamation of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) disciplines. This article presents insights from one of the few aquatic husbandry Managers of Color, who also co-founded Minorities in Aquarium and Zoo Science (MIAZS) to address racial disparities…

Instructional design is a design discipline that bridges science and arts-based practices. It has a long history of borrowing from various fields of design. Experience Design (XD) is a relatively new field that holds relevance for instructional design because, as a multidisciplinary approach, XD focuses on creating meaningful user experiences and…

What is the connection between environmental identity and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA+) work? The authors explore the intricate connection between these concepts and how aquaria are utilizing environmental identities to motivate pro-environmental behaviors in all museum visitors, including the identities of emerging…

In Sweden and other countries, children's everyday lives and educational opportunities depend on their living conditions and class backgrounds. The current study examined the manifestation of issues of social injustice and unequal childhoods in the daily practices of leisure-time centres in Sweden. The empirical data were derived from the written…

Partnerships between schools and out-of-school organizations (museums, zoos, nature centers, etc.) have been shown to improve the educational experiences for both students and teachers. In this article, we report on the experiences we have documented as a nature center through our active involvement in school partnerships. Our partnerships with…

This article analyzes "McGarry v. Philly Rock Corp." On March 16, 2011, Rebecca McGarry and her husband went to the Philly Rock Corp. (PRC) indoor climbing gym where they had twice climbed previously. The couple decided to try bouldering, a style of climbing lower to the ground in which the climber uses bouldering pads instead of ropes,…

Out-of-school science education institutions, such as museums, science centres, zoos and aquaria, have strong potentials to promote sustainability, yet seem to lack an operational definition of sustainability that aligns with their specific characteristics and institutional remit. Here, we use the anthropological theory of didactics to…

State high school athletic associations are tasked with facilitating equitable athletic opportunities for all member schools. To accomplish this task, state associations implement rules designed to ensure competitive balance (Johnson, Tracy, & Pierce, 2015). With over 7.8 million participants, interscholastic athletics are extremely popular…

This article focuses on how students make use of different spaces in one compulsory school in Iceland and how gender is produced through activities in these spaces. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted for three months in 2016 among 8th and 9th graders at one public school in Iceland. Our analysis is based on poststructural and material…

Youth recreation centres have been a key institution in providing young people with meaningful activity after school, going back to the mid-twentieth century in Sweden. These centres have been the focus of research, but very few studies have paid attention to the youth recreation leader, the person working in these centres. In this article, we…

Superstitions, or repetitive actions an athlete believes to be powerful and influential to performance and success, are prevalent in all types of sport. Superstitions are often believed to be detrimental due to their controlling nature, as opposed to pre-performance routines, in which the athlete is in control. However, superstitions may serve to…

This article invokes a neoliberal and disciplinary governmentality lens in a political ecology of education framework to analyze educational programming at Long Beach, California's Aquarium of the Pacific. I begin by briefly describing governmentality as Foucault and neo-Foucauldian scholars have theorized the concept, followed by a discussion of…

This paper aims to unstick domination narratives embedded in Disneyland by using creative imagination and futurecast cultural imaginaries in which the earth system reinhabits agentic powers. I seek to open up alternative understandings of non-dominated, regenerative creativities in order to begin to heal the colonized imagination of Disneyland and…

The William Penn Foundation launched Philadelphia's Informal Learning Initiative (ILI) to support the development of literacy-rich programming for families with children aged 3 to 9. The initiative was designed as a network of partnerships in which a cultural organization--usually a museum--paired with one or more, community-based organizations…