Social Consciousness in Landscape Architecture Education: Toward a Conceptual Framework

Abstract

The practice of landscape architecture routinely engages the use, allocation, and preservation of community resources at multiple scales and therefore should be considered inherently political in nature. However the collective consciousness of landscape architecture in the United States has failed to explicitly recognize this political reality. This failure has manifested in an apolitical service ideal espoused by the profession, and has been translated into what are assumed to be apolitical curriculums among professional programs. As an alternative, we advocate developing an explicit collective consciousness within the profession, and offer the principle of social justice as a foundation for such a consciousness. Developing a collective consciousness is best initiated through an educational curriculum that instills critical social consciousness and principled thinking in its students, providing an enlightened awareness of the tangible social and institutional structures that affect us. The curriculum must also address the less tangible social structures that channel our actions and perceptions regarding what are possible, appropriate, and desirable in the design process. To this end, we offer a conceptual framework for educating landscape architects from a critical social consciousness perspective, drawing upon developmental models offered by Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, and Paulo Friere. The intent is to encourage explicit dialogue on the collective consciousness of landscape architecture, and the role of social justice in this consciousness.