Effects of Cognitive and Affective Narrative Framings in Teaching the Climate and Nature Emergency

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers as Agents of Change in Sustainability Education

Abstract

This study attempts to answer the following central question: What narrative framings for teaching the Climate and Nature Emergency (CNE) most significantly affect the levels of eco-anxiety and acknowledgement of the four “primary orienting denials” as described by Stein et al. (2023) amongst a group of preservice educators? We hypothesize that for participants who receive a pedagogical intervention with a distinct narrative framing of the CNE versus participants that do not receive an intervention, levels of eco-anxiety will increase and levels of denial will decrease on pre- and post-intervention self-assessments. We make sense of these changes based on the unique character of the two narrative framings and additional qualitative data collected in the study.

Authors

• Kevin J. Holohan, Grand Valley State University

• Josie Holohan, Northwestern University