TY - JOUR

T1 - Barriers and Enablers of Interdisciplinary Climate Education

T2 - Insights From Secondary Teachers

AU - Castellazzi, Eugenia

AU - Hakkarainen, Viola

AU - Saari, Maria

AU - Raymond, Christopher Mark

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - Teachers are at the front line of climate change education (CCE), working to integrate its complex environmental, social and ethical dimensions into their classroom practice. Yet little is known about the barriers to and enablers of implementing interdisciplinarity within CCE. This study investigates Finnish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on interdisciplinary CCE, examining how their practices are shaped by access to resources, training and institutional support. Drawing on the ecological model of teacher agency, we conduct a mixed-methods analysis from a national survey of 243 teachers. The findings reveal a strong commitment to locally relevant and ethically informed CCE, as well as an increased interest in activities in outdoor environments, research-based resources and drama-based resources. On the other hand, an increased disinclination to introducing new content and resources highlights the persistence of structural, epistemological, and ideological barriers. Teachers report relying heavily on self-directed learning and growing interdisciplinary fatigue due to fragmented support systems. These dynamics reveal a need for academic–school collaborations that move beyond top-down implementation and towards the creation of accessible, adaptable knowledge. This study contributes to emerging debates about how to foster critical interdisciplinarity in CCE by centring the voices and agency of educators.

AB - Teachers are at the front line of climate change education (CCE), working to integrate its complex environmental, social and ethical dimensions into their classroom practice. Yet little is known about the barriers to and enablers of implementing interdisciplinarity within CCE. This study investigates Finnish secondary school teachers’ perspectives on interdisciplinary CCE, examining how their practices are shaped by access to resources, training and institutional support. Drawing on the ecological model of teacher agency, we conduct a mixed-methods analysis from a national survey of 243 teachers. The findings reveal a strong commitment to locally relevant and ethically informed CCE, as well as an increased interest in activities in outdoor environments, research-based resources and drama-based resources. On the other hand, an increased disinclination to introducing new content and resources highlights the persistence of structural, epistemological, and ideological barriers. Teachers report relying heavily on self-directed learning and growing interdisciplinary fatigue due to fragmented support systems. These dynamics reveal a need for academic–school collaborations that move beyond top-down implementation and towards the creation of accessible, adaptable knowledge. This study contributes to emerging debates about how to foster critical interdisciplinarity in CCE by centring the voices and agency of educators.

KW - agency

KW - climate change education

KW - curriculum integration

KW - environmental education

KW - interdisciplinarity

KW - secondary teachers

KW - Lifelong Learning

KW - Transdisciplinary studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105020817757&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1017/aee.2025.10086

DO - 10.1017/aee.2025.10086

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:105020817757

JO - Australian Journal of Environmental Education

JF - Australian Journal of Environmental Education

SN - 0814-0626

ER -