Pedagogy of Concrete Utopias: Fostering Students' Climate Activism and Civic Engagement

• In Event: Breaking the Climate of No Alternatives: Power of Utopian Methodology

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that schools should support and build on the youth’s climate activism. Schools need to support the new generation in generating solutions to challenges of sustainability and well-being in the era of eco-crises (Cook, 2018). However, being knowledgeable about climate change is not sufficient for engendering actions for sustainable futures; schools need to provide the students with experiences of being involved in transformative activity (McNeil & Vaughn, 2012).

This study examines:

the pedagogical potential of the concept of concrete utopia to support the development of youth's active citizenship and activism for sustainable futures;
the feasibility and achievability of a pedagogy of concrete utopias in formal education settings.

We draw on utopian methodology (Brown & Cole, 2002; Levitas, 2013), which refers to the re-imagining and building of alternative futures, and enactment of these visions and futures in the present in a prefigurative form. ‘Concrete utopia’ (Bloch, 1986) differs from a common understanding of utopias, as impractical imagination of alternative worlds (abstract utopias). The point of concrete utopias is to leverage actual potentials for change in the existing activity. As a pedagogical concept, we use it in reference to projects that are planned and implemented by students in collaboration with teachers, young climate activists, non-governmental organizations, and local decision makers. These projects can be characterized as concrete utopias if they involve an orientation to re-imagine and make a change in the existing ways of living and acting.

We use empirical data drawn from ethnographic case studies to illustrate our theoretical claims. The cases involve innovative school projects in a Finnish upper secondary schools, where students cooperate with activists and city authorities to build sustainable futures. The documentation and analysis of the projects as well as students' learning and engagement builds on a video-based and ethnographic research approach and data collection (Derry et al., 2010). Thick descriptions and analyses capture the use of multiple strategies of analysis on the materials which have been gathered (Evers, 2015). In the data analysis, we use microanalysis of tool-mediated social interaction in learning and instruction across formal and informal settings (e.g. Kumpulainen & Sefton-Green, 2014).

We will discuss the following principles that characterize a pedagogy of concrete utopias: a) foster youth agency in the society outside of school (youth should be leaders who are supported by the teachers), b) connect youth agency and learning to activities and actors in the wider society, and c) imagine and experiment with new creative solutions (concrete utopias) to promote sustainable ways of living and activity. We will also illustrate and discuss the tensions, conflicts and contradictions that the students and the teachers encountered in the projects and how they dealt with these tensions, with implications for pedagogy and learning.

In all, the study develops pedagogy that supports youth who have new solutions and ideas for ecologically sustainable ways of organizing life and activity. Education cannot any longer emphasize enculturation into existing culture that has shown to be unsustainable. There is a need for new ways of living, thinking and consuming.

Authors

• Antti Juhani Rajala, University of Oulu

• Moises Esteban Guitart, University of Girona