Metal Straws and Marching: Preservice Social Studies Teachers' Conceptualizations of Action, Activism, and Agency Around Climate Crisis

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 18
  In Roundtable Session: Enacting Social Studies Education

Abstract

This empirical study works to answer the question: How are pre-service social studies teachers conceptualizing action, activism and agency around climate crisis? Drawing on small group discussion and using critical discourse analysis, the author theorizes moments of hope, agency, and deferral in making sense of climate crisis. The analysis reveals the multitude of challenges pre-service teachers face as they work to make sense of climate crisis and the possibilities of action, activism and agency in both grappling for themselves and in imagining the pedagogical demands of engaging young adolescents in issues of climate crisis in the social studies classroom.

Author

• Elaine Alvey, Alaska Pacific University