Early Years

Research for Sustainable Citizenship: caring, climate, and risk resilience in early years play

In an era defined by the climate crisis and global instability, the role of Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS) has never been more critical. While play is universally recognised as the primary vehicle for development and learning, its specific role in cultivating sustainable citizenship and climate resilience remains under-theorised and under-researched. This special issue aims to address the gap by exploring how play serves as a laboratory for children to rehearse agency, navigate climate emotions, and embody the ethics of care.

This special issue invites conceptual, empirical, methodological, and practice-oriented papers that advance this under-researched area: how dramatic play and related practices contribute to sustainable citizenship in the early years.  Studies may be explicitly focused on sustainability, and climate related themes, or they may be concerned with other dramatic  play contexts of direct relevance to education for sustainable citizenship such as inequality and social justice.

Play is not merely a reflection of the world; it is a space where children replicate, deconstruct, and reimagine their realities. Through pretend play, children engage in taking on roles as wildlife rangers, eco-superheroes, or repair café technicians. In doing so, they translate abstract concepts of sustainability into embodied habits of care, repair, and stewardship. Furthermore, play provides a psychologically secure, non-threatening sanctuary where children can externalise fears regarding climate-related disasters and transform them into narratives of adaptive coping and mutual aid.

Climate disasters such as floods, famines and fires disproportionately affect the poorest and most vulnerable communities, and young children comprise a very high proportion of those affected in emergencies around the world (UNICEF, 2011). We would therefore particularly welcome submissions concerned with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in early childhood.

Contributions that focus on training and CPD for early childhood educators (roles and skills), particularly in developing play contexts through dramatic experiences and the use of artefacts, puppets, toys, and environmental resources to support problem-solving and emotional exploration related to sustainability and climate challenges, are encouraged.

Other topics of interest (illustrative)

• Dramatic (pretend) play as vehicles for care, repair, stewardship, and sustainable habits

• Storytelling, culturally relevant and Indigenous knowledge systems, and intergenerational narratives of resilience

• Climate and extreme weather role-play, solution-orientated participation, and children’s agency and hope

• DRR in early childhood: preparedness routines, risk awareness, mutual aid, recovery, parent partnerships and community resilience

• Play-based pedagogies, environment design, professional learning, and ethical considerations

• Equity and inclusion in sustainability play (voice, participation, and diverse learners)