Pedagogies of Collapse

Shortlisted: BERA Educational Research Book of the Year 2025 Climate change, biodiversity collapse, pandemics, wars, resource shortages, inflation, socio-economic inequality… after decades of progress and prosperity, the world has hit the limits to growth predicted by the Meadows report of 1972. How do we talk to and teach young people about collapse without triggering defence mechanisms of denial and depression? The simple answer is that we mostly don’t. This urgent, and radically honest, open access book looks collapse in the face, acknowledges the temptation for denial and despair, but chooses hope. Pedagogies of Collapse makes a dire, fact-packed case for the urgency of action, but resists the urge to fall into the usual categories of environmental discourses. It rejects both the unwarranted optimism of progress narratives and the unhelpful despair of extinction narratives. Instead, Ginie Servant-Miklos makes the case for facing hard truths about the present and future with imperfect, trauma-informed learning practices and space for experimental pedagogies. The book takes the reader on a journey through the life sciences, political economy, psychology and philosophy with humour and accessible explanations. It weaves the authors' experiences as an educator, humanitarian and public speaker through a hopeful search for existential meaning through learning in times of collapse. The book includes a preface by Stephen Chan, Professor of World Politics at SOAS, University of London, UK. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Erasmus University Rotterdam.