Sigtuna Think Piece 8: Piecing Together Conceptual Framings for Climate Change Education Research in Southern African Contexts

• Main Author: Heila Lotz Sisitka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Environmental Association of Southern Africa 2009-12-01
• Series: Southern African Journal of Environmental Education
• Online Access: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122808

This think piece considers a range of theoretical and conceptual tools that may assist with the emergence of a research agenda for climate change in education. It considers the conditions that are created by climate change in and for southern African contexts, and then deliberates which contextually related theoretical tools may be useful to frame research questions for climate change education. I consider the educational research implications of adaptation practices, reflexive justice and agency, reflexivity and capability, noting that a climate change education research agenda, not different to a wider reflexive environmental education research agenda dealing with transformative praxis in southern Africa, is essentially a sociologically and historically emergent ‘researching with’ agenda, and is in effect a social learning process. In putting together these conceptual framings for a climate change research agenda in southern Africa, I am interested in exploring how participatory social learning research may strengthen agency and reflexivity (development of capabilities) in response to socio-ecological conditions.