Presentation short abstract

Political ecology remains absent from education. This research introduces deliberative pedagogy to 378 students examining a local environmental controversy, demonstrating how citizenship deliberation must start in education to enable intergenerational environmental governance.

Presentation long abstract

Political ecology reveals how power shapes environmental narratives but this is largely unstudied in UK education. Amid a global polycrisis including the climate and environmental emergency and declining democratic trust, John Dewey's insight that "democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife" becomes urgent.

Young people are excluded from consequential civic and environmental decision-making, despite their human right to participate (UNCRC, 1989). Over their whole schooling, the English curriculum provides under 10 hours of mostly fact-based climate change knowledge (Tannock, 2020). This paper demonstrates how political ecology frameworks can be translated into classroom practice to support young people as critical citizens on complex environmental narratives.

Drawing on research in Cumbria, England, this paper presents experimental practice grounded in political ecology of education. Despite a decade-long controversy over a proposed local coal mine, 84% of 378 students (aged 11-14) across five schools were unaware of this development, learning about community issues through informal networks that perpetuate inequality.

I introduced deliberative pedagogy informed by citizens' assemblies, using Dryzek's environmental discourses to enable students to examine six competing narratives and whose interests each serves. Students deliberated competing values relating to economic development, job opportunities, energy security, heritage, the local environment and climate change.

Beyond knowledge mastery, political ecology in education develops skills foundational to equitable sustainability transitions. Alongside my JUST Centre research examining democratic, place-based innovations in Cumbria, this calls for citizenship deliberation that starts in education and is invited into the intergenerational conversation needed on environmental governance.