Action-Oriented Pedagogies for climate justice education: supporting students in imagining, planning, and acting for sustainable futures

• In Event: Transformative and Action-Oriented Climate Pedagogies

Proposal

Relevance
This study addresses urgent calls for climate justice and sustainability education by exploring how K-12 teachers cultivate student agency and collective action. The research responds to growing recognition that traditional educational approaches are insufficient for addressing climate crises and environmental injustice (Orr, 1994). By positioning young people as co-designers of just, sustainable futures, this work aligns with environmental and sustainability education's commitment to transformative learning that connects individual development with collective ecological responsibility.
Theory/Context
Grounded in the Action-Oriented Pedagogies (AOP; Authors, 2024) framework, this study conceptualizes teaching and learning as collective, iterative, and justice-driven acts toward ecological and social transformation. AOP invites educators and students to engage in real work with real consequences through three interconnected, cyclical elements: (a) imagining preferred futures, (b) planning for co-produced impact, and (c) taking agentive action.
Drawing on scholars who conceptualize futures thinking as civic and educational praxis (Author(s), 2023; Harjo, 2019; Toliver, 2020), we understand imagining preferred futures as a refusal of determinism and recognition of youth as present-tense actors in shaping collective futures. Planning for co-produced impact challenges traditional teacher-centered paradigms by requiring shared authority and dialogic collaboration, centering students' lived experiences and cultural knowledge (Alexander, 2008; Cuenca, 2011; Mercer & Littleton, 2007). Taking agentive action builds on conceptions of agency as intellectual, relational, and transformational (Edwards & D'Arcy, 2004; Engle & Conant, 2002; Hays, 1994), emphasizing systems thinking and interdependence. This view positions students as actors capable of influencing outcomes at multiple scales, making action a form of democratic participation involving imagination, critical analysis, and ethical commitment to the more-than-human world.
Mode of Inquiry
This qualitative, interpretive study investigated how eleven K-12 teachers across varied contexts (elementary, secondary; science, English Language Arts, civics; urban, suburban, rural; public, charter, private schools) in the southwestern USA enact AOP to support climate and sustainability learning. We asked:
How do teachers support students in imagining socially and environmentally just preferred futures?
In what ways do teachers engage students in collaboratively planning actions aimed at co-produced, contextually meaningful sustainability impacts?
How do teachers facilitate and support students in taking agentive action on sustainability issues, and what forms do these actions take in classroom and community contexts?
Data sources were two semi-structured interviews with each teacher, lesson plans, classroom observations, and student artifacts such as writing, photographs, and project documentation. Interviews explored pedagogical decisions, classroom experiences, and perceived student engagement and impact. Data analysis was iterative and collaborative, using hybrid deductive-inductive coding (Saldaña, 2011). Deductive codes derived from core AOP elements; inductive coding identified emergent patterns related to teachers' pedagogical adaptations, tensions, and innovations. Data triangulation, member checks, and analytic memoing promote trustworthiness, ensuring rigor while emphasizing teachers' professional wisdom.
Findings
Findings spanned multiple phases of AOP, reflecting support for students in imagining, planning, and acting for sustainable futures.
Imagining Preferred Futures
Teachers introduced futures thinking through "what if" questions ranging from speculative global transformation visions to community-rooted scenarios. Most used "What if we..." prompts foregrounding collective subjectivity, though the ambiguous "we" leaves uncertainty around the degrees of student positioning as future actors. Teachers varied in connecting individual aspirations to broader goals. Whereas some helped students envision future civic and workforce participation aligned with planetary needs, others focused on individual's aspirational career trajectories.
Temporal relationality was evident across teacher responses. Several described cultivating temporal interdependence (past-present-future connections) and ethical deliberation as part of futures thinking. By doing so, they raised awareness of time, and simultaneously engaged students in thinking historically and prospectively, inviting them to explore how past injustices, present conditions, and possible futures are contextually-bound and deeply interconnected. This temporal framing supports inclusive, ethical decision making and the contested nature of future possibilities.
Planning for Co-Produced Impact
Teachers balanced feasibility, enthusiasm, and agency in supporting student action planning. Projects ranged from student-directed to teacher-initiated, reflecting different orientations toward voice and co-agency. Using OECD's (2019) student agency framework, enactments ranged from adult-led with student input to shared decision-making and student-initiated with adult partnership.
Student interests, concerns, and aspirations shaped teachers' decisions as they supported students’ action pathways. Community partnerships (e.g, parents, scientists, and civic leaders) proved crucial to action-planning —serving as expertise sources, audiences, or intended beneficiaries of student co-produced efforts.
Despite commitments to student agency, teachers faced tensions between guidance and autonomy, and institutional constraints were limiting. However, many emphasized helping students see that their actions mattered, recognizing that perceived effectiveness catalyzes future engagement.
Taking Agentive Action
Teachers facilitated varied forms of agency through learning for, through, and from action. Students engaged in scientific inquiry, engineering design, community-building, and advocacy—leveraging knowledge to inform action while deepening understanding through participation. Learning and action emerged as reciprocal processes.
Teachers invited students into flexible, evolving roles aligned with interests and strengths, thereby providing paths for autonomy and leadership. Examples include a student with writing expertise contributing to school publications, and students with construction skills building garden beds.
Teachers scaffolded collective action, promoting transformational agency (Hays, 1994). They guided students to see their contributions to longer-term change through smaller-scale, tangible actions framed as part of broader systems change to cultivate efficacy and optimism.
Contribution
This study offers insights into how AOP is enacted across varied classroom contexts. This research provides practice-based grounding by documenting core elements in action, revealing tensions, creativity, and commitments to student agency. It highlights how teachers support students in envisioning just, sustainable futures, affirming educators' role in cultivating civic imagination and hope amid ecological and social crises. Surfacing strategies teachers use to shift power, foster co-agency, and elevate youth voice, the study contributes to conversations around justice-oriented teaching and provides models for teacher educators who are preparing teachers for complex, uncertain futures.
This research offers a hopeful yet grounded vision of educator-student collaboration in pursuing the broader goals of peace and justice at the heart of the 2026 CIES theme. It affirms that robust climate and sustainability learning is both cognitive and civic practice, positioning classrooms as sites of possibility where youth imagine, plan, and act toward more just worlds.

Authors

• Nicole Oster, Arizona State University

• Dilraba Anayatova, Arizona State University

• Gloria SooYoung Kang, Arizona State University

• Andrea Weinberg, Arizona State University

• Michelle E Jordan