Relational Connective Tissue: The Role Relationships Play in Freedom of Movement Across Culinary Learning

Often intangible and invisible, relationships are pivotal in connecting soft/hard realities in ways that allow for participation in learning that imparts material and lasting impacts for marginalized youth experiencing complex, multidimensional barriers. We present the case of an immigrant Latinx youth who experienced freedom of movement-“supporting crossing physical boundaries of location, domain-specific boundaries of different topical areas, and conceptual boundaries of value and goodness of fit” (Pinkard, 2019, p. 40)-in an understudied area: culinary learning. We expand on the concept of connective tissue by analyzing a youth's movement across the Healthy Learning Ecosystem Framework to render visible the relational connective tissue that afforded freedom of movement across infrastructures of learning (Pinkard, 2019). Through an ecological life history case study approach, we demonstrate and discuss the potential that theorizing relational connective tissue holds in surfacing the assets Communities of Color bring to educational experiences, which presents implications for designing more equitably around how nondominant learners access freedom of movement across space, time, and multiple axes of marginalization.