Agency in the Anthropocene

Abstract

This article discusses current demands on, and approaches to support, the agency of learners in the context of climate action and Anthropocene discourses in education. It challenges educational theories and practices linked with such discourses in light of research findings in the environmental humanities on the paradoxes and quandaries of agency. In their place it suggests a pedagogy of flourishing that productively combines an understanding of the limited agency of individual learners and the potential of capability-oriented arts-based learning practices. The proposal for a revised notion of learner agency in education is supported by evidence for the productivity of such an approach derived from first-hand experiences in tertiary literacy education in English in the context of a German university programme for teacher training.