Hope or fear?: Children’s responses to climate change fiction
Koolen,Ruud van Amelsvoort,Marije van der Beek,Suzanne Borst,Rosalyn Claassen,Semmy Goudbeek,Martijn Looij,Phillip
Koolen,Ruud
van Amelsvoort,Marije
van der Beek,Suzanne
Borst,Rosalyn
Claassen,Semmy
Goudbeek,Martijn
Looij,Phillip
Abstract
Although not necessarily intended to persuade, climate fiction narratives can guide individuals in their attitudes and emotions, also in educational settings. An open question is which emotions such narratives should communicate to make an impact, especially for children. We conducted an experiment where 142 children listened to either hopeful or fearful text fragments of Hannah Gold’s children’s climate fiction book The Last Bear (2021). We then measured if and how this narrative experience affected the children’s emotions, attitudes, and intentions towards climate change, as a function of the condition they were in. The results indicate that listening to the text fragments did not affect children’s attitudes but slightly decreased their intention to engage in climate change mitigating behavior, irrespective of hope or fear. The children furthermore reported a variety of emotions after listening. We discuss the impact of climate narratives for children, also considering whether hope and fear can effectively be investigated as two separate emotions.
Description
Date
2026-01-18
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Children's climate fiction, Environmental education, In-class reading experiment, Fear and hope, Environmental attitudes and intentions, Emotions, SDG 4 - Quality Education, SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
Citation
Koolen, R, van Amelsvoort, M, van der Beek, S, Borst, R, Claassen, S, Goudbeek, M & Looij, P 2026, 'Hope or fear? Children’s responses to climate change fiction', Environmental Education Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2026.2618476
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess