“We Leave at Least a Little Seed”: The school’s role in developing students’ agency toward climate change

Supplementary Materials: The following supporting information can be downloaded at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/su18052350/s1: Supplementary Material S1: Interview protocols; Supplementary Material S2: Coding scheme of the study. References [89,90,91,92,93] are presented in the reference list of the article.
As in schools worldwide, climate change (CC) is addressed in curricula and environmental programs in Portugal. Grounded in Bandura’s human agency theory, effective CC mitigation requires the capacity to intentionally initiate, sustain, and reflect on behaviors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, i.e., climate agency. This study aimed to map school’s role (environmental initiatives and CC teaching) in developing students’ climate agency and its determinants. Participants included 42 school representatives and 24 teachers from various subjects. Data sets, collected through online surveys, semi-structured interviews, and a focus group, were analyzed using content analysis. School representatives emphasized school initiatives requiring significant levels of student engagement (e.g., cleanups) but with limited participation. Most teachers reported employing transmissive teaching approaches, complemented by audio–visual resources and classroom discussions. Interviewees identified facilitators (e.g., family pro-environmental behaviors and municipal support), but mostly obstacles (e.g., limited instruction time and surface approach to learning) that contributed to a perceived minimal impact of CC education on their students. Overall, the data suggest that current environmental programs and CC teaching are not consistently developing students’ climate agency. The findings highlight the need to rethink formal and informal approaches to promote high-quality CC education and student agency in addressing the climate crisis.
This research was funded by National Funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), under the scope of the NoPLANetB Project (https://doi.org/10.54499/PTDC/PSI-GER/1892/2021), and was partially conducted at the Psychology Research Centre (CIPsi; PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, supported by FCT (UID/01662/2025) through the Portuguese State Budget. The centre is registered under the DOI https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/01662/2025.