Researchers from Dublin City University and Trinity College Dublin are working together to study young people’s views and actions on climate change over time. The project looks at how different influences, like family, friends, school, and social media, affect what young people know, believe, and do about climate change.
Young people will be a big part of the research in different ways. Some will take part in interviews, where they will talk about their personal experiences with climate change, what made them start thinking about it, and how they imagine the future. Others will be part of a three-year study to track how their opinions and knowledge change as they grow older. The study will explore things like trust in climate science and how serious young people think climate change is. There will also be a citizen science project where Transition Year students will become researchers themselves. They will work with a research team to design and conduct their own studies about climate change attitudes and actions.
One of the most important things about this project is that young people are not just being studied, they are conducting this study alongside the research team. Their voices, ideas, and experiences are at the centre of the research. The results of this project will help improve climate education and shape policies that support young people as they face the challenges of the future.
Objective 1: To develop a robust evidence base on climate change attitude formation and change, knowledge development, and engagement in climate action throughout adolescence.
Objective 2: To explore the strength of proximal social influences (family, peer, school, and social media) on climate change attitudes, knowledge, and action among adolescents, and to examine change in these influences across adolescence.
Objective 3: To map climate change attitudes and engagement in climate action by adolescents in Ireland using a citizen science methodology. This will be achieved by using relationships with schools to recruit a small group of transition year students and utilising the research team’s experience in participatory co-research methods, to support the adolescents in designing and conducting research studies with their peers, with the necessary training and support from the project team.
Objective 4: To develop research capacity in social and citizen science, and participatory approaches to climate change research in Ireland. This will be achieved through the training and experience provided to the research team, including the employment of two post-doctoral researchers and two adolescent research assistants.
What we already know
As the threat of climate change increases globally, the need to understand what exactly influences individuals’ knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors towards climate change becomes especially pertinent. This is also the case for understanding these influences on adolescents, who will be exposed to the short-term and long-term consequences of climate change and will have to live with the uncertainty this creates, if no concrete actions are taken in time. We know already that, globally, most adolescents are concerned about climate change. Their knowledge on climate change increases and becomes more accurate as they grow older.
This, however, is not associated with a clear increase in worry or concern (or eco-anxiety), as research has shown that adolescents have variable trajectories when it comes to how their worry over climate change changes over time. For example, adolescents whose concern over the climate increased over time were also more socially engaged on issues related to the subject. Adolescents who felt strongly about climate change and the environment were more likely to talk to others about climate change, engage with the news online, make lifestyle changes, and attend political marches. These forms of proactive behavior are important to note, given the link between beliefs and behaviors.
Studies on climate change also show that increasing people’s knowledge on climate change does not necessarily lead to more positive views towards the environment, or more favorable beliefs and behaviors related to climate change. Much of the research on adolescents’ beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors related to climate change has focused on exploring these factors at one time point. These studies have also been conducted in high- income countries, such as the USA and Australia and not many studies exist examining how these factors change over time as adolescents grow and develop their personal, social and political identities. Data exploring these issues is just only starting to emerge within the Irish context, making the NextGen study well-placed to examine the interplay between all these different factors among adolescents.