A didactic perspective on the existential in climate change education. Empirical clarifications and methodological tools

Abstract

Over the past decade, educational scholars have increasingly conceptualised climate change as an existential challenge. They highlight that students experience climate change as a problem in which life itself becomes the object of inquiry, prompting questions about what it means to be human, to live well, and to coexist with more-than-human others. They also point to the importance of taking these existential concerns seriously in educational settings, as well as to the significance of teachers’ didactic work in this regard. However, little research has empirically clarified how these existential concerns come about in educational practice and what the didactic work entails. This dissertation is guided by three central research questions: (1) what are the different ways in which the existential is experienced and expressed in Climate Change Education (CCE)? (2) how can we empirically grasp teachers’ didactic work in eliciting existential experiences and expressions? and (3) how can we empirically grasp the educative value of disruptive existential experiences? The theoretical framework of this dissertation is rooted in Dewey’s philosophy of education, contemporary transactional didactic theory, and a first-person perspective on language. Learning and teaching are thereby understood as a process of continuous ‘transaction’ between person and environment. The dissertation comprises three empirical studies conducted in Flemish higher education practices. The first study resulted in a typology of existential situations: existential moments, life quakes, dilemmas, deliberations, reflections on existential questions, reflections on existential experiences, and existential norms. The second study resulted in a model of existential questions in CCE and a methodology for investigating teachers’ didactic work. The third study resulted in a methodology for analysing the educative potential of disruptive existential experiences. This way, the dissertation provides an empirical clarification of the existential in climate change education and a methodological toolkit that enables the study of a didactic perspective on the existential in CCE.