Science Education for Collective Agency in the Climate Crisis: A Social Identity Approach

In this era of climate crisis, science education must educate climate-literate citizens capable of steering the required transformation. According to the Vision III of scientific literacy, students need to be equipped with the civic ability to translate scientific knowledge into a values-driven transformation. However, if the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement is taken seriously, not only individual but also (and even more so) collective agency is of great importance to achieve rapid decarbonisation. Currently, science education focuses on promoting personal climate action of individual actors, neglecting the collective dimension and the way group processes shape the appraisal of and response to the climate crisis. To explore how science education can foster collective agency, we utilise the Social Identity Model of Pro-environmental Action (SIMPEA) from the field of environmental psychology. The SIMPEA describes how the three basic social identity processes of ingroup identification, collective efficacy beliefs and ingroup norms and goals influence the appraisal of and response towards a crisis. Based on the SIMPEA, we identify principles of education for transformation (PET) with the potential to enable group identification by individuals, which in turn shape appraisal and response, influencing whether an individual takes action in both the private and public spheres. This conceptual paper discusses five PETs and explores how and which social identity processes they can trigger. The PETs demonstrate that science education has a high potential to facilitate collective agency in the context of climate change. Furthermore, we synthesise key elements of social identity formation in science education, such as the usage of speculative projections into the future.