Thursday Seminars by Kata Dozsa

Children as Climate Citizens – Presentism with Long-Term Interests 

Abstract: 

Based on her book, Kata Dozsa presents the concept of “children as climate citizens” across three key avenues of participation: climate governance, grassroots youth social movements, and climate litigation. Presentism is a defining feature of children’s climate citizenship: children living today are directly and disproportionately affected by climate change, with immediate and future consequences for their rights, well-being, and everyday lives. At the same time, these experiences are framed within a broader set of long-term considerations: rather than identifying children solely through vulnerability, they are recognised as political and legal actors whose meaningful participation in decision-making and knowledge sharing contributes to sustainability and the protection of democratic values in society. (Dozsa, K (2023) Children as Climate Citizens. Routledge.) 

Bio:  

Kata Dozsa is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels School of Governance where she conducts empirical research in the Curiae Virides project on transnational ecological litigation. She has also worked as adjunct professor at Vesalius College BA Programme in International Law and held a Summer School on Climate Change Litigation in 2024. She holds a PhD in law from University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on children’s rights, intergenerational justice and climate change. Kata Dozsa is the author of the book “Children as Climate Citizens” (Routledge, 2023), and she has numerous publications, including in the 2020 and 2023 editions of the European Yearbook on Human Rights. She was awarded the 2022 Sustainability Research Award for her contribution to climate change policy-development in Belgium.

Political socialisation and the climate crisis

Abstract:

This presentationi instroduces the theoretical basis of the KIDSONCLIMATE project, as well as an update on the fieldwork currently underway. The project aims to explore how the emotions that learning about the climate crisis can elicit in children and pre-adolescents can influence their attitudes towards democracy and their own sense of political efficacy.

To this end, it draws on literature in political science, political sociology, and social psychology to examine the links between emotional responses – particularly feelings of betrayal and distress, hope or commitment – to the climate crisis, and perceptions of the responses of different political actors to this situation. The project focuses specifically on a population of young people described as “average”, neither activist nor apathetic, in order to bring visibility to a group that has been little studied in research on these issues. In particular, it proposes to explore how adults’ views on children’s competence, voices, and legitimacy on these issues can impact the development of forms of political interest, political competence, and feelings of political efficacy among children and young people.

Bio:

Katharine Throssell is currently a Marie Curie Fellow at UCLouvain. Her research focuses on political learning among children and young adolescents, with a particular emphasis on active socialisation, identities, and political narratives aimed at children. She is the author of Child and Nation (Peter Lang, 2015), which examines the impact of everyday nationalism on the construction of worldviews among primary school children.