Abstract
Student initiatives for climate justice are driving forces in the climate change debate, but the psychological determinants of students’ engagement for climate justice have hardly been investigated so far. For this study, we posited student engagement for climate justice to be a form of collective action and analyzed psychological determinants of collective action as well as subjective processes of change in these determinants. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four individuals who were engaged in different student initiatives. The results of a qualitative content analysis showed that student collective action for climate justice as reported by the respondents reinforced some of the psychological conditions of collective action established in the literature, such as collective and participatory self-efficacy expectations and feelings of fear and anger. We also found, however, that (first-time) participation in collective action cannot be fully explained by those known predictors. A sense of responsibility, awareness of problems, and extrinsic motives, such as social contact, were also conducive to participation, whereas politicized collective identities did not play a significant role. Finally, we discuss the results against the background of existing theoretical considerations and outline implications for further psychological study of collective action.
Highlights
The analysis of psychological determinants for participation in collective action to bring about structural and sociopolitical changes is a central research area in environmental psychology research
Drawing on the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) by van Zomeren et al (2008), we describe several extensions developed in the context of privilege engagement, or engagement for the climate justice movement
At the time of the interviews, all of the interviewees spoke of their own initiatives in the “we” form, so that at some points it was necessary to ask more detailed questions whether the interviewees were talking about activities in which they themselves were involved or which were supported by other group members
Summary
The analysis of psychological determinants for participation in collective action to bring about structural and sociopolitical changes is a central research area in environmental psychology research. This is especially true in light of the assumption that climate change, as a collective problem, requires collective agency (van Zomeren et al, 2010; Rees and Bamberg, 2014). Student climate justice initiatives fit the psychological concept of collective action. Collective action can be performed by the privileged in solidarity with the disadvantaged (van Zomeren et al, 2011)
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