Rethinking education and training for the climate: individuals, systems, narrative skills and economic transformation

Education and training (E&T) for the climate is gaining prominence in educational discourse. However, there is a danger that approaches focus on individual responsibility and changing the behaviours of learners rather than critically understanding and changing the system-level drivers of the climate crisis. Picking up litter is much more likely to be discussed than extractive economics. Therefore, we argue that the purpose of E&T for the climate should be radically rethought, empowering learners to become agents of system-level economic change, placing the prosperity of people and planet at its core. Here, we present a theoretical, normatively driven vision for E&T’s role in economic transformation, drawing critically on our previous research to argue for narrative and ‘narrative skills’ as central to this change. Humans are inherently narrative beings, and narrative enables us to make sense of the world around us and craft new futures as a collective endeavour. Narratives are drivers of social change and have underpinned key economic transformations over the last three centuries. We build on these ideas and draw together philosophical, sociological, and economic accounts of narrative to argue that E&T for the climate is enhanced through deeper engagement with narrative.