Climate change science teacher identity: theoretical, empirical and design explorations for teacher education

Anthropogenic climate change is widely recognised as a defining challenge of the twenty first century. However, climate change education often appears fragmented, limited to content knowledge transmission. This conceptual paper argues that a transformative response to the climate crisis requires focusing not only on what teachers know and do, but also on who they are/becoming. Building on contemporary literature in Climate Change Education, sustainability competencies, and science teacher identity, we utilise Climate Change Science Teacher Identity (CCSTI) as our lens for understanding science teachers’ becoming in the era of the climate crisis. We discuss Climate Change Education as a stand-alone field, but we also relate it to broader frameworks of sustainability and climate-related competencies, highlighting how expert- and policy-driven models foreground emotional well-being, solidarity, and agency. We then review research on Climate Change Teacher Education, showing that existing work has mainly focused on content knowledge, pedagogical strategies, and self-efficacy. Drawing on Gee’s conception of identity as recognition by oneself and by significant others, and on Carlone and Johnson’s competence, performance, and recognition framework, we conceptualise CCSTI as a construct that integrates an interdisciplinary and holistic understanding, pedagogical enactment, and self-view as climate change teachers. We argue that CCSTI development is essential, particularly for primary pre-service teachers, who often experience limited recognition as ‘science people’ or as legitimate climate change educators. Finally, we outline implications for the design of Climate Change Teacher Education, emphasising self-reflection, autobiographical work, multimodal identity representations, and practice-linked experiences.