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Aiming Higher? Implications for Higher Education of Students’ Views on Education for Climate Justice
by Caine Rolleston 1,*ORCID,Jackline Nyerere 2,Luciana Brandli 3ORCID,Rosiana Lagi 4ORCID andTristan McCowan 1
1
Institute of Education, University College London, London WC1H0AL, UK
2
Department of Educational Management, Policy and Curriculum Studies, Kenyatta University, Nairobi P.O. Box 43844-00100, Kenya
3
Technology Institute, Postgraduate Program in Civil and Environmental Engineering (PPGEng), University of Passo Fundo (UPF), Passo Fundo 99052-900, RS, Brazil
4
Discipline of Education, School of Pacific Arts, Communication and Education, University of the South Pacific, Suva, Laucala Bay Road, Suva 1168, Fiji
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2023, 15(19), 14473; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151914473
Received: 30 July 2023 / Revised: 26 August 2023 / Accepted: 25 September 2023 / Published: 4 October 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Change Education and Sustainability Learning)
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Abstract
In 2023, a high number of climate disasters were recorded globally, highlighting the urgent dangers inherent in climate change and the inequities that result from its uneven impacts. Higher education institutions (HEIs) potentially play a crucial role in furthering climate justice through their research, teaching, community engagement and public awareness. Many students enter HEIs with high expectations concerning their education regarding climate change and more broadly of their institution’s contribution to climate action. In this article, we explore these expectations alongside the perceptions of students regarding how HEIs are delivering on them, i.e., the extent to which students are satisfied with their HEIs’ policies and practice on climate change. We employ data from a large-scale survey of more than 4000 students conducted by the Transforming Universities for a Changing Climate (Climate-U) project collected in nine HEIs in three countries (Brazil, Fiji and Kenya) during 2021–22. Results indicate that satisfaction among students in the sampled HEIs is often low, while expectations are typically high. There is some evidence that students in contexts already more directly exposed to the impacts of climate change were somewhat more active and more satisfied. Overall, students frequently expected to learn more about climate change than they were in fact learning and expressed high levels of environmental concern as well as some dissatisfaction with HEIs’ wider activities to limit the impact of climate change and to promote understanding of the issues. We discuss the findings in relation to the gaps between what students expect from their HEIs and what HEIs are currently doing in the three countries. Furthermore, we consider how HEIs in Brazil, Fiji and Kenya may improve their engagement with issues of climate change and respond to students’ views and expectations, including the promotion of preparedness for and resilience to the climate crisis and its effects
