This English in Education SIG conference responds to the DfE’s 2023 strategy for sustainability and climate education which perpetuates disciplinary boundaries by locating sustainability education in Science, Geography and Citizenship. The possibilities afforded by Arts disciplines – including English and language arts – are not acknowledged. We are concerned that this DfE framing may exacerbate disciplinary separation of approaches to sustainability education, impeding young people’s experiences of learning about climate change and their understanding of it; and thus limit their conceptions of their own potential agency to act.   

The conference offers a forum for English specialists and interested others to consider how sustainability education and related pedagogies can be embedded in English education. What changes to current curricula and practice might be made? What might comprise a truly transformative model of English for sustainability? What unique contribution to sustainability education can English make?

These concerns are of local, national and international importance, and we hope to reflect this significance through conference contributions. The day will include input from the University of East Anglia’s Climate/Creative Group and the University of Bristol Climate Action Group, as well as invited presentations and workshops, including an opportunity to participate in an outside activity in Berkeley Square and to visit a city-centre nature reserve adjacent to the venue.

Call For Abstracts

We invite papers on the following broad strands:

1. English and the Environment: Eco-criticism, Sustainability, the Romantics and the environment, etc.   
2. English for developing Change Makers: Citizenship, Philosophies of the future, what knowledge and skills should Eco-English develop in young people? etc.   
3. The where and how of Eco-English: new pedagogies for Eco-English; the sites in which Eco-English might be meaningful and effective, etc.  
4. Making climate narratives in English: what makes a climate narrative, teaching skills to author climate narratives in different modes and forms, etc.   

Submission Deadline 5th of May

Draft programme:

09:15am   Welcome, Teas & Coffee

09:45am   Introduction to Event

09:50am   Keynote 1

10:30am   Parallel Paper Presentation, Session 1 (Strands 1 & 2)

11:30am   Coffee & networking

12:00pm   Parallel Paper Presentation Session 2 (Strands 3 & 4)

13:00pm   Lunch & networking

13:45pm   Invited Presentations & Workshops

14:55pm   Keynote 2 

15:25pm   Wrap up

15:30pm   Close