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Young people at a crossroads: Climate solidarity through intergenerational storytelling

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Catherine WalkerORCiD

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).


Abstract

School-based teaching on climate change rarely draws on diverse experiences and knowledge about climate change that circulate in migrant homes and communities. We set out to consider experiences of climate change education (CCE) in schools in Manchester, UK, and Melbourne, Australia, among migrant-background students. We interviewed young people aged14 to 18 and educators in multicultural secondary schools about climate change education. We then trained and supported young people to inter-view their parents. Here, we show how those interviews built young researchers’ appreciation of family stories. Those accounts revealed aspects of parents’ lives growing up that provided a platform from which families could discuss the changing relevance of climate change in their countries of origin and present locations. From those shared insights emerged critical, contextually informed understandings of climate change. Given those outcomes, we argue that intergenerational and cross-cultural storytelling, when brought into dialogue with scientific knowledge, can sup-port climate change educators. They can then draw upon a range of knowledges and responses to climate change wider than that, which currently exists in most classrooms. We conclude by suggesting that among diverse learner cohorts, what then becomes possible is work to build a greater sense of agency and capacity for empathy with respect to climate change.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Walker C, van Holstein E, Klocker N

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Geographical Research

Year: 2024

Pages: Epub ahead of print

Online publication date: 31/07/2024

Acceptance date: 02/06/2024

Date deposited: 01/08/2024

ISSN (print): 1745-5863

ISSN (electronic): 1745-5871

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12668

DOI: 10.1111/1745-5871.12668

Data Access Statement: Data have been archived with the UK Data Archive. Please visit https://reshare.ukdataservice.ac.uk/856662


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Funding

Funder referenceFunder name
Economic and Social Research Council. Grant Number: ES/T015594/1

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