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Climate Change Education in Ireland: Emerging Practice in a Context of Resistance

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Ireland and the Climate Crisis

Abstract

Children and young people’s lives are increasingly shaped by climate change. As we face the consequences of climate breakdown, this chapter argues there is a need for transformative approaches to Climate Change Education (CCE) which integrate climate science, global justice and collective citizenship action, in addition to addressing personal, social and environmental concerns, through child-centred engagement. The chapter examines the demands faced by teachers as they address the climate crisis and considers how their professional agency is shaped by their surrounding environments. The chapter then calls for coherent and coordinated governmental policy to enable forms of CCE that move beyond ‘soft’ apolitical approaches (Andreotti 2006; Selby 2017b) and provide a framework for educators to support the knowledge, understanding and collective action of children, young people and wider society.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Fionnuala Waldron, Benjamin Mallon & Maria Barry

  2. University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Gabriela Martinez Sainz

Authors
  1. Fionnuala Waldron
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  2. Benjamin Mallon
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  3. Maria Barry
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  4. Gabriela Martinez Sainz
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Correspondence to Fionnuala Waldron .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Communications, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    David Robbins

  2. School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Diarmuid Torney

  3. School of Communications, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Pat Brereton

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Waldron, F., Mallon, B., Barry, M., Martinez Sainz, G. (2020). Climate Change Education in Ireland: Emerging Practice in a Context of Resistance. In: Robbins, D., Torney, D., Brereton, P. (eds) Ireland and the Climate Crisis. Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47587-1_13

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