Conference Program

The intensification of the climate crisis has fostered growing collective mobilization, giving rise to environmental movements that adopt heterogeneous strategies, ranging from institutional forms of protest to more conflictual practices. The scientific literature on environmental and climate activism outlines a complex landscape in which conventional forms of civic participation intertwine with more radical manifestations of protest.

Within this framework, the ELCRA project (Environmental Literacy in Higher Education Context for Preventing Violent Radicalization in Climate Activism) was developed by a consortium of five European universities between 2023 and 2026: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Klaipėda University, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the University of Coimbra, and the University of Siena. ELCRA is situated within the perspective of Transformative Education and aligns with SDG 4.7, aiming to train students capable of orienting their practices toward socio-ecological sustainability and preventing forms of violent radicalization within climate activism.

Building on this context, the contribution presents a case study of a project designed for students to foster processes of critical co-construction among future education professionals on environmental issues.

Following a literature review on environmental radicalization, the ELCRA project combined a multidisciplinary MOOC (10 hours) with COIL sessions (6 hours), involving students from the five European universities (n = 228 students for the MOOC and n = 50 for the COIL) in collaborative activities on topics such as sustainability, emotions and climate, critical thinking, activism, and environmental radicalization. The instructional design was grounded in the transformative learning approach originally developed by Mezirow and later expanded by Fabbri and Melacarne. Within this perspective, MOOC and COIL were integrated: the MOOC provided critical literacy on environmental issues, equipping students with the conceptual tools needed to interpret contemporary challenges; the COIL sessions, on the other hand, encouraged reflective re-elaboration of the acquired knowledge—also through a workshop-based dimension—with the aim of guiding students toward an awareness of their future professional roles as agents of change.

It should be acknowledged that the study presents some limitations, particularly related to the difficulty of measuring transformative learning processes. Nevertheless, the reflection developed from this experience suggests that the integration of asynchronous learning environments and intercultural dialogue can represent a fertile context for activating processes of critical meaning-making. Within this framework, students were placed in conditions that allowed them to reinterpret the knowledge acquired in light of their personal experiences, their social contexts of belonging, and the different cultural perspectives involved, in line with a view that understands them as potential agents of change.