“Even the Small Work That I Do, It Has Impact, It Has Meaning”: Collective Meaning-Making in Youth Climate Groups

This article focuses on participation in youth-led climate-oriented groups and the role of this form of civic engagement for young people. Thirty interviews were conducted with 13- to 18-year-olds belonging to four groups: Extinction Rebellion Youth, Sustainabiliteens, Sunrise Movement, or school-affiliated clubs. The participants had been part of their group for an average of 1.5 years, coming from either the United States (n = 26) or Canada (n = 4). They were predominantly female (n = 22), with a few male (n = 5) and a small number identifying as non-binary (n = 3). Significant in the thematic analysis was the critical role of increased meaning-making, which involved relationship-building, processing emotions, and taking action. The peer-led group settings served to create community, work through the range of emotions the climate crisis evoked, and generate actions that felt purposeful at both the individual and collective levels. In these spaces, young people seek meaning together, and they propose and demand action from governmental bodies and corporations on climate change. Through everyday activism, young people express an ecocitizenship that is constructive, hopeful, and generative. In a world characterized by the climate crisis, joining and contributing to youth-led climate groups is becoming part of young people’s identity development, a way of enacting citizenship and expressing political agency.