Fossil fuel gift economies as petro-pedagogies in public schools

Abstract Preparing young people to meet the complex challenges of a rapidly warming world has become an important international educational priority. However, recent work on ‘petro-pedagogies’ demonstrates fossil fuel corporations’ influence on curriculum materials and pedagogical experiences in some educational jurisdictions, contributing to uneven opportunities for young people to learn just energy transitions. This article investigates fossil fuel corporations’ engagement in public schools in Australia, based on interviews with ten differently positioned actors across five Australian states and territories (six public school principals in ‘mining towns’, a fossil fuel corporation representative directly responsible for corporate ‘gift-giving’ to public schools, a high school student climate advocate, a parent, and a climate justice campaigner). Interview accounts of fossil fuel corporations’ philanthropic gift-giving, financial donations, sponsoring and curriculum involvement in schools are analysed through the concepts of the gift economy, petro-pedagogies, and curricular justice. Our critical thematic analysis unthreads examples of targeted recruitment strategies of young people in recipient schools, and the purchase of social license through fossil fuel corporations’ branding in and through these schools. We argue that such petro-pedagogical engagements in schools exploit the school funding vacuum and risk inhibiting opportunities for recipients of these gifts to critically examine the fossil fuel industry and to collectively imagine alternative energy futures. We argue for increased public school funding and greater transparency and regulation of fossil fuel corporations’ ‘gift giving’ to public schools.