The uneven ways in which climate change is taught (or not) within schools, and the uneven opportunities for students to experience action-oriented climate justice education, are curricular injustices. Recent systematic reviews of the Climate Change Education literature note a depoliticising tendency in climate change education, with official curriculum documents rarely engaging with issues of justice. This previous research raises questions of how young people involved in climate advocacy narrate their experiences of learning about climate change and justice in and beyond mainstream schooling. This research paper, co-authored with four Research Associates who are also climate justice advocates, explores young people’s stories of learning (or not) about climate change and climate justice in school and social movement spaces. These accounts were shared during formal research conversations with 61 people and written in 59 survey responses: all participants identified as involved in youth-led climate justice networks across Australia. We draw on the concept of curricular justice to analyse the inequitable distribution of opportunities to experience justice-oriented approaches to climate change for young people in Australian schools. Many of these young people describe turning beyond mainstream schooling to experience critical, collective and creative forms of climate justice education that bring climate change into direct connection with social justice. We argue that listening to young climate justice advocates’ accounts of their schooling experiences offers valuable insights about the current conditions for learning and acting on climate change in schools. These insights can productively inform the development of justice-oriented modes of climate change education.

Dr Eve Mayes

Eve Mayes is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer in Pedagogy and Curriculum. She currently lives and works on unceded Wadawurrung Country. Her publications and research interests are in the areas of student voice and activism, climate justice education, affective methodologies and participatory research. Eve is currently working on the ARC DECRA project: Striking Voices: Australian school-aged climate justice activism (2022-2025). She has ten years of experience as an English and English as an Additional Language Teacher in government secondary schools in Australia.