Advancing into Spaces of Possibility: How the Fridays for Future Movement Intertwines Future-Making Practices with the Creation of Educational Formats

Abstract

The article explores the question of how political and pedagogical programs are intertwined in the process of designing a sustainable future, using the climate change protest movement Fridays for Future (FFF) as an empirical example. Particular attention is payed to the German Public Climate Schools, a collection of educational courses offered by FFF. The FFF movement emphasizes science and education and has created postdigital spaces for climate education. The article outlines the connection between education and the future, describes FFF and its approach to designing a sustainable future, explores the educational spaces developed by the movement via an analysis of some of the movement’s Twitter (now rebranding as ‘X’) feeds and web site, and provides a basis for further reflection and exploration. It is argued that the FFF movement represents a contemporary form of political future practice that is focused on creating a livable and shapeable future within a postdigital context.

Bildung für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung im Umbruch?

“…It not only seems necessary as an intellectual pursuit to look beyond individualism to explore relational, posthuman, material aspects of education for sustainable development (ESD). It also seems necessary in response to the upheaval brought into (formal) education by young people in the wake of Fridays for Future, the Last Generation and other contemporary protest movements (Jergus & Schmidt, 2023). Julia Steinberger (2022) describes this in an article titled "The kids are not ok".…”