Climate change education for children: a critical integrative review and the participation–emotion–resilience (PER) framework
Climate change education (CCE) in early childhood and primary settings has expanded rapidly, yet remains unevenly theorised with respect to children’s participation, emotional experiences, and resilience. While existing approaches frequently emphasise knowledge acquisition, pro-environmental behaviour, or coping skills, they offer limited explanatory insight into why children’s engagement with climate issues can simultaneously create agency, anxiety, hope, or disengagement. This critical integrative review synthesises 47 empirical, conceptual, review, and policy-oriented studies to examine how participation, emotion, and resilience are conceptualised and enacted in CCE for young children. Drawing on established guidance for integrative synthesis, the review identifies three patterned tendencies across the literature: constrained forms of participation that prioritise expression over influence; heightened attention to climate emotions without corresponding structural responsiveness; and resilience framings that risk individualisation in the absence of collective and rights-based supports. To explain these patterns, the review advances the Participation–Emotion–Resilience (PER) framework, which conceptualises participation, emotion, and resilience as mutually constitutive processes rather than discrete domains. Grounded in children’s rights research and aligned with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the PER framework elucidates how the quality of participatory opportunities shapes emotional experiences and conditions whether resilience emerges as collective capacity or individualised coping. The review concludes by outlining implications for theory, pedagogy, and policy, arguing for climate education approaches that attend to the ethical and affective dimensions of children’s participation in conditions of climate uncertainty.