Navigating Ideology in Learning to Take Sustainability-Oriented Civic Action in a Middle School Classroom

• In Event: Power, Politics, and Ideology in the Learning Sciences

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of a middle school civic action project focused on a real piece of proposed legislation relevant to socio-environmental sustainability. We examined how this project presented ideological frames about how youth can participate as civic actors in relation to sustainability. We also investigated the ideological stances that emerged and shifted for one student as she navigated her participation with this ideological frame. In this paper, we focus on the leading frame which posited that civic action is a binary choice between liberal environmental sustainability and conservative economic sustainability. We demonstrate how one student grappled with an ideological dilemma that complicated the binary choice between the economy and environment but ultimately embraced the frame.

Authors

• Kelsey Tayne, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Susan Jurow, University of Colorado - Boulder