The importance of education, including formal schooling, is widely understood as central to ensuring every child and young person can live justly in a world with urgent global environmental and climate crises (UN, 2023). For nearly thirty years, approaches which develop people’s action competence through environmental and sustainability education (ESE), such that individuals are able, willing and qualified to meet the challenges of a given situation, have been widely explored (Jensen & Schnack, 1997, Van Poeck et al., 2024). Such an action-oriented approach requires education which moves beyond knowledge about the existence and consequences of environmental and sustainability issues, to include understanding the root causes of the problem, developing knowledge about alternative visions for the future, and understanding strategies for change (Jensen, 2002; Van Poeck et al., 2024). Research with teachers in England has identified action-oriented practices in the context of climate change and sustainability education (CCSE) but that teachers are constrained by a lack of resourcing and support from school leadership (Howard-Jones et al., 2021).

The Department for Education’s (DfE) Sustainability and climate change strategy published in 2022 arguably represents the most significant policy intervention in England focused on climate change and sustainability education for a decade (DfE, 2022). Whilst the strategy acknowledges the importance of schools accessing funding, sharing best practice, and developing networks to enhance CCSE (DfE, 2022), these priorities contrast with those of teachers, teacher educators and young people (aged 16-18) (Dunlop et al., 2022). Following the strategy’s publication (DfE, 2022), these groups continue to underline the need for curriculum change (which is absent from the strategy) so that CCSE moves beyond geography and science and a persistent framing of a concern with knowledge and ‘learning the facts’ about climate change as an educational response to climate and environmental crises (Dunlop et al., 2022). Furthermore, researchers have noted in the strategy an absence of values, the depoliticization of climate change and sustainability concerns, a focus on economic concerns and a lack of curriculum change (Dunlop et al., 2022).

There are few large-scale studies from England which have considered the nature and extent of teachers’ practices related to CCSE (Howard-Jones et al., 2021). Drawing on findings from a recent online survey of teachers in England, which included responses from over three hundred teachers to questions relating to their teaching of CCSE, we investigate the extent and nature of these practices. We bring to this analysis a critical understanding of climate justice, which pays attention to the colonial and racial capitalist roots of the climate crisis where intersectional injustices (such as gender, race, intergenerational and disability injustices) persist (Sultana, 2022), with an analysis of teachers’ self-reported CCSE practices. We also draw on critical readings of literatures from climate justice education (e.g. McGregor & Christie, 2021; McGregor et al., 2024), action-oriented sustainability education (e.g. Jensen, 2002; Van Poeck et al., 2024), and curriculum studies (e.g. Riddle et al., 2023). We argue that this approach is essential if we are to better understand the implications of urgent global crises on teachers’ practices and professional learning, given the ‘age-old challenge of educators translating personal and professional beliefs about teaching for justice and democracy into actual practice’ (Kennedy, 2022, p.1). Our overarching research questions were, ‘What existing classroom practices do school teachers identify in relation to climate change and sustainability education? In what ways might these practices be understood as justice-oriented climate change and sustainability education?

Data were collected through an online questionnaire which included 38 items, with a mix of questions requiring open answers and those which invited participants to indicate their responses to a series of statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. During the course of the questionnaire, participants were asked questions about their perceptions of climate change and sustainability (Section 1), their views and practices related to climate change and sustainability education (Section 2) and their experiences and views concerning professional develop (Section 3). The final section invited participants to share information about themselves, their professional roles and their professional setting. Data reported in this paper were drawn from the responses to three questions in Section 2 of the survey which asked participants: • Please share an example of how you include climate change and/or sustainability in the subject(s) you teach. • What has helped you to incorporate climate change and/or sustainability into your teaching? • What barriers or challenges have you encountered in relation to incorporating climate change and/or sustainability in your teaching? The data set comprised 870 responses, and participants were not required to complete every item. Of those who elected to provide responses, the majority reported that they were female (74%) and vast majority were white (91%). Teaching experience ranged from one year to over twenty years, and the majority of respondents completed university-led initial teacher education programmes (87%) (Greer et al., 2023). This project followed BERA ethical guidelines (2018) and was awarded ethical approval by the University Ethics Committee. Given the breadth of the responses, data were analysed using a conventional approach to qualitative content analysis, appropriate when working as a team across a large, shared dataset (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). This involved an iterative process of individual reflections and group discussions concerning the coding of the data set over a period of three months, including during the writing process. Findings were broadly analysed through a hybrid process of inductive and deductive coding (Fereday & Muir Cochrane, 2006). This process brought together deductive analysis informed by ideas from published literature focused on curriculum theory (e.g. Riddle et al., 2023), school-based climate change and sustainability education in England (e.g. Howard-Jones et al., 2021) and climate justice education (McGregor et al., 2024). We also approached data analysis inductively, where the coding process involved considering the individual responses provided across the three questions as data points.

Across our findings, teachers with different subject-specialisms underlined the importance of a range of disciplinary-subject knowledge when teaching climate change and sustainability concepts and topics. Responses highlight the rich and varied ways they approach CCSE, sharing examples from a range of school subjects in their mediation of the National Curriculum. For example, in Design & Technology topics included the sustainable use of materials, population growth, and energy sources and production, whilst in History, the topic of the industrial revolution was identified, and in Business, climate change and sustainability were taught through the topic of externalities. Beyond this, consistent with the four dimensions of action competence (Jensen, 2002; Van Poeck et al., 2024), teachers shared practices which provided students with opportunities to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to act collaboratively in the context of CCSE. These actions included those focused around communicating their views and experiences of climate change and sustainability, engaging in discussion concerning decision-making related to climate and environmental issues, and being part of environmentally-focused projects that explore strategies for change. These types of practices, focused on action, were often linked with explicit and implicit ideas of student empowerment, including equipping young people with the knowledge and capabilities to act for the climate and the environment now and in the future. However, there was an absence of examples which are more consistent with ideas of climate justice, such as those which connected colonial legacies with past, present and future climate injustice or articulated an understanding of the intersectional nature of climate injustice. As such, our analysis shows that whilst the foundations for justice-oriented CCSE are evident, ongoing collaborative work between groups, including teachers, children and young people, academics, climate activists, and policy makers, is required to create and sustain communities and curricula that effectively address CCSE and justice.

BERA (2024). Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research 2024. Accessed 6 January 2025 at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/ethical-guidelines-for-educational-research-fifth-edition-2024-online Department for Education (DfE) (2022). Sustainability & climate change: a strategy for the education& children’s services systems. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sustainability-and-climate-change-strategy/sustainability-and-climate-change-a-strategy-for-the-education-and-childrens-services-systems (accessed 2 June 2024). Dunlop, L., Rushton, E.A.C., Atkinson, L., Ayre, J., Bullivant, A., Essex, J., Price, L., Smith, A., Summer, M., Stubbs, J., Turkenburg-van Diepen, M. and Wood, L. (2022). Teacher and youth priorities for education for environmental sustainability: a co-created manifesto. British Educational Research Journal, 48(5), 952-973. Fereday, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2006). Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. International journal of qualitative methods, 5(1), 80-92. Greer, K., Sheldrake, R., Rushton, E., Kitson, A., Hargreaves, E. &Walshe, N. (2023). What do climate change and sustainability have to do with me? A survey of teachers in England. University College London, London. Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/ centres/ucl-centre-climate-change-and-sustainability-education (accessed 23 July 2024) Howard-Jones, P., Sands, D., Dillon, J. & Fenton-Jones, F. (2021). The views of teachers in England on an action-oriented climate change curriculum. Environmental Education Research, 27(11), 1660-1680, doi: 10.1080/13504622.2021.1937576 Hsieh, H. & Shannon, S.E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15(9), 1277-1288 doi: 10.1177/1049732305276687. Jensen, B. B. & Schnack, K. (1997). The Action Competence Approach in Environmental Education. Environmental Education Research, 3(2), 163–178. Jensen, B. B. (2002). Knowledge, action and pro-environmental behaviour. Environmental Education Research, 8(3), 325-334. Kennedy, A. (2022). Climate justice and teacher professional learning… we owe it to our young people. Professional Development in Education, 48(1), 1-4. McGregor, C., & Christie, B. (2021). Towards climate justice education: Views from activists and educators in Scotland. Environmental Education Research, 27(5), 652-668. McGregor, C., Christie, B. & Kustatscher, M. (2024). Profane knowledge, climate anxiety and the politics of education in: M. Lobo, E. Mayes and L. Bedford ed., Planetary Justice: Stories and Studies of Action, Resistance and Solidarity, Bristol: Bristol University Press, pp. 196-212. Riddle, S., Mills, M., & McGregor, G. (2023). Curricular justice and contemporary schooling: Towards a rich, common curriculum for all students. Curriculum Perspectives, 43(2), 137-144. Sultana, F. (2022). Critical climate justice. The Geographical Journal, 188(1), 118-124. United Nations (UN). (2023). The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2023: Special Edition. Available at: https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2023/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2023.pdf Accessed on 23 December 2024. Van Poeck, K., Vandenplas, E., & Östman, L. (2024). Teaching action-oriented knowledge on sustainability issues. Environmental Education Research, 30(3), 334-360.