V.C. Tassone, Pascal Frank
In an era marked by socio-ecological crises, emotions shape how young adults experience and respond to these challenges, and how they transform themselves and their worlds. This phenomenological study examines the lived (dis)empowering emotional experiences of young adults confronting socio-ecological sustainability challenges. Drawing on a constructivist understanding of emotion and interpretative analysis of interviews with higher education students, we explored how they emotionally experience, interpret, and respond to sustainability challenges, and what fosters their sense of empowerment. Findings reveal that socio-ecological issues resonate profoundly in the hearts of students, eliciting both disempowering and empowering emotional responses. Empowering experiences are accessible to all students, highlighting the potential for constructive coping. Three core enablers of transformation—awareness, belonging, and engagement—support the processing of emotional responses toward empowerment. Facilitated through diverse and flexible methods, these enablers allow students to stay connected with and reframe their lived emotional experiences in more empowering, constructive ways. Building on these insights, we propose a Pedagogy of the Heart in Environmental and Sustainability Education, that values both positive and negative emotional experiences, supports transformation of the self in relation to human and more-than-human worlds, and fosters empowering emotional experiences.