Children and young people’s climate crisis activism – a perspective on long-term effects

ABSTRACT

The year 2019 witnessed the gathering pace of a global climate movement, with millions of young people striking for climate action. While the contours of this activism are just beginning to emerge, the scale of the mobilisations to date suggest their consequences are likely to be profound – for participants, communities and the wider political environment. This paper looks to the literature on social movement consequences to consider the possible lasting effects of this climate activism for children and young people. In doing so, it seeks to advance more robust research engagement with the breadth of potential legacies, including those often overlooked or undervalued.

KEYWORDS:

• Children and young people
• climate activism
• social movement legacies
• longitudinal research
• civic engagement

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the Marsden Fund, administered by Te Apārangi | The Royal Society of New Zealand on behalf of the Marsden Fund Council [MFP-LIU1801].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We adopt the term ‘outcomes’ in this paper, since that is the dominant term used in the literature. ‘Consequences’ is also widely used. However, we also recognise that both terms can imply a direct causality that often cannot be established. For this reason, we prefer to use ‘legacies’ or ‘contributions’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Marsden Fund, administered by Te Apārangi | The Royal Society of New Zealand on behalf of the Marsden Fund Council [grant number MFP-LIU1801].