Learners' Voices and Sociopolitical Change in the Context of Climate Emergency

• In Event: Learning From Learners' Voices: Resistance and Transformative Activism Through Liberatory Education

Abstract

‘Learner’s voice’ is often used in connection to “improved student performance” or more equal learning opportunities (Jenkins, 2006; Sawyer, 2014). The concept is seldom used to position learners as historical actors (Gutiérrez et al., 2019) capable of influencing social practices in society. However, in the current context of climate emergency, we have seen that youth are capable and have legitimacy to raise their voices towards radical transformative ends (Stetsenko, 2019). The centrality of education as an agent of transformation towards sustainability is widely recognized. Yet, how formal education can harness the transformative potential of learners’ voices to engender social transformation is under-researched and of utmost relevance today, when students’ futures and the role of schooling are at stake.

We take a critical, cultural-historical perspective that views learners’ voices in the context of learners’ political agency, that is, their freedom to act in a plural public realm (Slakmon & Schwarz, 2017). We maintain that it is through the transformation of actual material means (tools, concepts) that (school) practices develop. Accordingly, studying the transformational potential of learners’ voices involves studying the challenges and opportunities for socio-political change brought about in and through engaging learners as a leading force in their education, which includes transformations in how schools understand and organize educational practices.

We examine the question, What opportunities and challenges for socio-political change emerge in pedagogical projects that center on learners’ voices as agents of change in the context of climate emergency? We do this in the context of two projects involving research-partnerships with schools and external stakeholders aimed at addressing issues of sustainability and climate justice in their local communities. Through comparative analysis (Bateson, 1979) of ethnographic materials, we identify to what extent and how, through the struggle and transformation of the schools’ practices (concepts, tools), learners’ voices become integral to communities’ efforts to address climate change challenges and opportunities that emerge at the interpersonal and institutional levels.

We examine two case studies involving learners engaging in climate activism through school innovations: (a) a Finnish secondary school project, where students cooperate with activists and city authorities to influence local politics concerning cycling; and (b) an open schooling network in Norway in which teacher and students collaborate with activists, industry, and families, to address sustainability challenges in their local communities. The ethnographic data comprise video recordings, documents and interviews collected through participant observation.

Preliminary findings document how learners’ voices are expressed and amplified in intersectorial and intergenerational dialogue, generated in the pedagogical projects at the intersection between school and society. The learners’ transformative engagement to promote sustainable futures expanded the nature of student contributions in and through the bringing of new audiences in new contexts, and where students generate new positionings, narratives, and forms of expression. This transformative stance also involved taking actions that were not shared or valued by others and that brought forth contradictions and negative emotions. In all, the findings illuminate the transformative potential of learners’ voices and how this potential can be harnessed as part of formal education.

Authors

• Antti Juhani Rajala, University of Oulu

• Alfredo Jornet Gil, University of Oslo