Disobedient youth: Lessons from the youth climate strike movement

2021

Disobedient youth

Lessons from the youth climate strike movement

The paper, supported by the Eu-CoE youth partnership, attempts to tackle the following questions:

• Who is involved in the youth climate strike movement, and what are they asking for?

• What can be done to support them?

• What discussions should the youth sector hold on this topic?

To respond to these questions, the paper considers the issues at stake for youth in the climate crisis, analyses the youth climate strikes in Europe and considers their implications for youth policy, youth work and youth research.

Dr Jamie Gorman notes specifically that in youth climate mobilisations, young people are mobilising on their own terms, outside of traditional adult-created structures of participation. This must be taken into account by youth workers and policy to both ensure that young people can be fully and meaningfully included in youth political participation, and to ensure that young people are involved in climate policy development and implementation processes.

Disobedient youth: Lessons from the youth climate strike movement by Jamie Gorman, PhD, from the Centre for Youth Research and Development at Maynooth University, Ireland

Youth work should recognise the disruption that has occurred with Fridays for Future, and recognise that young people are taking the lead when it comes to addressing the climate crisis. Therefore, youth workers should amplify the voices of young activists, respect their political agency and find ways to act in solidarity with them.

A suggestion of how youth workers can support young people in this way is to catalogue good practice examples of climate justice focused youth work, and further promote and research these by publishing an online platform of good practice examples, and by organising seminars, conferences and exchanges.