‘Need to know they’re doing the right thing’: exploring secondary English teacher approaches to Indigenous climate fiction

This paper shares findings from a 2022 pilot project called ‘Reading Climate'. Indigenous speculative and climate fiction was centred to contribute to existing research on anti-colonial approaches to secondary school subject English in Australia. The broader project (continuing through 2024–2026) is a collaboration between Indigenous and white settler researchers based at universities across two Eastern Australian states. The core research questions of the pilot study were: How do English teachers engage with Indigenous ways of knowing and understanding Country? How do English teachers engage with Indigenous fiction in the content of climate education? What, if any, factors prevent teachers from engaging with Indigenous fiction, particularly speculative and climate fiction? Findings from the book clubs show significant diversity in terms of teachers’ pedagogical confidence with and knowledge of Indigenous climate fiction and highlight the ways in which a lack of confidence can both perpetuate the colonial project of school English and limit the interdisciplinary potential of literary study. Further, findings from the book clubs offer insights into the kinds of approaches to teacher professional learning that might support anti-colonial, climate-aware approaches to school English.