In late 2021, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund reported that “almost every child on earth is exposed to at least one climate and environmental hazard, shock or stress such as heatwaves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding and water scarcity” (Unicef 2021: 4). The present situation calls for new ethical and political understandings of the very meaning of childhood, and relatedly one of its central institutions: education. 

This study analyses representations of what an educated child is and ought to be in the Anthropocene, a geological epoch caused by the activities of the human species on the Earth's geology and ecosystems including but not limited to anthropogenic climate change. As such, the study zooms in on three practices of the Anthropocene childhood with pedagogical implications: climate fiction for children aged 6-12 years old, academic knowledge production in the field of early childhood education, and the Friday for Future-movement. 

Specifically, I focus on how the value-laden relation between children, nature, and education is (re)configured in the Anthropocene. Childhood and nature are intimately and culturally linked, and the meaning and values associated with nature and culture have ethical and political consequences that need to be address within education. I argue that the intersection of the temporalities of childhood and the Anthropocene presents new pedagogical implications which reconfigures both the very meaning of childhood and education. 

References 

Unicef (2021): “The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index,” New York: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).