Towards a transformative climate change education: questions and pedagogies

Abstract

This paper approaches climate change as a superordinate concern that should guide a holistic transformation of formal schooling towards integration and sustainability. The call for climate change education (CCE) has been amplified by international organizations and youth protestors alike, united by a shared concern for our planet. By combining CCE with principles of transformative learning (TL), the paper outlines a framework for transformative climate change education (TCCE). If climate change fits the description of a super wicked problem, this is also true of TCCE, which requires the simultaneous transformation of curricula, pedagogies, and assessment systems. The paper argues that the implementation of TCCE faces significant challenges because it disputes the underlying values of our transmissive educational systems. Those challenges are formulated here as a series of questions, which are followed by a discussion of sustainability pedagogies that help learners build capacity for understanding and acting on climate change.

Keywords:

• transformative climate change education
• climate change education
• transformative learning
• pedagogical approaches
• formal education

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS:

• SDG 4: Quality education
• SDG 13: Climate action

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Blane Harvey, Ellen Field, Emily D. Sprowls, and Carlos A. Pittella for their helpful comments on the development of this article. I would also like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their detailed and thoughtful comments. I am grateful to Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships for their research support.

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.