The blame-game: pre-service teachers views on who is responsible and what needs to be done to mitigate climate change

Abstract

To mitigate climate change, immediate actions are needed, but who is responsible for taking these actions and what actions will people support? This article examines pre-service teachers’ (N = 230) views on who is responsible for mitigating climate change and what they perceive as the most effective ways to do so. The data consist of essays, analysed through inductive and deductive content analysis. The findings show that although pre-service teachers present a multitude of ways to mitigate climate change, there is a divide in what is seen as the best practice and who is viewed as responsible. Furthermore, most pre-service teachers present a simplistic or biased view about who is responsible for mitigative actions. Only a small proportion of pre-service teachers seem to examine climate change mitigation through a systems thinking approach, where individuals, governments and businesses all play a role in climate change mitigation. Six profiles were formed to describe the different ways how individuals see responsibility in the context of climate change. Furthermore, an educational model, that can help develop systems thinking, was created. The significance of the findings and the model are discussed in relation to holistic climate change education.