Pedagogical principles for encouraging (socially just) youth climate action: A schema for citizenship education curriculum analysis

Abstract

This article synthesizes pedagogical principles for supporting youth climate action from across local (Ontario) and global literature. It also seeks out stories of Indigenous youth engaging in climate action in distinct ways—highlighting examples from Sioux (of Standing Rock) and Inuit youth. The authors propose the Pedagogical Principles for Supporting Climate Action curriculum analysis schema before using it to examine the Ontario citizenship framework. The findings reveal how the curriculum segment in its current form is incongruent with the pedagogical principles of supporting youth climate action. The authors articulate both immediate and urgent curriculum revisions that are necessary for supporting youth in socially just climate action—with a call for immediate revisions that include a shift toward centering Indigenous knowledges, integrating climate justice and upholding relationality to the land and all that it sustains.