Environmental Literacy and Critical Climate Citizenship in Turkish Language Textbooks: A Thematic Analysis of Climate Change Representation

Abstract

Climate change is not only an environmental crisis but also a fundamental pedagogical issue that shapes individuals’ understanding of responsibility and citizenship. In this context, the subject falls within the scope of not only science education but also language (native or foreign) and literacy education. However, studies on how representations of climate change are structured in native language textbooks are limited. This study examines how climate change and environmental representations are constructed in 24 Turkish textbooks taught at the middle school level in Turkey between 2019 and 2025. The research was conducted based on the Environmental Literacy Framework; a reflective thematic analysis approach integrating inductive coding with theoretical matching was adopted. As a result of the analysis, five themes were identified: (1) selective construction of environmental knowledge and areas of silence (2) emotional discourse and moral loading regarding nature (3) individualization of environmental responsibility (4) skill orientation in the axis of participatory citizenship, and (5) from behavioral compliance to critical environmental citizenship. The findings show that the effects of climate change are strongly visible; however, historical, economic, and political causes are not systematically addressed. The role of environmental responsibility is mostly confined to that aspect of individual ethics and behavior; there is a minimal mention of collective action and systemic causality. For all, then, the findings uncover the fact that the climate change discourse may induce strong emotional awareness but does not comprehensively integrate the knowledge and action dimensions of environmental literacy. This study demonstrates that language-based teaching alone can increase environmental awareness but may limit critical climate citizenship and collective action; therefore, interdisciplinary teaching approaches are necessary.