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Dystopic images about environmental collapse and the urgency for transformative changes are increasingly at the forefront of our collective understandings of the climate crisis. Therefore, it is not so strange that we recognise an increase in climate- and ecoanxiety amongst sustainability students. This anxiety creates a complex challenge for our higher education, inciting teachers to question how we might best invite our students to engage with these issues. Therefore, this action research project, led by Kelly Streekstra, explores how higher education concerning the climate crisis might draw inspiration from the literature on and societal practices of hope. What happens if we imagine the classroom as a space where we (could) practice hope?   

If you were to visit any event that covers a contemporary sustainability challenge, it is quite likely that you’ll hear a ‘frequently asked question’ for the presenter: “Is there still hope?” 

Hope is one of those words that many of us use multiple times a day, but the meaning of this concept is not easily pinned down. There are vivid academic discussions around the potential and the danger of hope and about the many ways people around the world practice hope. The phrasing of the question ‘is there still hope?’, most likely invites the presenter to ‘give hope’ by sketching a positive image of a future that they estimate is still plausibly within our reach. This image, however, is but one of many interpretations of hope. Another is to regard hope as a rather turbulent engagement with changemaking; one who hopes might experience both hopefulness and hopelessness. You could, then, also interpret hope not as the noun (a hope that is and can be given), but as a verb: to hope. In some cultures and social groups, a practice of hope doesn’t necessitate a future that is likely or plausible, but rather is marked by a collective commitment and movement in the light of a desire, an intention or a critique. Such different interpretations of hope, invite hopers to engage with sustainability challenges in fundamentally different manners. Therefore, a concern of this research is to understand the myriad ways in which hope is practised, and importantly, to understand how these variable ‘modes of hoping’ interact with higher education.

Through analysis of various courses in sustainability education at the Master’s level, this research explores how the conduct of education on the one hand, and the practices of hope on the other, influence one another. Specifically, we argue that how education is shaped influences whether and in what way hope might be practised in the classroom. We try to pinpoint how this shaping of hope exactly occurs.

We thereby wish to contribute to the efforts of many colleagues and students who part ways with the standard ‘deficit’ model, which is inherent in many forms of education. This model has a clear division of tasks and activity: the teacher is the main expert and shares information, and the students are there to absorb this knowledge. There is a rich movement of alternatives that create transdisciplinary, interactive, and activating forms of education, in which students not only learn about change, but learn whilst making change.

We reflect on these educational efforts through the lens of hope, highlighting when – and what hope might be invited for, or when hope is hindered. In addition to such reflections, we also experiment with educational formats. To explore whether we, as teachers, might intentionally invite a particular practice of hope through the design of our education.