Researcher Examines Climate Change Education led by U.N.

Three policy programs run by the United Nations (U.N.) aim to empower and support governments to accelerate climate change solutions through education, training, and public awareness. For University of Saskatchewan researcher Dr. Marcia McKenzie and her international collaborators, understanding how these U.N. policy programs are shaped will help ensure the effectiveness of climate change education around the world.

“We know from previous research that the level and quality of engagement with sustainability issues in education has been significantly influenced by U.N. policy programs in the past,” said McKenzie, director of the Sustainability Education Research Institute at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). “Therefore, it is important that newly developing policy programs are as strong as possible in order to have the most impact.”

McKenzie, who was recently awarded nearly $280,000 in an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, will examine governmental and non-governmental influences on U.N. policy programs as it relates to climate change education.

“The research will provide a better grasp of gaps and opportunities in policy development so that policy-makers can address them appropriately, as well as contributing to scholarly understandings of intergovernmental policy development and mobility,” McKenzie said.

Using a network ethnography method, McKenzie and her team will blend meeting observation, in-depth interviewing, and quantitative social network analysis methods to develop a deeper understanding of how various influences impact policy development in climate change education.

“Through data collection with U.N. Secretariat staff, U.N. chairs, U.N. report authors, non-governmental organizations, and others, we will be able to work in and around policy-makers and remain flexible with the research design, which will help us get a more complete picture of what is happening,” McKenzie said.

According to McKenzie, this mixed-method approach allows the team to develop solutions and applications for enhancing climate change education on an international scale.

“Climate change education can help everyone—from policymakers to individuals—understand the urgency and importance of putting mechanisms into place to combat climate change on regional, national and global scales,” she said. “Through targeted knowledge mobilization to intergovernmental and governmental policy decision-makers, the results are expected to strengthen the transparency and quality of current and future U.N. policy programs.”