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School strikers enacting politics for climate justice: Daring to think differently about education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

Peta J. White Open the ORCID record for Peta J. White [Opens in a new window] ,
Joseph P. Ferguson ,
Niamh O’Connor Smith  and
Harriet O’Shea Carre
Peta J. White*
Affiliation:
School of Education, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia
Joseph P. Ferguson
Affiliation:
School of Education, Deakin University, Burwood, VIC, Australia
Niamh O’Connor Smith
Affiliation:
Castlemaine Youth Strike, Castlemaine, VIC, Australia
Harriet O’Shea Carre
Affiliation:
Castlemaine Youth Strike, Castlemaine, VIC, Australia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: peta.white@deakin.edu.au
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Abstract

Two school strikers − Niamh and Harriet − come together with two environmental education academics − Peta and Joseph − to explore what it means to be young people enacting politics for the environment in Australia, and what this might mean for re-imagining education. Niamh and Harriet are leaders of, and were integral to initiating, the highly effective School Strike 4 Climate − Australia (SS4C) movement, enacting ‘principled disobedience’. Peta and Joseph work in teacher education, preparing future teachers who will teach students who are increasingly climate savvy and politically active. In coming together and through the lens of pragmatism, we highlight the political nature of what Niamh and Harriet have been undertaking as they negotiate social, cultural, educational and environmental issues implicated in the climate crisis. Collaborative autoethnography framed our exploration of motivations for action, politics and education within our communities. Through Niamh’s and Harriet’s experiences, we explore how young people express agency while developing identity. Our autoethnographic conversations highlighted the experience and political agency that many of our young people demonstrate and led to us reflecting on the resulting opportunity for educators to ‘dare to think’ differently about education.

Keywords

climate crisisclimate justicepoliticsSchool Strike 4 Climate (SS4C)re-imagining education
Type
Research-Practice Article
Information
Australian Journal of Environmental Education , Volume 38 , Special Issue 1: School Strike for Climate , March 2022 , pp. 26 - 39
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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