Green Pedagogy for Climate Justice: An Action Research Study on Academic Writing Instruction

Abstract

This action research examines how Green Pedagogy can help improve academic writing performance and awareness of climate justice at the undergraduate level in higher education in Pakistan. The study incorporated themes of environmental justice and community vulnerability into scaffolded descriptive, narrative and argumentative writing tasks, drawing on the Climate Justice Education framework, and was undertaken through two cycles of Kemmis and McTaggart’s (1988) Plan–Act–Observe–Reflect model. A total of twenty-eight first-year undergraduates at a public university participated in the study.  Mixed-methods design was used, consisting of rubric-based analysis of pre- and post-intervention writing samples, pre- and post-intervention surveys, and thematic analysis of reflective journals. The quantitative findings indicated that there were meaningful gains in all the writing domains. Hence, the overall mean writing score shifted from 5.69 to 7.36 (29%). Moreover, the organization and development scores also showed an improvement of 36%. Data from the survey showed a 33.6% increase in confidence in writing, a 32.7% increase in awareness of climate justice, and a 37.6% increase in task engagement. Moreover, qualitative data demonstrated further improvement in critical questioning, thesis articulation, and evidence integration. The results of the study indicate that the addition of justice-oriented environmental content can enhance rhetorical and linguistic competence in students’ writing along with fostering critical environmental literacy and ethical engagement. This research contributes empirical evidence from the Global South to the emerging scholarship on climate justice and literacy pedagogy.