Environmental Justice Pedagogies and Self-Efficacy for Climate Action

Abstract

As institutions of knowledge and innovation, colleges and universities have a responsibility to prepare students to lead in a world impacted by climate change. While sustainability and climate change have been increasingly addressed on campuses, several aspects of typical climate change education, such as the use of fear appeals, and crisis narratives, have served to disempower and disengage students from the issue. Evidence suggests that incorporating justice-oriented concepts and pedagogies may help students build the skills and confidence to engage in complex social concerns. This qualitative study sought to understand the ways in which an undergraduate environmental justice course at the University of Michigan might contribute to students’ sense of self-efficacy for climate change action. Findings indicated that teaching from a justice perspective supported students’ understanding of root causes, the need for collective action, and their empathy for others. Self-efficacy for climate action was most apparent when students were (1) confident in a particular skill set and (2) when the scale of the problem matched their ability to address it. This supported prior evidence that environmental justice can serve as a critical pedagogical approach for encouraging engagement and empowerment in climate action.

1. Introduction

As global emissions of greenhouse gasses continue to rise, the impacts of human-induced climate change, such as droughts, flooding, heatwaves, and the spread of infectious diseases, will increase in frequency and severity [1]. These hazards pose a serious threat to the health and stability of current and future generations and will disproportionately harm vulnerable and disadvantaged communities [2]. Given the intersecting complexities of social, technical, behavioral, and governmental systems, it is widely recognized that transformative change will be necessary for humanity to mitigate and adapt to climate change safely and equitably. While communities, institutions, and organizations of all scales must ultimately participate in and contribute to these transformations, higher education institutions are well suited to play a leadership role. Higher education institutions have a responsibility as institutions with the capacity to research, develop, and pilot social and technological innovations for climate adaptation and mitigation [2], and to promote societal transformations [3]. Pursuing leadership training on the institutional level is critical to higher education’s role within society. As developers of climate change solutions, perhaps the most important role higher education institutions play is in training and developing the perspective, knowledge, and skills of the next generation of leaders.

For education to be effective at developing future leaders, it must go beyond providing students with a mastery of content and knowledge; it must also foster skills necessary for students to effectively act on their knowledge to produce positive change. In this way, leadership education can be seen as the development of students as agents of change. While literature on climate change education lacks a direct definition or shared list of competencies for climate change leadership, empowering students to engage in the issue and feel capable of making a difference is a critical first step. However, approaches for depicting and teaching climate change, such as the use of fear appeals and crisis narratives, often have had the opposite effect, and have served to disengage and disempower students from the issue [4].

Given this problem of disengagement and disempowerment, an area for improvement in climate change education for leadership is to adapt teaching and pedagogies to support students’ engagement and interest in being change agents for climate change. The theory of self-efficacy is useful for examining leadership development, as it describes one’s confidence in their ability to address difficult tasks, make meaningful changes, and may also help evoke and develop positive emotional responses [5]. The field of environmental justice (hereafter referred to as EJ) offers a disciplinary lens that may help provide a vehicle for developing self-efficacy for taking climate action. However, little research has been done on the incorporation of EJ into sustainability curricula, particularly at the level of higher education [6]. As such, this qualitative study examined self-efficacy as related to outcomes for an undergraduate EJ course at the University of Michigan (UM). Reflecting on the course design and on the course’s climate change centered final project, this study sought to answer the following research question: How does using social justice pedagogies in a college-level environmental justice course support students’ self-efficacy for combating climate change?

2. Literature Review

Efforts to promote proactive responses to climate change through education typically start with the premise that climate change knowledge leads to climate change concern, which in turn encourages behavior change and engagement with the issue [7]. However, while most young adults in the United States have some awareness and understanding of climate change, studies have found that young Americans are quite disengaged and disconnected from the topic [8,9,10,11]. Even after participating in science courses that dealt with concepts and consequences of climate change, Cordero et al. found that students’ personal engagement remained low [9]. If the goal of climate change education is to equip and empower students to become active and effective leaders of climate solutions, it is critical to understand the causes of this disconnect between knowledge and engagement.

2.1. Emotional Factors Influencing the Disconnect between Knowledge and Engagement

The gap between awareness and engagement in climate change can be partially explained by research on the emotional implications of climate change communications, messaging, and teaching. Fear appeals are prevalent in climate change messaging, which employ narratives of alarmism, catastrophe, crisis, and doom [4]. Even though fear-based appeals can successfully capture people’s attention, they are also likely to distance or disengage individuals from climate change by invoking feelings of hopelessness, despair, anxiety, being overwhelmed, and even denial when comprehending the enormity and complexity of the problem [4,7]. As such, fearful representations of climate change may be counterproductive in terms of motivating engagement and behavior change because individuals perceive low levels of agency or control [12,13]. The sheer scale of climate change, both geographically and temporally in terms of causes and impacts, is an inherently difficult feature of climate change that also causes and reinforces these negative emotional responses of disengagement and hopelessness. In a study of high school students and young adults in the United Kingdom, O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole found that individuals tended to conceive of climate change as a global and distant issue, which made individual actions or behavior changes to reduce carbon consumption feel meaningless in relation to the scale of the problem [4]. In another study examining young adults (age 18–24) in Australia, Jones and Davidson found that, in contrast to the perception of education as empowering, participants described how educational experiences around climate change left them feeling stripped of power, abandoned by older generations, and anxious about a future dominated by climate change [14]. Findings from these studies are not unique, as numerous studies have identified concerning emotional responses to climate change messaging and education, including fear [4,7], anxiety [14,15], sadness/despair/grief [7,14], powerlessness/lack of control [4,7,14], helplessness [4,15,16], hopelessness/fatalism [15,16], and denial [4,7,16]. Given these common emotional outcomes, the challenge for climate change educators and communicators becomes finding ways to convey the reality of the threats while fostering the sense that something can be done and that individuals, communities, and societies can make a difference [17].

2.2. Self-Efficacy: A Valuable Framework for Evaluating and Elevating Empowered Engagement

For climate change education to be effective at fostering the development of students as engaged leaders with the skills and capacities to address climate change, pedagogy must actively work to counter the pervasive forces of hopelessness and disempowerment that serve to disengage students from the issue. One way to do this may be through teaching self-efficacy as related to engaging in climate actions. The concept of self-efficacy, as used in behavioral and education research, can serve as a useful framework for understanding and evaluating students’ confidence, sense of agency, and hopefulness that their actions can make a difference in the context of climate change. Self-efficacy describes a person’s belief in their ability to address a particular task or situation [18]. Produced through mastery experiences, seeing the success of others completing similar tasks, a supportive environment, and a positive emotional state, self-efficacy is a key component of understanding what motivates people to persist in difficult situations [19]. Self-efficacy for leadership has been shown to be a predictor of a person’s willingness to take on multiple leadership roles [20]. Furthermore, collective efficacy, defined as a group’s belief in their collective ability to successfully accomplish a goal, has been used to describe the ways in which communities respond to environmental stressors such as climate change [21,22]. Evidence suggests that the emotional components of self-efficacy construction may have a direct connection to feelings of hope, potentially making efficacy a useful framework for understanding experiences of hope and hopelessness toward climate change. Some scholars have identified that an increased sense of efficacy evokes feelings of hope, which in turn has a positive influence on desired attitudinal and behavioral outcomes for climate change [23,24,25]. Given the apparent importance and usefulness of self-efficacy as a construct for measuring and fostering hope, empowerment, and future action or engagement, it is crucial to understand what content and pedagogical approaches are effective at elevating students’ sense of self-efficacy regarding climate change.

2.3. Benefits of Incorporating Environmental Justice Framings

Research suggests that teaching about climate change through the disciplinary lens of EJ may be one approach for increasing students’ sense of efficacy, hopefulness, and empowerment, thus supporting the development of students as leaders and transformative agents in the face of climate change. EJ is the name and master framing describing the intersection of social justice and environmental factors [26]. It is concerned with the equitable distribution of environmental burdens and benefits across communities [27] and refers to the “cultural norms and values, rules, regulations, behaviors, policies, and decisions [that] support sustainable communities where people can interact with confidence that the environment is safe, nurturing, and productive” [28] (p. 17). Despite a strong and positive sentiment toward EJ among educators and an increasing focus on sustainability topics/programs in higher education, EJ perspectives have generally not yet been deeply or meaningfully incorporated into courses on sustainability and climate change [6,29,30]. Agyeman and Crouch described this lack of integration as the disciplinary domination of ‘sustainability as science’ within environmental studies [27] (p. 123). They argue that the complexities and ‘overtly political’ nature of EJ makes it challenging for scientifically trained educators to teach ‘sustainability as justice and equity. Despite this context, there is little published literature discussing the actual implications and impacts of utilizing EJ perspectives in teaching and learning for sustainability, particularly within higher education [27,29]. While the literature on the impacts of EJ education may be limited, scholarship on social justice education (hereafter referred to as SJE) offers insights into the ways that centering justice perspectives in sustainability and climate change education may provide critical benefits for students that traditional approaches are less successful at achieving. In turn, SJE may support self-efficacy for climate action.

A core tenet of SJE is that it empowers students by centering learning that aims to rectify injustices rather than simply identify and study them [31,32,33,34,35]. This process of student empowerment is facilitated through a justice-oriented pedagogy that emphasizes social responsibility and tools for social action. A common foundation of SJE is the concept of social responsibility [29,36,37,38], which instills in students the notion that all people have a responsibility to understand oppressive systems of power, reflect on their position within these systems, and work to remedy injustices created by these systems. Teaching about justice through a framework of social responsibility, alternatively referred to as an ethic of care [39], encourages the development of and commitment to a shared set of values and serves to develop students’ sense of empathy, benevolence, and efficacy [29,39,40,41]. Additionally, SJE prioritizes learning around the processes and tools for social action and social change [38,42,43,44]. Along with content covering social action, SJE often incorporates developing and practicing real-world change-making skills through exercises in participatory action research, service-learning projects, involving students in partnerships with local organizations, and other civic engagement activities that connect the course content to meaningful and relatable student action experiences [42,43,44]. Prioritizing a social action approach plays a role in emotional impacts, as providing students with the knowledge and tools of social change “is critical to help move students from cynicism and despair to hope and possibility” [38] (p. 106). The SJE pedagogical approach of social responsibility and action for social change helps “students develop the knowledge, skills, self-confidence, and motivation necessary for positive social engagement with issues of social justice” [44] (p. 558). Empirical studies, primarily within k-12 education, argue this sentiment is accurate, as findings have indicated that students who have taken courses on social justice are more confident and committed to social action broadly, show greater behavioral intentions, and exhibit actual increases in social-change oriented actions by the end of the course [44]. While there is less available empirical evidence for these findings within higher education, a study by Miller et al. found that as college students’ self-efficacy regarding social justice increased, their positivity regarding outcome expectations of social justice activities also increased as well as their interest in participating in such activities, suggesting that SJE within higher education settings has comparable outcomes to those of the k-12 study [45].

Since EJ can be considered a subfield of social justice [46], these outcomes of increased engagement, empowerment, and interest in social action would likely be seen from courses taught through the lens of EJ. Considering the evidence that disengagement and hopelessness are common outcomes of climate change education, centering EJ perspectives and elevating SJE approaches could serve as a critical pedagogical framework for improving climate change education. In addition to the benefits of increased engagement, incorporating EJ and SJE approaches in higher education can also help equip future leaders with the interdisciplinary skills to address both environmental and social aspects of pressing socio-ecological challenges in context of the inherently social, political, technical, and economic complexities of sustainability crises such as climate change [6]. Furthermore, recent studies suggest that effective sustainability leaders should be well trained in theories and practices of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion [47]. Many scholars recognize these potential benefits and have called for the broader incorporation of EJ into higher education sustainability curricula [30,46], as well as further research to assess its integration and outcomes for student learning [6]. The study presented in this article addresses this research gap by providing findings on the effect an undergraduate EJ course taught at UM had on students’ sense of self-efficacy for addressing climate change. Findings indicated self-efficacy for engaging in climate actions was supported by students’ confidence in applicable skill sets. Students expressed more confidence in their ability to apply related skills and execute actions at a local, as opposed to national or global, scale. This supports prior evidence that together environmental justice perspectives and social justice education can serve as a critical pedagogical approach for encouraging engagement and empowerment in climate action.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Site and Sample

The setting for this study was the undergraduate course Introduction to Environmental Justice, offered through the UM’s Program in the Environment. There were sixty-nine students enrolled in the course. In the fall of 2020, the time of this study, the course was taught online due to UM’s guidelines related to COVID-19. The fourteen-week, fifty-minute lecture course used historic references, case studies, media, and lectures from local activists, to examine the ways in which social justice concerns are deeply entwined with the creation of, and access to, the environments in which we work, live and play. The first half of the course critically examined the development and planning of urban centers through the framing of poverty and disease, workers’ rights, union organizing, and the planning of public spaces. The second half used this base to explore the development and framing of the contemporary EJ movement. During this time, students consider the application of justice constructs and movement framing to contemporary issues of access to nature, water rights, the food system, and climate change. The final unit addressed the disproportionate impact of climate change on front-line, low-income, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color) communities. The ways in which these communities and their allies are organizing to mitigate and adapt to these effects were also shared.

Across the arc of the course, the instructor integrated SJE and active learning techniques. Active learning techniques have been defined broadly as the process of engaging students in course content through in-class activities that ask students to reflect, critique, and apply content [48]. (For more information on active and engaged learning please see UM’s Center for Research, Learning, and Teaching website: Introduction to Active Learning [49].) Course assessments included short writing assignments, a term paper completed in pairs, a group project, and the final reflection assignment. At the end of the climate change unit, for the final assessment, students were asked to imagine they were applying for a job with a climate change organization and to write a cover letter describing the skills they could bring to that organization. The prompt for the cover letter asked students to address the following questions: Why do you want to work for this organization? What skills and perspectives from the course can you bring to the work? and What do you hope the organization could accomplish in the next five years? The cover letter served as a way for students to describe how they might apply knowledge theories, skills, or perspectives they had learned in the course in a job setting.

3.2. Data Collection

In this course the final assessment was a cover letter in which students were to share course learnings with a prospective employer working on climate change or climate justice. Sixty-eight cover letters, from the sixty-nine enrolled students were collected for analysis. One student did not submit a final assignment. Assignments from coursework are considered a form of text data and were explored for student learning [50,51]. This final assessment allowed students to self-describe the skill sets from the course they could draw on or implement in a future imaginary job. Bandura describes self-efficacy as “concerned with perceived capability” [52] (p. 308). Therefore, the skills and related proposals for applying those skills students described acted as a proxy for self-efficacy for climate action. The course pedagogy (setting, EJ approach, content, active teaching methods, and SJE techniques) was a case examined for the ways it supported or hindered students’ self-efficacy for taking climate action.

3.3. Data Analysis

Content analysis was applied to the cover letters for the ways in which students described their skill sets for a potential employer in the climate movement. Content analysis is an inductive coding process that avoids preconceived codes and looks to the data for emergent categories [53]. After coding a third of the assignments, the emergent themes reached saturation, that is no new concepts were found. Axial coding was then applied to the data. Axial coding is the process by which relationships within and across coded data are related [51,54]. In this study, axial coding produced a set of five thematic codes which were applied to the entire data set. The data in these themes were then examined for the constructs that build self-efficacy. The constructs of self-efficacy include mastery experiences (confidence in one’s ability to address a task), vicarious experiences (opportunities to learn from others’ struggles and successes), a supportive environment, and a positive emotional affect [5]. The fourth and least studied construct of efficacy construction, that of positive affect, was not examined in this study. In the process of reviewing the data across the five categories, two significant themes relevant to self-efficacy construction for engaging in climate change action emerged. The course pedagogy (approach, content, active teaching methods, and SJE techniques) and the pandemic context leading up to the final assignment were reviewed for the ways in which they supported or mitigated students’ self-efficacy as related to taking future climate action.

4. Results

4.1. Content and Course Delivery

The content of this introductory course included the examination of the root causes of current environmental inequities and the tactics communities are using to remedy these situations. Visiting activists, films and other media highlighted the vision, personal commitment, planning, and organizing work of activists across the country addressing local EJ concerns. These activities provided current examples of the social and environmental impacts of environmental injustice. Assignments across the arc of the course moved from understanding content to the application of theories and were facilitated utilizing active teaching techniques including Think-Pair-Share, Minute Papers, Case Studies, and Jigsaw Discussions. Course assessments included short-answer take-home exams, a term paper, small group presentations, and numerous opportunities for individual participation. These included but were not limited to individual reflections, in-class small group work, and a weekly discussion section taught by the graduate student instructor (GSI). Beyond these experiences, students were unable to practice concepts or skill applications in real-world settings. UM’s Center for Learning, Research, and Teaching differentiates active learning from engaged learning noting that engaged learning provides opportunities for students to collaborate in an authentic setting with stakeholders [49]. Students in this course did not participate in engaged learning activities, like service-learning activities or volunteer work.

4.2. Final Course Assessment

The final assessment focused on the application of theories and concepts learned throughout the semester to the issue of climate change. Furthermore, it asked students to imagine their role in applying those concepts to a climate justice concern of their choice. Descriptions of the knowledge and skills students shared in their cover letters were organized into five categories. These themes are defined below, and examples of each theme are included in

Table 1. Quotes exemplifying knowledge and skills in student cover letters.

Theme	Assignment Text
Policy Intervention	Lastly, I want to introduce the idea of advocating for laws to be passed for easier access to government-provided healthcare for low-wage workers and their families. Although one of the (redacted) Foundation’s main missions is to raise the wages of factory workers, their salary often isn’t high enough to cover the cost of their health conditions. Many of these health concerns, which are sometimes fatal, are a consequence of working in these dangerous conditions…In conclusion, the three perspectives that I could bring to the (redacted) Foundation are mandating company-provided personal protective equipment, organizing efforts for ecological protection for the proximate communities, and advocating for government-provided healthcare.
Advocacy and Education for Change	This organization focuses on educating the children and general public of California, but I would love to help create an education program directed at the policy makers and other government officials, as we learned their opinions and framing are critical for creating effective solutions. I hope that this organization can institute a “future policy makers” educational program for highschoolers interested in pursuing careers as public servants and environmentalists.
Research as Advocacy	I hope to add to] the body of research about how gender is related to the impacts of climate change, and perhaps more specific research on how women of different identities are affected.
The Necessity of Collaboration	As an employee, I would be most excited to help amplify the voices of local communities who are trying to share their own knowledge and experiences about clean water issues. This class has shown that small communities can make a difference but they need recognition and allies in the political sector. Projecting the local experiences and connecting communities with other advocates and policymakers will help make knowledge of the issue more widespread and lead to more people helping to develop solutions.
A Justice Perspective	Two ideas that I believe should really be considered when creating such recommendations include climate justice and distributive justice. Climate justice states that our current unjust economic and political systems cause climate change. With this in mind, I would recommend that FACA creates policy recommendations that target the systematic issues in the agriculture industry. For example, I would recommend creating policy recommendations that focus on regulating unethical Big Ag companies that use their monopolistic practices to exploit farmers and the environment. The effect of improving the economic and ethical environment of the agriculture industry would trickle down in ways that would promote more sustainable practices and help support smaller, local farmers.

.

Policy Intervention: Calls for enforcing laws already in existence, passing new legislation, and increasing opportunities for engagement in decisions. Comments suggesting organizations should support participatory decision-making and transparency of processes at the local, state, and federal levels.

Advocacy and Education for Change: Calls for organizing direct action events, empowering communities with education and information as well as educating those whose behaviors are adding to the climate crisis. Proposals in the cover letters for listening to those most impacted and students’ ability and desire to “lift up the voices” of others as a way to increase empathy and understanding;

Research as Advocacy: Recommendations for collecting and disseminating data on environmental inequities. Reminders of the need to understand root causes, historic context, systemic inequities, and the intersection of social identities and the impact of environmental burdens.

The Necessity of Collaboration: Proposals that describe the need for collaboration between and across multiple sectors and multiple scales (communities, NGOs, government agencies, and private industry). Descriptions detailing the importance of local knowledge, meaningful relationships, and listening to those most impacted to bring about change.

A Justice Perspective: Students’ descriptions of their ability to bring a justice lens to the efforts of their chosen organization. Applications of course content to specific issues of concern for an organization, or to a proposed course of action for that organization.

From these themes, two additional concepts emerged reflective of self-efficacy for climate action and leadership. These concepts described here as “I Can” and “You Should” reflect the ways in which students positioned themselves in relationship to their proposals for action. Students indicated self-efficacy in their content knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge when they described specific actions they could take to support the mission of their chosen organization. Alternatively, students indicated less self-efficacy in their ability to make change when they made more general and sweeping proposals for change. In these cases, students’ proposals were framed as something the organization should work toward, but not something the student could accomplish themselves.

5. Limitations

There are limitations related to using an assignment as qualitative data that should be considered. While an assignment can be considered textual data, responses to an assignment are constrained by the assignment instructions. In the case of students’ cover letter assignments, students may have expressed slightly greater confidence in their abilities than they would have perceived themselves to have in a real job application setting. That noted, students were able to describe and apply content knowledge and skill sets of their choice to the prompts, and as indicated in our results, how they described those skills pointed towards varying levels of self-efficacy. The COVID-19 crisis required that the course be taught in an online format. There were numerous related technical challenges and students’ stress levels may have impacted their capacity to concentrate and comprehend complex material. These circumstances were not unique to this course but note that with the focus of this study on self-efficacy and its relationship to skill-building, a discussion of the learning environment in this context is integral to our findings. This was a study of a particular curriculum and classroom setting, and as such, there is limited generalizability of the study to other classroom conditions. Nevertheless, the findings indicate the utility of incorporating an EJ lens and/or SJE teaching techniques as a way to support self-efficacy for climate leadership even in courses not focused on EJ content.

6. Discussion

This study sought to understand the ways in which teaching climate change in an Introduction to Environmental Justice course that utilized SJE pedagogies supported the self-efficacy of students as agents of change for combating climate change. To explore self-efficacy, each student’s final assignment was analyzed considering the SJE pedagogical tools used across the semester. Together course content and teaching strategies supported a foundation for self-efficacy for climate action while the context of learning in the pandemic had mitigating effects on this foundation. From their cover letters, a set of five themes emerged: A Justice Perspective, Policy Interventions, Advocacy and Education for Change, Research as Advocacy, and the Necessity of Collaboration. These themes highlighted the areas in which students felt confident in their ability to apply their learned knowledge and skills to a proposed action. Alternatively, they also pointed to where students called for action, next steps, and strategic goal setting but suggested that their prospective future employer take responsibility for those actions. Our analysis indicates that how students situated themselves as change agents able to apply and implement those skills is important for understanding how pedagogy may support self-efficacy for climate action. Furthermore, the differences in how they situated themselves as change agents may point educators to pedagogical approaches and content areas that may support self-efficacy construction for climate change action and eventual leadership.

6.1. Course Delivery: Can an EJ Framework Support Self-Efficacy for Taking Climate Action?

This course content utilized EJ theories and concepts to expose and engage students in thinking critically about the root causes of current environmental injustices and how these injustices might be addressed. The nature of the content shared in an EJ course aligns with the tenets of SJE pedagogy that propose helping students to understand complex causes and impacts of injustice as well as providing avenues for them to take action to right such inequities. Content knowledge was built through case studies that highlighted inequitable access to healthy environments, illustrating the harsh realities of environmental injustice across multiple communities in a variety of physical environments. Discussion sections, small group conversations, and individual reflections provided a place for students to discuss and reflect on challenging concepts. An SJE approach helped students examine these cases from a perspective of social responsibility and an ethic of care. In keeping with SJE approach readings, assignments and discussions asked students to critically examine the historic context of these environmental crises. Furthermore, they were asked to examine the social positionality and agency of actors in EJ case studies. When describing environmental injustices, the instructor and the graduate teaching instructor (GSI) shared related tactics of resistance, including but not limited to legal, scientific, and organizing efforts. The complexities of ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ a fight for change were discussed in the context of larger movement framing and long-term movement building. Such observations of individual and collective agency provided students with concrete examples of how fights for justice evolved and even won over time. Film clips and guest speakers highlighted local organizers’ passion for their work as related to their personal identities. Together these activities emphasized empathy and understanding of the processes and actions taken for social justice actions, core tenets of SJE. They are also reflective of the construct of self-efficacy referred to as vicarious experience that describes the importance of observing others persevere at a difficult task [5]. Together these teaching approaches allowed for multiple experiences for students to vicariously observe social and environmental change-making efforts from individuals and groups of people.

While vicarious observations were consistent across the course, hands-on skill-building was less available to students. SJE pedagogy suggests that community-engaged or service projects allow students to apply skills learned in class in a non-academic setting. Likewise, experiences that build towards the mastery of a skill set are key to the construction of self-efficacy. The online format, large enrollment, and pandemic context did not allow for any hands-on community engagement activities in this course. As such, students did not have hands-on experience to practice social justice actions and build skill mastery in a community-based context. Students practiced skills including the critical examination of complex social-environmental concerns and the application of ideas, theories, and tactics to address such problems through peer-to-peer teaching and facilitation, a term paper, and group projects. Such practices may be a first step towards building mastery experiences but may not be as effective as the ability to participate directly in community-engaged projects.

As a supportive environment is also a construct of efficacy construction the context in which the course was taught bears discussion. This course was taught during the COVID-19 pandemic and a short time after the death of Mr. George Floyd. This health crisis and the political climate of a nation rocked by racial violence changed the UM Campus learning environment. Students and faculty were challenged by the new online learning environment and the stresses of the pandemic and racial tensions that elicited student and faculty worker strikes. Given the environmental and social justice implications of these events, the instructor used the national and campus context to talk about the framing of strike arguments and laid the groundwork for discussion on labor organizing later in the course. Likewise, the intersections of racial discrimination and COVID-19 were integrated into explorations of root cause analysis and the use of racialized frames of disease. By mid-semester, the instructor noted students falling behind on readings and multiple students were reporting mental health distress. With these stressors in mind, the instructor removed several required readings from the syllabus. Mid-term course evaluations indicated that some students appreciated these efforts. These students reflected that they were relieved to be talking about the impacts of COVID-19 and the campus-wide strike in support of the GSI’s in the classroom setting. Other students expressed frustration and shared that syllabus changes were disorienting to their study habits. Despite the use of SJE and active learning practices, the national mood and on-line learning environment challenges may have mitigated students’ learning and self-efficacy construction.

6.2. Taking Climate Actions: The Final Assessment

The final course assessment which specifically focused on involvement in climate change indicated that generally, students were confident in their ability to apply justice concepts to a broad range of climate concerns. Their self-efficacy for action was illustrated within the three themes of A Justice Perspective, Advocacy and Education for Change, and Research as Advocacy. Here, students’ comments offered detailed descriptions in which they explicitly connected their skill set to next steps for their organization often saying “I can do” or I will do” a particular action on behalf of the organization. The use of “can” is a descriptor in the process of judging one’s capacities and therefore one’s self-efficacy [52]. The phrasing of their answers was an indication of confidence in their ability to apply their learned knowledge and skills to a proposed action. Understanding that experience and skill mastery are key constructs of self-efficacy construction [5,48], the ‘how’ and ‘who’ of students’ proposals acted as a proxy for self-efficacy construction. Findings across all five themes indicated that students differentiated between what they thought they could accomplish as an individual (What I Can Do) and what they thought the organization should implement (What You Should Do).

The ways in which students situated themselves as change agents able to apply and implement those skills are important for understanding how pedagogy may support self-efficacy for climate action. Those who made detailed proposals describing that which they could personally implement indicated confidence in their knowledge and their ability to apply it. Their specific ideas for action were closely aligned with skills that they might implement on the job. Self-efficacy for climate action was implied as students said, ‘I can do this’ climate action for your organization. Alternatively, students who proposed broad or vague action steps rarely indicated their role in that change. They proposed ideas as something for the organization to do, but not as something they could play a role in bringing to fruition. In doing so they did not express a sense of self-efficacy for that action. This was illustrated in the theme of Policy Interventions where students’ proposals were broad sweeping and less connected to their skill set indicating less self-efficacy for their personal ability to act. While they offered suggestions for action, next steps, and strategic goal setting they suggested that their prospective future employer take responsibility for those actions. They did not describe their own ability to take those steps. Rather than explicitly stating, “I can do this”, they suggested, “You should do this”. As illustrated in the theme of the Necessity of Collaboration, the ways in which they applied course content knowledge indicated that self-efficacy for climate action was often related to the scale of proposed interventions or actions. Proposals of a local nature were more likely to reference a student’s individual skill set. This was opposed to their suggestions for actions like organizational collaboration in which they focused on what the organization and its leadership could accomplish, removing themselves from the effort. As research indicates the global nature of climate change, combined with a teaching pedagogy of doom and crisis can elicit feelings of hopelessness and inaction [4] the issues of responding at scale become pertinent to supporting student engagement in climate action.

6.3. I Can, Indications of Self-Efficacy for Climate Action

In the A Justice Lens theme, students detailed their understanding of the disproportionate impacts of environmental burdens and unequal access to environmental amenities on BIPOC and low-income communities. They noted the intersections of race, class, and gender with the environmental crisis and called out how they could apply procedural, distributive, and recognition justice in their future work. They also described specific course content (theories and vocabulary) regarding the rationale for the placement of toxic industry, and the history of workers’ right to a safe and healthy work environment. They were also able to describe the tactics communities used to protect themselves from toxic facilities, industrial agriculture, and more. Students used these historic frames to critique current environmental problems while offering ways to change to water distribution systems, energy production, and the fashion industry. They drew connections between the local social and environmental impacts of the fast fashion industry on factory workers’ wages, the pollution of nearby water supplies, and the greenhouse gases produced by transporting these products. These findings were illustrative of how teaching with the intent to rectify injustices, a core tenet of SJE [31], may assist students to consider action as opposed to feeling helpless and overwhelmed. As they discussed the justice perspective they could bring to any organization, students articulated that this was a skill they were confident they could apply to the challenges at hand. This confidence in the ability to apply a justice lens to a variety of environmental issues is reflective of other SJE studies, which indicate that including a justice frame can move students beyond studying a problem to applying skills in order to address them [38]. The specificity with which they described their proposals for change indicated a comfort level with justice concepts and self-efficacy for applying such theories to varied contexts.

Similar to a Justice Lens, the Research as Advocacy theme held students’ reflections on the importance of root causes and historic contexts of contemporary environmental racism. SJE pedagogy exposes students to concepts of positionality and agency and here students recognized intersections between social identities, like women or indigenous peoples, and the impacts of climate change. When proposing an action related to this understanding, students confidently articulated their ability to translate complex scientific data for EJ communities. Self-efficacy for climate action, in this case supporting community resilience through data sharing, was evident in students’ understanding of their positionality as researchers from outside a community, and in that prospective role, their ability to utilize their research skills.

The third theme in which students appeared confident in both their proposal for action and in their ability to take that action was Education, Outreach, and Advocacy. In their cover letters, students described how their ability to apply an EJ lens to climate concerns would put them in a good position to educate others about justice-related climate impacts. They proposed that education and outreach were one way to engage more people in the climate movement. In this theme, students expressed empathy for those already most impacted by the immediate impacts of climate change. Likewise, there were concerns about the safety of the work environment for employees in extractive industries. These were topics covered in course content and in line with SJE efforts to teach an ethic of care. In response to these injustices, students’ proposals for action included public education and advocacy projects. They proposed raising awareness through the amplification of the voices of frontline communities via campaigns, art projects, and educating policymakers. Others spoke to the concept of educating communities for empowerment. Additionally, there were suggestions for educating those most responsible for climate change impacts and noting that this is where change needed to happen. This nuanced reflection indicates an understanding of complex root causes, a key component of SJE. It is likely in their time at UM they have given presentations to their peers in class and have seen their peers do the same. These low stakes teaching experiences, in concert with this EJ course in which there were multiple peer learning activities, supported students’ sense of self-efficacy for educating others about climate injustices. It seems useful to consider how educators may build on these outside-of-class experiences through intentional pedagogy and course design, expanding students’ teaching and leading skill set which may be utilized for future climate action.

In the theme, The Necessity of Collaboration students proposed collaborative actions and then indicated how they could play an instrumental part in building the relationships needed to support these collaborations. While many students spoke about “lifting up the voices” of others, some students specifically referenced their own social identities and lived experiences as key components of building meaningful collaborative relationships. For instance, several students indicated that their age was an asset for reaching out and engaging other young adults or teens. In another case, a student noted that his bi-lingual skills would be valuable when working with Mexican farmers on climate adaptation practices. In keeping with SJE pedagogy, and the usefulness of vicarious learning for self-efficacy construction, the instructor organized a guest lecture by a BIPOC activist who discussed the connections of their lived experience to their work. The instructor also integrated multiple film clips highlighting the work of BIPOC leaders addressing environmental injustices in their communities. It was possible, but not clear if these activities helped students to connect their identities to a sense of social responsibility or whether this sense of moral obligation came from lived experience outside of the class. In either case, the identification with a particular group and its relationship to self-efficacy bears further exploration.

6.4. You Should, I Don’t Yet Have the Skills

Proposals for legal action and related proposals for policy changes were quite broad, offering sweeping suggestions for changes with little specific substance attached to these goals. Additionally, students were less explicit about their potential role in implementing these actions. In essence, the students were saying here is my idea for your organization to implement. This was evident in the Policy Intervention theme where students called for “transparency in policy-making”, or for “enforcing laws already on the books”. The course included key legal and policy interventions available to EJ activists, but students struggled to apply them to the issue of climate change. This is outcome is reflective of course content and teaching techniques. While legal avenues for fighting environmental injustices were covered, they were largely shared through lectures. Time in the course was not allotted for a lengthy discussion of laws and policies, nor was there an assignment addressing the application of these concepts. Likewise, the course was not designed to teach students the skills to engage in lobbying or similar political actions. They did not have an opportunity to practice these skills nor see others engage in these processes in detail. Therefore, it is not surprising that students expressed less self-efficacy in their ability to engage in or support such actions.

To address the complex and interwoven social justice and ecological issues connected to climate change, students called out the Need for Collaborative Action across communities, NGOs, government, and the private sector. Some suggested that organizations could learn from one another’s experience, and other students suggested that climate-focused organizations could increase their impact if they collaborated with NGOs supporting similar constituencies but different environmental issues. For instance, one student addressed the impacts of flooding on women and children. She highlighted how the organization’s focus on water had implications for the climate resilience of women and children. She then noted that this intersection of social and environmental concerns could provide an opening to collaborate with women’s organizations to build a broader coalition. Another proposed that their organization could connect with a literacy organization to teach the community about climate justice. Like comments in the Education, Outreach and Advocacy theme, students’ suggestions for collaboration were grounded in supporting community voice or community-expressed needs. The proposed actions in this theme were more specific than the Policy Interventions but similar to the suggestions for legal interventions, many students did not call out their abilities to make these connections. This held true except in cases where students were able to connect their social identity to the possibility of relationship building and organizational collaboration as described above. As noted earlier, the course was not designed with community engagement as a component of the learning environment. Without this kind of learning experience students did not build the skills that would make them efficacious in their ability to manage or lead such collaborations.

6.5. I Can or You Should: A Question of Scale

A pattern related to the scale of the problem in which students situated their ability to take action and make change emerged from letters. Students were quite specific about their abilities when proposing solutions that engaged people at a local or community scale (membership recruitment, research translation, education). As students moved to larger-scale solutions, like collaboration for collective action, the specificity of their suggestions varied. Students expressed more confidence in their abilities when drawing on their social positions and identities to build equitable relationships than when referring to the need for collaboration between NGOs and government agencies. As noted, students did not reference their skills when proposing legislative changes. The course curriculum included multiple examples of environmental injustices and the local, state, and federal actions taken to right these injustices. Significant time was spent on the use of federal policies used to fight environmental racism and inequitable distribution of environmental burdens. Students did not know less about these available options for fighting climate change, but they did not see themselves as change agents at this level of action. These findings suggest that by using SJE pedagogy instructors can support self-efficacy for climate action, but that skill development must be developed in conjunction with the scale of action. With this in mind, instructors may develop curricula that can assist students in envisioning themselves as engaging in climate actions across a range of scales.

7. Implications

Observations and findings from this study provide several insights that have relevant implications for developing students as climate change leaders. In alignment with prior research, educating about climate change through an EJ lens while applying SJE pedagogy appears to increase students’ self-efficacy in their ability to engage in a number of climate actions. In this way, EJ and SJE approaches offer a pathway for students to build foundational skills for climate action and begin seeing themselves as capable agents of change. As evidenced by prior literature, increasing students’ sense of self-efficacy results in greater interest and engagement in such activities, thus working against the common experiences and outcomes of hopelessness and disengagement around climate change, a crucial step in developing students as future leaders. In addition to alleviating issues of disengagement, EJ and SJE approaches also help develop specific perspectives and skill sets that are critical for effective climate change leadership. The markedly disproportionate nature of the causes and impacts of climate change, as well as the complex intersection of factors driving these inequities, will require the ability to apply a justice lens to climate actions. Such skills will be foundational and necessary for effective climate change leadership.

Similarly, developing a strong sense of empathy, or a perspective of social responsibility and an ethic of care, is critical for climate change leadership. The findings from this study suggested that EJ and SJE approaches to climate change education develop efficacy in these key areas. Students at UM and other institutions of higher education could be developed more effectively as climate change leaders by focusing on self-efficacy for climate action. Instructors can support such self-efficacy in any part of a course with exercises that encourage students to practice applying newly learned theoretical understandings to current environmental concerns. They may also benefit from watching others grapple with complex environmental issues despite challenging barriers to success. Furthermore, EJ and SJE perspectives and pedagogies should be more widely applied within courses on climate change as an effective means for developing self-efficacy and other key justice-informed leadership skill sets.

Findings suggested that scale likely plays a significant role in students’ sense of efficacy for various climate actions. Students were more confident in their ability to engage in actions on a local or small scale (e.g., conducting activist research with a particular community), and showed less confidence in their ability to engage in actions on a broader scale (e.g., intervening through legal mechanisms or influencing and implementing policy). This finding is in keeping with the influence of mastery experiences in self-efficacy construction and the lack of experience college students have had engaging in actions at these larger scales. As such, it is critical that educators provide students with settings in which to apply their learning in practice, facilitating experiences that students can draw from to build their self-efficacy for climate actions. While not all courses can offer authentic experiential learning, tools like simulations or assignments that require students to reflect on and discuss the application of their knowledge in practical settings may be effective strategies to elevate students’ feelings of self-efficacy for actions they might not otherwise practice. A similar effect may be engendered through guest speakers sharing stories of their challenges and success with climate organizing. Instructors may want to consider how they are facilitating learning regarding the climate crisis. Climate mitigation and adaptation will be key concerns for many years to come. These challenges will require engaged leaders who are thoughtful about the justice and equity impacts of our responses. Understanding that climate change is a global challenge, here are four actions steps instructors can consider including in their teaching practice:

• An EJ lens that acknowledges and centers the disproportionate impact and equitable solutions
• The use of SJE pedagogies that support empathy and social responsibility
• Examples of stakeholders (community members, scientists, policymakers) taking action for change at a variety of scales
• Opportunities for students to practice change-making either through in-class theoretical applications or authentic community-based experiences

In these ways, instructors may mitigate students’ feelings of hopelessness, and instead, provide ways for them to envision themselves as active agents responsible for making change in the climate movement. In doing so they may begin the journey to becoming justice-informed climate leaders.

8. Conclusions

The global scale and impact of climate change, in particular its impact on vulnerable populations, create an imperative for instructors to support the next generation of young leaders and their engagement in climate action with a justice perspective. While the crisis is urgent, teaching climate change from a fear or doom perspective does not serve our learners. In fact, it may inhibit their interest in engaging with the problem. The possibility of using EJ to build self-efficacy for climate action warrants further exploration. Future research should examine the connections between EJ, self-efficacy for climate action, and feelings of hope. If feeling overwhelmed and hopeless is, in part, what keeps students from engaging in climate action, then may be a key construct to address in our teaching.