Conference Agenda

This proposal examines how climate mobility is (not) addressed in basic education in two EU contexts situated at opposite ‘mobility extremes’—Finland and Greece. We ask: (1) How do the national curricula and core teaching/learning materials represent climate change (CC) and its links to human (im)mobility? (2) What kinds of citizenship, responsibility and temporality are cultivated through these representations? (3) To what extent do materials enable a decolonising understanding of climate mobility as a translocal and transnational phenomenon? The objective is to map the curricular landscape, identify conceptual and pedagogical gaps, and propose directions for justice‑oriented climate mobility education in Europe. Our theoretical framework is a decolonising planetary citizenship approach. Building on da Silva’s reading of macro‑ethics of co‑responsibility in planetary citizenship and on post‑cosmopolitan ecological citizenship, we place shared responsibility for historically produced and unevenly distributed climate harms at the centre, while retaining human agency and dignity. We adopt a relative critique of anthropocentrism that acknowledges entanglements of human and non‑human agencies but resists strong posthumanist claims that may dilute human responsibility. The framework thus comprises three pillars: (i) acknowledgement of the coloniality of power, knowledge, being and nature in the globalised world; (ii) macro‑ethical co‑responsibility that exceeds the state‑citizen container; and (iii) emphasis on human agency and accountability without reinstating hierarchical human exceptionalism. Situated within climate change education (CCE) scholarship, our starting point is that CCE is commonly science‑centred, with social and political dimensions presented as temporally and spatially distant. Across contexts, the nexus between CC and mobilities is thin, and ‘climate/environmental refugees’ are often misrepresented as a legal category. Our cross‑country comparison shows how system design mediates these tendencies. In Finland, the Curriculum Criteria provide framework guidance that schools and teachers interpret locally; commercial publishers dominate textbook provision. In this context, sustainability is widely referenced, yet migration is sparsely addressed. Climate impacts are typically framed as future or elsewhere, generalising ‘the human’ and obscuring colonial‑industrial histories/presents and the macro‑ethical responsibilities of the Global North. Narrative or empathic entry points exist but are rare, and some materials mobilise posthumanist framings that risk weakening accountability. In Greece, curricula and textbooks are nationally produced and migration is a major theme across subjects from early primary onwards. Empathy‑building narratives—e.g., child‑centred stories of displacement—offer promising entry points for climate mobility education, and collective action plus systemic perspectives are emphasised. However, much explicit CCE content is placed in an optional environmental education course, limiting equitable access; some texts also reproduce problematic labels (e.g., ‘illegal immigrants’). Overall, neither country strongly recognises climate mobility through a decolonising lens, nor do materials consistently foreground planetary co‑responsibility as a here‑and‑now concern. By bringing these strands together, the study contributes a conceptual vocabulary and empirical mapping that can inform curriculum policy, teacher education and materials development. We argue for compulsory, cross‑curricular treatment of climate mobility; accurate political‑legal framing; and relational pedagogies that connect near/far and past/present, enabling students to see climate‑induced (im)mobility not as someone else’s problem in the future but as a shared responsibility in the present.

The climate crisis facing humanity, the accelerating depletion of natural resources, and deepening social inequalities have positioned sustainability as one of the most central global debates of our time. Sustainability offers a holistic framework in which economic, ecological, and social systems are understood not as separate domains but as interconnected and mutually reinforcing dimensions (OECD, 2001; Milne & Gray, 2013; Mensah & Enu-Kwesi, 2018; Purvis, Mao, & Robinson, 2018). This integrated perspective situates education as a key policy field for achieving sustainable development goals and shapes global discussions on the structural transformation of education systems.

Environmental education emerged as an international field in the 1960s, foregrounding ecological crises, climate change, and biodiversity loss as central educational concerns (UNESCO, 2017). Its normative foundations were established with the 1972 Stockholm Conference, which defined environmental protection as a global priority and a shared responsibility of governments worldwide (UN, 1972). The Belgrade Charter (1975) subsequently articulated the aims and principles of environmental education, while the Tbilisi Declaration (1977) strengthened its interdisciplinary and pedagogical integration. This historical trajectory evolved further with the Brundtland Report, marking a shift from environmental education towards Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), in which education was no longer framed as an isolated subject but as a process embedded across curricula and everyday school life (UN, 1987).

This transformation was institutionalised through UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development 2030 Roadmap, which provides a shared orientation for integrating sustainability into education systems. The Roadmap defines five priority action areas: policy development; transformation of learning and educational environments; capacity building for educators; youth empowerment and engagement; and accelerating sustainable solutions at the local level (UNESCO, 2020). Central to this framework is a whole-institution approach, which conceptualises educational institutions as comprehensive systems in which curriculum, governance, professional practices, and community relations are addressed in an integrated manner.

Within the European context, education for sustainable development has increasingly moved beyond awareness-based initiatives and has become a structural component of education policy. The Council Recommendation on Learning for Environmental Sustainability issued by the European Commission demonstrates that sustainability is framed not only in curricular terms but also as a policy domain encompassing school governance, institutional organisation, and collaboration with local stakeholders (European Commission, 2022). Comparative analyses conducted by UNESCO across 22 European countries similarly indicate that sustainability is being structured as a holistic institutional practice with pedagogical, organisational, and societal dimensions (UNESCO, 2024).

In Türkiye, sustainability has been framed as a key orientation of the education system through the Maarif Model and policy documents issued by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE, 2023). However, the integration of Education for Sustainable Development into the education system extends beyond curricular reform and requires the simultaneous consideration of pedagogical approaches, teaching and assessment practices, school operations, and institutional culture (UNESCO, 2012, cited in Swain & Mohanty, 2021). Despite this comprehensive framing, existing literature has predominantly focused on students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours, while giving limited attention to schools’ organisational structures, teachers’ professional roles, and the broader policy context (UNESCO, 2017; Sterling, 2016; Toy, 2025). Addressing this gap, the present study examines how environmental sustainability is approached as a multi-level structuring process within primary education.

Accordingly, this study analyses how environmental sustainability practices in primary schools are structured at individual, organisational, and system levels. Using UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development 2030 Roadmap as an analytical reference framework, the study aims to map how environmental sustainability is framed and operationalised through education policies and institutional practices in Türkiye.

As of 2019, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative reported that Indonesia possessed approximately 90 million hectares of tropical forest, making it the third largest in the world after Brazil and the Republic of Congo (IRI, 2019). In 2020, Global Forest Watch recorded a similar figure, noting that Indonesia had around 94 million hectares of natural forest, covering more than 50 percent of its total land area. Despite this ecological significance, by 2025 Indonesia had become the world’s largest producer and exporter of palm oil, accounting for 57 percent of global production and 50 percent of global exports (CPOPC, 2025). This expansion has coincided with the loss of approximately 11 million hectares of primary wet forest and 260 kilohectares of natural forest between 2002 and 2024. In aggregate, this loss generated an estimated 190 megatons (Mt) of carbon dioxide emissions, comparable to the cumulative emissions produced by tens of millions of automobiles over multiple years (GFW, 2025).

This pattern of ecological crisis is further evidenced by a series of recent natural disasters that occurred in three Indonesian provinces with extensive deforestation and mining zones –Aceh, West Sumatra, and North Sumatra– at the end of November 2025 (WALHI & Greenpeace, 2025). These events resulted in 1,141 deaths, displaced approximately 395,000 people, and left more than 150 individuals missing as of 30 December 2025 (Ramdhani, 2025). The disasters triggered widespread public protest, with many Indonesians criticizing excessive resource exploitation by powerful actors and highlighting the weakness of government policies in protecting ecological zones which are vital to both present and future generations.

Rooted in these persistent and widely contested conditions, this paper raises several foundational questions within the field of education: What has education done, or what can it do, to help address or prevent ongoing ecological destruction? Does education play a substantive role in fostering ecological awareness, or does it function largely as a formal obligation? And to what extent does education meaningfully contribute to mitigating Indonesia’s ecological crisis? Therefore, drawing on empirical deforestation data from Global Forest Watch and the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative between 2000 and 2024, this study examines how educational curricula have shaped ecological understanding within Indonesia’s schooling system. The analysis focuses on four national curricula implemented since 2004 and is guided by three research questions: (1) How have Indonesian curricula since 2004 shaped students’ understanding of nature, land, and natural resources? (2) What kinds of ecological subjects have been produced through schooling across these curricula? and (3) Do the ecological components embedded in these curricula meaningfully contribute to addressing Indonesia’s ecological challenges?