Deferral, Agency, and Hope: Pre-Service Social Studies Teachers Making Sense of the Pedagogical Demands of Engaging Climate Crisis

Abstract

The paper examines how pre-service social studies teachers conceptualise the complex knowledge of the climate crisis. By analyzing a small group discussion following a pedagogical encounter with climate crisis in a teacher education program, and employing the notion of difficult knowledge, the author theorizes through the discourses of deep pessimism, deferral and hopefulness in the sense-making processes. The analysis reveals the multitude of challenges pre-service teachers face as they work to make sense of climate crisis both for themselves and in imagining the pedagogical demands of engaging young adolescents in issues of climate crisis in their future classrooms.