Environmental Change-Making: How Youth Situate Their Roles Toward Transformative Action

• In Event: 30.080 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 30.080-22 - Youth and Environmental Education

Abstract

This paper describes findings from a study that examines youth's civic engagement towards environmental issues. We utilize critical and interpretive methods to find out how youth enrolled in environmental science classes in urban high schools in the U.S. narrate their roles towards the environment. We do this by situating their understandings of these roles in relation to their views towards political processes. Our analysis identifies what we refer to as “changemaking”—how youth situate their sense of agency in relation to social transformation. The findings are used to offer new directions for environmental science education by exploring youth’s situated contexts alongside possibilities for changemaking.

Authors

• Alexandra Schindel, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Sara E. Tolbert, Te Whare Wangana o Waitaha University of Canterbury

• Tina M. Bampton, University at Buffalo

• Amanda Barbour, University at Buffalo - SUNY