When the Swedish, then year-nine pupil Greta Thunberg began her sit-in protests at the entrance to the Swedish Parliament on Friday 20 August 2018, after a summer marked by a heat wave and many forest fires, it marked the beginning of one of the largest and most talked about youth movements in history: Fridays for Future. Demanding that governments live up to their commitment under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions to limit global warming (UN, 2015), the movement quickly grew and came to organise school strikes around the world. Greta Thunberg herself was invited to both the World Economic Forum in Davos and the UN General Assembly in New York. Fridays for Future received support from thousands of scientists who believed that their demands were legitimate and in line with the best available climate research (Warren, 2019). Given the large turnout among young people, Generation Z (born approx. 1997-2012) soon began to be referred to as “Generation Greta”, young people more concerned about climate change than any previous generation and more eager to do something about it (cf. Tyson et al., 2021).
A comprehensive global survey of 10,000 children and young people aged 16-25 showed that a majority were extremely (59%) or at least moderately (84%) concerned about climate change. Furthermore, in relation to governments’ taking responsibility for the issue, respondents reported a greater feeling of betrayal than of reassurance (Hickman et al., 2021). However, it is important not to form an overly simplistic picture of young people’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to climate change. There are those who let their anxiety express itself in active engagement for change. Others are anxious but combine that with passivity based on a sense of powerlessness, while still others are characterised by different types or degrees of denial. In fact, studies have shown that the same individual can experience climate change distress, while still expressing climate change denialism (Veijonaho et al., 2024).
Although there are studies that have observed gender patterns in people’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to the environment or the climate (see e.g. Dzialo, 2017; Arora-Jonsson & Ågren, 2019; Krange et al., 2019, 2021; Vowles & Hultman, 2022), it is less common for studies of young people to make gender analyses of the findings. Research has pointed to a connection between adherence to traditional masculine ideals and a lower degree of commitment, or even opposition, to the concept of climate-neutral ways of living or “sustainable lifestyles”. On the other hand, there seems to be a connection with traditionally feminine ideals, such as a focus on caring attitudes and behaviour, and a greater inclination to adapt one’s lifestyle to climate neutrality (Sand, 2022). Studies in other areas, such as on gender-based educational and career choices (e.g. Chavatzia, 2017; Jansson & Sand, 2021), have shown that norms associating caring values with femininity and an interest in technology with masculinity, for example, are consolidated at relatively young ages in order to shape individuals into women and men respectively. With all that in mind, there is a need for more studies on behaviours and attitudes towards sustainability at the intersection of age and gender, as well as studies on how youth organisations address norms on gender and sustainability.
When the Swedish School Inspectorate, a government agency, investigated how schools in Sweden perform Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), interviews with teachers, headteachers and pupils revealed there to be a clear gendered pattern in pupils’ interest in the issues (Gabrielsson, 2023). Although the individual differences between pupils are described as being more marked than between girls and boys as groups, the interviewees expressed the opinion that girls are generally more engaged in issues related to sustainable development, have more developed reasoning and are more knowledgeable than boys in general. A common explanation voiced is that girls at the age in question (approx. 13-15 years) are generally more mature than boys. Another explanation given is that boys tend to engage more readily in discussions where they can form an opinion without extensive prior knowledge (Gabrielsson, 2023). A third explanation is that the interests and values of certain groups of pupils can be difficult to reconcile with a sustainable lifestyle. For example, teachers perceive that some pupils, especially boys, have strong preferences for meat and a negative view of vegetarian food. It has also been shown that there are pupils who are not only uninterested in sustainable development, but also strongly opposed to measures for sustainable development or to the environmental movement and that those pupils are mostly boys (Gabrielsson, 2023). One of the recommendations in the report is to include a greater awareness of norms associated with sustainable development within ESD, to work on gender patterns in schools and to investigate whether gender roles can act as a limiting factor in terms of interest and involvement in issues related to sustainable development (Gabrielsson, 2023). In order to pursue a transformative, sustainable education that, using Stephen Sterling’s terminology, does not sustain unsustainability by uncritically reproducing norms, such efforts can be absolutely crucial (cf. Jónsson et al., 2021; Sterling, 2001).
In the next section, the results of the various study elements—the focus group, the interviews, and the survey—are presented and discussed according to three dimensions: patterns of engagement in nonprofit organisations, learnings from organisations for sustainability, and approaches to inclusion.