Citizenship education to promote the participation of young people in climate adaptation: crossing curricular boundaries through community profiling

Abstract

The article discusses climate community profiling in citizenship education to promote young people’s civic and political participation in local climate adaptation issues, based on educational projects conducted in 8 schools in 8 regions in North Portugal. These community profiling school projects involved 24 teachers and 483 students (from grades 8 to 12) from January 2022 to June 2023. After describing the curricular context of citizenship education in Portugal and the recent reform emphasising curriculum flexibility, the paper examines the theoretical foundations and implementation of school-based climate community profiling. Previous research shows that this pedagogical strategy is valuable in promoting young people’s civic and political participation and creating interdisciplinary curriculum spaces. Furthermore, community profiling fosters students’ engagement in researching their community in collaboration with other community actors. This paper explores the potential of this strategy in citizenship education, both in terms of students’ civic development and the potential to promote innovative and cross-curricular teaching practices based on teaching materials and semi-directed interviews with teachers. The findings show that the construction of climate community profiles can contribute to changes in teaching practices and the construction of a sustainable interdisciplinary curriculum concerned with education for citizenship.