My doctoral dissertation develops utopian research in early childhood education (ECE) as a pathway for planetary citizenship. It addresses how utopia, understood as the imaginary reconstitution of society (Levitas, 2013), can make children’s complex environmental relations visible while opening space for unlearning harmful societal logics that reproduce ecological degradation and climate change. I define capitalist realism (Fisher, 2009) and intertwined coloniality (of power/knowledge/being/nature, de la Hoz et al., 2024) as sustaining forces behind the polycrisis and place these as explicit objects of pedagogical unlearning (McLeod et al., 2020; Azoulay, 2019; Zembylas, 2024).

A planetary perspective on citizenship examines humans’ multifaceted entanglements with societal life and the biosphere, as well as the lifelong formation of global agency and environmental stewardship. Conceptually, the study advances a planetary ethics of co‑responsibility (da Silva, 2011); a shift from individualized responsibility toward relational entanglements between human and non‑human worlds. A decolonizing approach to planetary ethics foregrounds not only this shared responsibility, but also understanding of historical justice, ecological interconnectedness and the imagination of decolonial futurities. Within this frame, utopia functions as a critical counter‑image of the present (Lakkala, 2020), oriented by a “desire for a better being” (Levitas, 2010, 9), thereby combining social critique and political imagination. In the context of ECE, utopian methodology becomes a child‑centered, playful means for imagining the world as we know it otherwise, and building capacities for environmental stewardship.

The project examines (1) the way small children (aged 5–6) articulate environmental relations and ideals of environmental agency in their lived societies; and (2) utopia’s pedagogical potential for unsettling unsustainable environmental relations and opening space for the re-imagination of these relations. The overall aim is to cultivate children’s political imagination and planetary understanding in critical environmental and sustainability education (ESE) by unsettling dominant narratives and unlearning colonial‑capitalist onto-epistemologies.

Research questions.

1. Theoretical: What does political imagination with 5–6‑year‑olds contribute to research on unlearning – specifically, unlearning capitalist realism and coloniality?
2. Methodological: How can children’s environmental relations and ideals of environmental agency be studied in an ethical and child‑centered manner amid the complex and politicized reality of the polycrisis?
3. Practical: Which research‑informed pedagogical practices are translatable to everyday ECE to both support planetary understanding and agency (learning) and dismantle unsustainable environmental relations (unlearning)?

Framing the ECE setting as a legitimate site of political subjectivity and utopian research, the project reconceives children not only as knowers of their immediate surroundings but also as political actors capable of utopian thinking. Although research on children’s political views has been conducted before, this tradition has largely focused on children’s understanding and views of societal phenomena in their existing forms – not on what society could be (Jost et al., 2022).

The data collection starts approximately in September 2026. No empirical data for my doctoral research will have been collected at the time of the ERC conference; this submission presents the design, theoretical framework and methodology of my doctoral research. I’m conducting my participatory case study as a learning project in kindergarten/preschool groups in Tampere (n = 5–6 groups; approx. 80 children). The project proceeds through three thematic dimensions of planetary relations: (1) wellbeing of organic life; (2) environmental protection; (3) translocal and transnational human wellbeing. With each group of children we will co-create a constitution of a utopian society – a child voiced text articulating values, rules, and societal structures of the world envisioned by the children. In addition, the groups will construct physical miniature worlds (with crafted figures, buildings, and ecosystems) among smaller artworks, such as drawings. The dataset will consist of the constitutions and children’s artworks, as well as recorded discussions, and optional short interviews. I'm conducting a qualitative content analysis based on the data and theory from critical ESE and decolonial/critical pedagogy. Analyses will map how children name sustainability challenges in present society; how they envision environmental agency and responsibility; and whether utopian research enables unsettling and unlearning of colonial capitalist assumptions in the ECE context. The research is conducted as part of an ongoing collaborative research project The civic potential of climate mobility (HUMANE-CLIMATE, Tampere University), which explores the potential of decolonial and art-based methods in creating empathic understanding of climate change and climate (im)mobilities. The H-C research data has been collected in primary school context and consists of ten-year-old children’s artworks about climate change (Kallio, Vainikka & Häkli, 2025; Kallio, Bowman & Vainikka, 2025). If data has to be included in an ERC presentation, I will gladly present this data, as it provides an important foundation from where my own research stems from. I have also co-written an article using this data (Kallio, Häkli, Vainikka & Tervaharju, submitted). The PI of HUMANE-CLIMATE and my dissertation supervisor is Kirsi Pauliina Kallio, the professor of environmental education in Tampere University.

Although the empirical work of my doctoral research begins after ERC, the study is expected to contribute to ESE as follows: 1. Conceptually: A refined account of planetary citizenship in ECE that centres co responsibility beyond the individual and recognises more than human entanglements, positioning unlearning as a core ethical pedagogical objective. 2. Methodologically: An actionable utopian methodology for ECE environmental education, demonstrating how utopian methods with young children can work as tools for diagnosing colonial capitalist logics and moving beyond them pedagogically. 3. Empirically: Typologies of children’s environmental relations and ideals of environmental agency across lived and imagined worlds; indications of how utopian research can expand children’s political imagination toward planetary scales while unsettling the formation of capitalist-colonial hegemonies. 4. Practically: Research informed practices translatable to everyday ECE (e.g., constitution making, miniature world building) plus a public art exhibition of children’s artworks and an open teaching material to support utopian ESE in kindergarten/preschool. Overall, the project aims to show that utopian methodology in ECE can cultivate active hope and political imagination for sustainability, enable unlearning of coloniality and capitalist realism, and contribute to a broader societal sustainability transformation by nurturing planetary citizenship in early childhood education.

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