Introduction

The current societal landscape is defined by environmental threats and social turmoil. In this wicked poly-crisis, young people, in particular, are in a difficult position. The effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are expected to increase in the future, piling up on young people. At the same time, young people are encouraged to become future agents of change, but their agency is constrained by various structures and forces (Mustalahti et al., 2023). Young people are steered towards participation via formal, adult-controlled platforms that emphasize integration into the current structures of society (Juusola et al., 2023). For young people, these formal structures and institutions may appear constraining and even non-democratic (Dupuis-Déri, 2021). Meanwhile, actions outside these structures are often unaccepted in schools and other local communities (Kettunen, 2021).

Given this landscape of (un)sustainability, this presentation asks: how does young people’s sustainability agency emerge? What are its implications for environmental education? Drawing from social cognitive theory and action competence literature, the goal is to unpack the positions and agency of young people in and for sustainability. In other words, I illustrate the depth, breadth, and contextuality of young people’s sustainability agency. This work summarizes the core findings of my dissertation, comprising four original research articles that utilize both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Theoretical framework

In recent years, despite the constraints mentioned above, young people have demonstrated their sustainability agency in many ways. Not only have we witnessed the rise of collective youth-led movements (Neas et al., 2022), but research has also identified the transformative potential of young people’s everyday activism (Skovdal & Benwell, 2021). Building on Bandura’s (2001) notion of agency, Koskela & Paloniemi (2023) defined sustainability agency as the overall desire and associated competencies to undertake actions of different modes to contribute to sustainability at various levels and scales. As people’s experiences, action contexts, and sustainability conceptions change over time, sustainability agency involves the need for continuous self-reflection and learning to adjust one’s actions (Koskela & Paloniemi, 2023).

Following the definition above, I understand sustainability agency as a combination of latent capacity and manifest actions. I approach the former using the concept of action competence, which originally describes an educational approach to foster critical, reflective, and pluralistic thinking by which learners can cope with complex sustainability issues (Mogensen & Schnack, 2010). However, Sass et al. (2020, p. 292) redefined action competence as an educational outcome to “articulate the competence of people to engage in solving sustainability issues”. Furthermore, I divide manifest actions into two categories or modes: sustainability behaviours are performed within the private sphere without challenging the current structures, while sustainability actions are usually collective and targeted at the systemic level (Oinonen & Paloniemi, 2023). Thus, the actions of young people range from behavioural modifications, such as changing one’s diet and cycling instead of driving, to social actions, such as volunteering and engaging in prominent collective movements.

This collection of studies uses both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative data includes independently collected surveys of young people from Finland (n = 1009, age = 15–29), England (n=512, age = 15–19), and Italy (n = 702, age = 12–20). These countries form an interesting combination of varying contexts in Europe, representing both Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and Mediterranean countries. Each survey is freely available online. The surveys included the Self-Perceived Action Competence Questionnaire, which comprises 12 items covering the three sub-constructs of action competence: knowledge of action possibilities, confidence in one’s own influence, and willingness to act (Olsson et al., 2020). In addition, the surveys included items reflecting private sphere sustainability behaviours and collective sustainability actions (Oinonen & Paloniemi, 2023). These constructs were used as a proxy for sustainability agency, considering both latent capacities (action competence) and manifest actions (behaviours and actions), amounting to five latent variables. I analysed the survey datasets using structural equation modelling (Kline, 2016) and mixture modelling (Ferguson et al., 2020). First, I assessed the structure and dimensionality of sustainability action and behaviour. Second, I examined the relationship between the sub-constructs of action competence and different modes of action. Third, I investigated the number and shape of sustainability agency profiles across the three selected countries. Finally, the qualitative analysis is based on workshop and group interview data collected during two sustainability-themed, multidisciplinary learning modules in Finland. In the learning modules, the students participated in an ongoing urban or regional planning process. In the workshops (n=10), the participants (n = 40; age = 13–18) discussed and constructed their understandings of sustainability and reflected on the agency associated with these understandings. The group interviews (n=10), arranged at the end of the learning modules, tapped into the participants’ experiences of participating in urban and regional planning while promoting sustainability. The participants also shared how their notions of sustainability had evolved over the learning modules. I analysed the qualitative data using the concept of frames (Entman, 1993) as a theory-driven, analytical tool.

First, starting from the qualitative evidence, the results show how young people may construct various meanings of sustainability, and that these “frames” are associated with different modes of action. The context of participation in urban and regional planning makes this interplay visible and demonstrates how young people may shift from one frame to another or abandon participation in favour of their self-enacted agency. Second, the results highlight the role of perceived knowledge in driving or inhibiting sustainability action. Structural equation modelling reveals a negative association between knowledge of action possibilities and sustainability action. I argue that the state of “not knowing” drives young people’s action towards systemic change. Finally, the results come together to outline profiles of young people’s sustainability agency, consisting of the core elements of action competence and the two modes of action. In addition to simple level differences in sustainability agency, the results illustrate patterns in which lower levels of perceived action competence are associated with high engagement in collective, systemic action, and vice versa. For environmental education and research, the results imply the need to be aware and sensitive to the different patterns of sustainability agency―patterns that may shift depending on context―and to adjust educational approaches accordingly. For example, young people who perceive low levels of action competence but already engage in sustainability action may benefit from approaches that support their self-efficacy and highlight dealing with uncertainty and worry. On the other hand, young people who express willingness and confidence but hardly participate in collective action may benefit from action-oriented approaches.

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