Cultivating Critical Transformative Teacher Agency through Co-Design with Families toward Climate Justice

• In Event: Advocacy, Community, and Transformative Practice in Education

Abstract

This study investigates how minoritized teachers developed critical-transformative agency by working in solidarity with families to co-design and implement a climate justice education. Using participatory design methods, we collaborated with one teacher, five 6th-grade classrooms of Arab American immigrant students, and their families. Our findings reveal how teacher agency evolved from defensive to transformative within figured worlds of climate justice, as she engaged in community-based epistemologies, cultivated relationality, and fostered critical consciousness. This opened new possibilities for the teacher to enact transformative agency by “writing new worlds,” and advocating for justice and community thriving. We argue that cultivating teachers’ transformative agency is essential for addressing the social and political dimensions of climate education and preparing students to navigate complex socio-scientific issues.

Authors

• Wisam Sedawi, University of Michigan

• Angela Calabrese, University of Michigan

• Batoul Abdallah, University of Michigan

• Rachel Sherwin, University of Michigan