‘Standing back’ or ‘stepping up’? Exploring climate change education policy influence in England

Abstract

This paper explores the nature of climate change education‐related policy influence in England at a time when public consciousness about the need to accelerate climate change action was heightened, and as the 2018 climate strikes gathered momentum around the world. Informed by Foucault's concept of ‘governmentalities’, and using data generated through 24 exploratory interviews and reflexive thematic analysis, we examine the extent to which influential individuals were advocating for policy change. We discuss the nature of policy influence with particular reference to the ‘stances’ that individuals adopted relative to climate change education policy influence and noting a common tendency exhibited amongst participants which was a tendency towards ‘deference’. Coupling our insights with theorisations of dissent, we consider how ‘infra‐political dissent’ could support key individuals to ‘step up’ and influence for more effective policy relative to climate change education, and to other areas of education or environment policy.

Exploring educational tourists' perceptions of climate change on a small Mediterranean island: a qualitative analysis

“…Climate change education is recognized as a necessary solution to enrich a desirable scenario in climate change discourse (Greer et al, 2023) The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1755-4217.htm education for tourism students (Zhao and Ewert, 2021). Tourism students, as future tourism decision-makers, will have a significant impact on the industry; therefore, climate change education is critical in shaping their climate and environmental behavior (Lee et al, 2020).…”

“…Climate change education is recognized as a necessary solution to enrich a desirable scenario in climate change discourse (Greer et al ., 2023). According to Kolenatý et al.…”