Public Oral PhD Defense: Neela Nandyal

"Environmental education in coastal Ecuador: A place-based study of educator conceptualizations, student and teacher climate emotions, and youth climate agency."

Advisor: Dr. Bhaskar Upadhyay & Dr. Christopher Johnstone

This three-paper dissertation investigates environmental learning in coastal Ecuador, ultimately arguing for more place-based approaches to environmental and climate change education that center both the local environment and short-term environmental histories. Fieldwork for this dissertation was conducted in 2022 and 2023 in the coastal province of Manabí, Ecuador. The first paper of this dissertation is a qualitative study that utilizes a multiple green governmentalities framework to explore educator conceptualizations of environmental education, based on interviews with 18 educators. This study found that educators often conceptualized environmental education for the purpose of nature protection and nature conservation, and, to a lesser extent, nature spiritualism. The second paper in this dissertation is a mixed-methods study that assesses the climate emotions of secondary school students and teachers through analysis of surveys with 193 students and 58 teachers, and semi-structured interviews with 17 students, and four teachers. This study found that most participants experienced some level of worry over climate change, and few expressed climate change skepticism. The survey data also highlighted a marked difference between student and teacher climate emotion, with teachers expressing higher levels of both worry over the future of the environment and climate hope. Analysis of interviews showed that climate hope is rooted in personal agency and community resourcefulness, and that local environmental conditions (specifically El Niño) are critical in shaping youth outlooks on climate and environment. The final paper in the dissertation examined the formation of youth climate agency in the study area, drawing on survey and interview data. The framework for this mixed methods study integrates concepts from capability approach and critical science agency. Youth in this study enacted climate action in their everyday lives, with an agency that is grounded in personal and community understandings of wellbeing and interconnectedness, and complicated by future aspirations, (socio)political consciousness, and hierarchies of power.

Keywords: climate change education, climate emotion, eco-anxiety, hope, agency, youth

Location: Burton 227 or Online via Zoom ←