Discourses of climate change education: The case of geography textbooks for secondary and higher secondary education in South Africa and Norway

Abstract

The purpose of the article, which is a comparative study, is to explore climate change discourses in South African and Norwegian geography textbooks by addressing the following questions: What policy discourses of climate change can be identified in the textbooks? How is the climate change content of geography textbooks influenced by predominant discourses in society? The authors assert that problems and solutions to climate change in textbooks are influenced by dominant discourses of climate change in society. Despite expecting to find a strong emphasis on ecological modernization and a win-win discourse in the Norwegian context, and perhaps a stronger focus on civic environmentalism and global injustice in the South African context, their findings reflected that for both countries, textbooks predominantly leaned towards belief in international agreements and green governmentality. Some emphasis was placed on ecological modernization, particularly in South Africa, while civic environmentalism and global injustice perspectives were marginal and lacked context. The overlapping nature of perspectives identified in the textbooks also demonstrated the complexity of identifying problems and solutions connected to climate change. The authors conclude that political ecology can offer a consistent didactical framework to examine the diversity of interests, perspectives and ‘stories’ about climate change at different scales.