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Young people worldwide are increasingly participating in a global movement for climate justice, yet to date, little research has examined how youth climate justice activists conceive of and experience activism as education. The present study used in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 16 US climate justice activists (aged 15–17) to address the research question: How do youth climate justice activists explain and experience the educative power of their activism? The results of reflective thematic analysis bring to light youths' dual roles as ‘learners of the movement’ and ‘climate justice educators’. As learners, youth described gaining awareness of climate justice directly from the movement, as well as learning a variety of skills (e.g., organising, communication, conflict resolution) through their activist engagement. Simultaneously, youth described their role as educators through a range of activities intended to raise awareness among adult and youth audiences, including educational workshops and trainings, school visits, teach‐ins, curriculum development, talk shows and interviews, creating digital resources, social media outreach and public protest (e.g., strikes, marches and demonstrations). Beyond spreading knowledge of climate in/justice, youth activists were also educators of action and social change processes—noting that learning about governmental institutions and political processes enabled them to exercise their democratic citizenship and equip and embolden other young people to do the same (e.g., via political advocacy trainings). The findings of the present study have implications for creating climate justice curricula that not only attend to the scientific and technological dimensions of the climate crisis, but also enable learners' justice‐driven action and democratic participation.
Young people worldwide are increasingly participating in a global movement for climate justice, yet to date, little research has examined how youth climate justice activists conceive of and experience activism as education. The present study used in‐depth, semi‐structured interviews with 16 US climate justice activists (aged 15–17) to address the research question: How do youth climate justice activists explain and experience the educative power of their activism? The results of reflective thematic analysis bring to light youths' dual roles as ‘learners of the movement’ and ‘climate justice educators’. As learners, youth described gaining awareness of climate justice directly from the movement, as well as learning a variety of skills (e.g., organising, communication, conflict resolution) through their activist engagement. Simultaneously, youth described their role as educators through a range of activities intended to raise awareness among adult and youth audiences, including educational workshops and trainings, school visits, teach‐ins, curriculum development, talk shows and interviews, creating digital resources, social media outreach and public protest (e.g., strikes, marches and demonstrations). Beyond spreading knowledge of climate in/justice, youth activists were also educators of action and social change processes—noting that learning about governmental institutions and political processes enabled them to exercise their democratic citizenship and equip and embolden other young people to do the same (e.g., via political advocacy trainings). The findings of the present study have implications for creating climate justice curricula that not only attend to the scientific and technological dimensions of the climate crisis, but also enable learners' justice‐driven action and democratic participation.
Amidst intensifying climate breakdown and inadequate climate change education, young people are increasingly taking part in a global movement for climate justice. Young climate justice activists are disseminating stories of injustice and possibility intended to inform and activate their peers, parents, politicians, powerholders, and the public for sweeping systems‐level change. Using in‐depth interviews with 16 youth activists aged 15 to 17 from the United States, this study explored youths’ stories into activism, defined as the counterstories motivating youths’ initial and sustained engagement in the climate justice movement. Using reflexive thematic analysis, two interrelated thematic categories were generated: redefining the problem of climate breakdown and challenging dominant climate solutionism. First, activists spoke of questioning dominant, depoliticised discourses that regard climate change as a primarily scientific or environmental problem that adults are currently “solving” to prevent future harms. Youths’ counterstories emphasised that climate change is an issue of present‐day and future injustices perpetuated by inadequate action by today’s adult leaders. Second, youths’ counterstories emphasised the powerful role of young people in spurring societal transformation towards climate justice—an inherently political and radical project requiring systems change through collective action. The research draws upon and contributes to recent scholarship in children’s geographies and critical geographies of education, while responding to urgent calls for reimagining climate pedagogies with young people’s well‐being and political agency at the centre. By examining the counterstories employed by young activists, this research highlights storylines educators may mobilise to activate learners’ political imaginations and spur their active engagement in societal transformation.
What do the school strikes for climate teach (adults)? Beyond being apt responses to democratic exclusions, children’s and young people’s strikes also have educative potential (including for adults) through counterweighing formal education, as the authors previously argued. This paper continues to explore the educational import of children and young people’s climate contentions as part of a more explicit decolonial agenda. In a first step, the paper sketches the altered conditions under which children stage school strikes/occupations and highlights increasing global connections drawn also by strikes in the North. Next, departing from a reading of Socrates’s canonical defense of obedience to the law, it offers a reading of the political economy and developmentalism of neoliberal, Anthropocene schooling as part of a modern oikos that depends on children’s work in their roles as “pupils.” Finally, children’s and young people’s activism is approached as resistance to colonially shaped epistemic injustice.
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