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.

Keywords

climate change representation critical climate citizenship environmental literacy thematic analysis Turkish language textbooks

Introduction

Climate change is a worldwide phenomenon representing statistically significant changes in global average temperature, rainfall distribution, and the severity and frequency of extreme weather events on a global scale observed over a wide range of time scales over atmospheric, oceanic, and terrestrial systems. Long-term observational records and climate modeling underpin this process (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2025; World Meteorological Organization, 2025). These modifications, which are overwhelmingly the results of human interactions, are now well-documented to have occurred (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2023). Increased fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, and intensive large-scale agriculture have significantly raised greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. As a result, the global average temperature has increased by approximately 1.1°C since the Industrial Revolution. Exceeding the 1.5°C threshold has led to irreversible ecological, economic, and social consequences (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2019). Here, climate change is not just an environmental problem but a complex global emergency for which food security, water, public health, migration, and social equality are inseparable in this regard and are closely related to it (Leal Filho et al., 2020; Pakravan-Charvadeh et al., 2025). In this multidimensional crisis, climate change is described as one of the most pressing learning imperatives of the 21st century by UNESCO and the European Commission (European Commission, 2024; UNESCO, 2020), as well as by the strategic need to educate climate-literate individuals. This global policy agenda shows that climate change is not just a scientific matter but a field of meaning that works pedagogically, culturally, and socially. As a consequence, the representation of climate change within educational materials poses not only the question of what information becomes a subject of education but also who bears responsibility for change, which actors are visible, and who becomes represented as subjects of environmental citizenship. Thus, textbooks have emerged as an important resource for investigating where these different aspects of environmental literacy have been reinforced in recent years. But how climate change is framed by the pedagogic frame, if you will, is connected both to content choice and how causalities are made visible, at what level (individual or structural) responsibility is placed, and within what dimensions of citizenship horizon are opened up for learners. In such circumstances, textbooks need to be judged as not simply “a source of knowledge” (i.e., messages that are presented) but also as educational institutions that organize climate change, as well as students’ understandings of climate change and their positioning as environmental subjects.

Education has emerged as one of the most important instruments of social change through a systematization of individuals to comprehend environmental systems, understand the cause-and-effect relationships between humans and ecosystems, and engage in sustainable behaviors (Lee and Nguyen, 2024; Senese et al., 2026; United Nations, 1992). Textbooks provide the most concrete and widely visible demonstration of this transformation in the classroom. Here, textbooks emerge as an often hidden but incredibly useful pedagogical weapon in the struggle against climate change. Schools are not just venues for communication or the transmission of scholarly knowledge but also cultural learning sites where environmental consciousness, sustainable development ideas, and knowledge of climate change are formed (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2025; UNESCO, 2020). Textbooks are particular materials with high normative and thematic importance when considering students’ worldviews, particularly in primary and secondary school classrooms (Portus et al., 2024; Winograd, 2016). In this sense, textbooks are not only texts that carry information; rather, they operate as ideological and pedagogical mechanisms that shape the ways that environmental issues are considered, what kind of value system they articulate, and what limits for action are placed or justified (Jickling and Sterling, 2017; Jickling and Wals, 2008). However, the literature shows that climate change and environmental issues are mostly addressed in a superficial and fragmented manner in textbooks (Boon, 2010; Román and Busch, 2016; Tolppanen and Aksela, 2018). International studies reveal that environmental content is largely limited to cognitive knowledge transfer; higher-level environmental literacy components such as critical thinking, empathy development, and participation in collective climate action are not sufficiently supported (Hansson and McKenzie, 2022; Lee and Nguyen, 2024; Portus et al., 2024). These findings suggest that textbooks often represent environmental crises within a framework limited to awareness-raising and that their capacity to position students as transformative collective actors remains constrained. The key gap in the literature at this point is the question of how climate content is produced across disciplines and, particularly in nonscience fields, how it is reframed through discursive strategies. Although language and literacy education offers a specific field in terms of value production, metaphorical construction, and citizenship processes, there are limited studies that systematically analyze climate representations in this context.

When these international trends are evaluated in conjunction with studies in the Turkish context, they point to a similar picture. Although the curriculum includes themes of environmental protection and sustainability, it is evident that these contents are not addressed systematically and holistically from a climate change perspective (Başoğlu and Sarıdede, 2020; Külekçi and Alkan, 2025). However, while the existing literature includes studies focusing on science and social studies textbooks, research on how climate discourse is produced in the context of language education is limited. In particular, how environmental themes are framed through narrative, metaphor, and value production; how responsibility is distributed at the individual or structural level; and how students are subjectified as climate citizenship subjects within this framework have not been sufficiently explored. This situation constitutes the theoretical and methodological gap of the study. At this point, Turkish textbooks stand out as a unique pedagogical field in terms of climate education. The Turkish language course, one of the fundamental components of the Ministry of National Education’s (MNE’s) curriculum in Turkey, aims not only to develop language skills but also to instill ethical, empathetic, and civic values (Baki, 2019; Türkben, 2019). Through stories, poems, and informative texts, Turkish textbooks contribute to students establishing an emotional connection with nature, making sense of the world through environmental metaphors, and developing a sense of responsibility toward nature. This feature offers significant potential, particularly in terms of strengthening the attitude and value dimensions of environmental literacy (Baş, 2003; Erten and Köseoğlu, 2022). However, teacher- and student-focused studies show that this potential does not always translate into a pedagogically critical and systems thinking-based learning path. Although teachers consider it important to address environmental and climate issues in their lessons (Ibourk et al., 2025), they report a lack of guidance materials and pedagogical support in these areas (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2023; UNESCO, 2020). It is reported that students are interested in topics such as environmental pollution, recycling, and drought; however, this content mostly remains at the level of moral instruction and individual behavior and is not sufficiently linked to the scientific, social, and political dimensions of climate systems (Altun et al., 2024; Göksel, 2024; Önal and Maden, 2024). Indeed, recent textbook analyses reveal that environmental and climate content in Turkish textbooks is predominantly structured at the cognitive and affective levels, with limited in-depth content supporting collective action and structural accountability analysis (Başoğlu and Sarıdede, 2020; Gülersoy and Civil, 2023; Tok et al., 2024). These findings necessitate examining how Turkish textbooks represent climate change not only at the content level but also in terms of which dimensions of environmental literacy they strengthen.

While environmental literacy and critical climate citizenship are closely related concepts in climate education research, they represent analytically distinct yet complementary constructs. Environmental literacy generally refers to the development of foundational competencies such as environmental knowledge, attitudes, skills, and pro-environmental behaviors that enable individuals to understand environmental systems and respond responsibly to environmental problems (Hollweg et al., 2011). Critical climate citizenship, however, extends beyond these foundational competencies by emphasizing systemic analysis, democratic participation, and collective action aimed at addressing the structural causes of climate change (Dobson, 2007; Huckle and Wals, 2015; Tok et al., 2024). In this sense, environmental literacy can be understood as providing the foundational capacities upon which critical climate citizenship builds a broader sociopolitical engagement with climate issues.

The study analyzes environmental representations based on the Environmental Literacy Framework (Hollweg et al., 2011); it also evaluates how critical climate citizenship is framed at the individual or structural level and how the student is positioned as a climate citizen through thematic patterns. This perspective attends not only to the existence of environmental knowledge but also to the regime of meaning within which it operates. In this regard, the study makes a theoretical contribution within the literature by demonstrating that climate content generates high levels of affective awareness within the realm of language education but offers a limited horizon of critical climate citizenship in terms of systemic causality and collective action capacity. To some extent, the Turkish experience should not be viewed merely as a local case but as a broader practice that offers insight into how climate-related issues are emotionalized, individualized, and made visible. This occurs through pedagogical strategies within an education system shaped by a centralized curriculum structure, the normative influence of language courses, and the ongoing tension between development and the climate crisis.

Environmental literacy

Environmental literacy provides a strong theoretical foundation for analyzing how educational materials develop ecological understanding, sustainability values, and climate awareness in young learners. Based on environmental education theory, this approach emphasizes the holistic development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors that enable individuals to make informed decisions about the environment and engage in responsible actions (Hollweg et al., 2011; Husamah et al., 2025; McBride et al., 2013). Research shows that environmental literacy has evolved from a static concept referring only to environmental awareness to a dynamic model centered on action-oriented and climate-sensitive learning (Ardoin et al., 2018; Biasutti and Frate, 2017; Chawla and Cushing, 2007; McBride et al., 2013; United Nations, 1992). This evolution also demonstrates that environmental literacy is not merely a process of acquiring knowledge but also a normative framework that determines how students are positioned as environmental subjects and citizens. Therefore, environmental literacy also provides a functional conceptual tool for analyzing whether the responsibility of pedagogical content is framed at the level of individual behavior or at the level of collective and structural actors.

According to the framework developed by the North American Association for Environmental Education (Hollweg et al., 2011), environmental literacy occurs when individuals understand environmental systems (knowledge), have the capacity to analyze and interpret environmental issues (skill), develop a strong sensitivity toward the natural world (attitude), and exhibit behaviors that support sustainability (behavior). These four interrelated dimensions function within a learning continuum that extends from awareness to understanding, from understanding to sensitivity, and from sensitivity to responsible action (Stevenson et al., 2016, 2017; Stevenson and Whitehouse, 2023; Xiong et al., 2025). Indeed, current research shows that when environmental literacy is limited to the knowledge dimension, behavioral change is not sustainable; it is particularly important to systematically support the attitude and action dimensions, especially at an early age (Ardoin et al., 2018; Huoponen, 2023; McBride et al., 2013). However, the literature also discusses that the behavioral dimension of environmental literacy is often limited to individual adaptation and daily practices, while more advanced forms of citizenship, such as collective decision-making processes, policy participation, and structural transformation, are less represented.

This framework also aligns with UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development goals (UNESCO, 2020), which position learners as active agents of change capable of linking environmental knowledge with ethical reasoning and social responsibility, while the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change similarly calls for strengthening climate literacy, highlighting an educational approach that supports behavioral change and social resilience (United Nations, 1992). Recent research shows that environmental literacy is directly related to climate action and that school-based interventions, in particular, play a decisive role in developing students’ collective responsibility and civic awareness (Lawson et al., 2019; Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020; Trott et al., 2023). Environmental literacy-centered educational approaches ensure that children not only acquire knowledge at a cognitive level but also develop emotional empathy and gain a sense of collective responsibility in combating environmental crises (Gopinath and Kumar, 2025; Li et al., 2024). This finding supports the view that environmental literacy should be approached not merely as individual knowledge accumulation but as an ethical and citizenship-based learning process aimed at social transformation (Arbues et al., 2025; Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020; Trott et al., 2023; UNESCO, 2020). However, how these normative goals are concretized in textbooks, how responsibility is distributed among actors, and to what extent students’ critical climate citizenship capacity is supported is not clear in every context. Therefore, the Environmental Literacy Framework requires analyzing not only the knowledge–attitude–behavior relationship but also which action horizons and representational forms make possible or limit.

The dimensions of environmental literacy—knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors—were used as operational categories to examine the content of texts in textbooks and the pedagogical orientation of learning activities associated with these texts. In this context, the analysis aims to reveal whether environmental representations remain solely at the level of cognitive awareness or whether they are associated with higher-level learning outcomes such as ethical sensitivity, critical reasoning, and action orientation.

Critical Climate Citizenship

Critical climate citizenship is a theoretical approach that addresses the climate crisis not only as an environmental problem but as a structural issue related to justice, democracy, and citizenship. This perspective aims to position individuals as subjects who can analyze the systemic causes of the climate crisis and participate in collective-democratic processes, going beyond the dimensions of environmental literacy such as knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behavior. In the literature, this approach is grounded in discussions of environmental citizenship (Dobson, 2003), justice-oriented citizenship (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004), critical climate education (Stevenson et al., 2016), and climate justice-based education. Recent research calls on the way critical climate citizenship must not be viewed only as the acts of individuals on the environment; rather, it should be situated within hierarchies of power, fossil capitalism, global inequalities, and democratic representation crises (Bessant et al., 2025; Cripps, 2025; Gooding et al., 2025). In this sense, critical climate citizenship is framed as a politicized and normatively deepened form of environmental literacy. The first axis is the dimension of systemic causality of critical climate citizenship. This axis needs to recognize that the climate crisis is an issue of economic, political, and industrial structures rather than choices within society. Critical climate citizenship here is understood not simply as an ethical duty but also as a political position requiring structural transformation (Gooding et al., 2025). Dobson (2003) points out that environmental citizenship includes a global responsibility dimension, emphasizing the role of production–consumption regimes and historical carbon inequalities that must be integrated into environmental citizenship. Likewise, Westheimer and Kahne (2004) argue that citizenship demands the analysis of structural problems, highlighting the limitations of pedagogical approaches that reduce the climate emergency to individual actions such as recycling or energy conservation. The emphasis on education from a climate justice perspective suggests developing critical citizenship capacity rather than producing “compliant environmental awareness” (Cripps, 2025). Studies arguing for a rethinking of citizenship suggest that young people should be positioned not only as environment-friendly individuals but also as democratic actors demanding systemic transformation (Bessant et al., 2025). In this context, systemic causality forms the cognitive basis of critical climate citizenship.

The second axis is the dimension of collective action. Within the framework of environmental literacy, the individual is defined as having the capacity for conscious decision-making and responsible behavior (Hollweg et al., 2011). However, critical climate citizenship argues that this behavior should not be limited to individual lifestyle changes. Sustainability education must have a political dimension; otherwise, environmental problems will be narrowed down to technical and individual solutions (Huckle and Wals, 2015; Husamah et al., 2025). Youth climate movements produce new forms of citizenship, and education systems must support this collective action potential (Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020). It has also been shown that climate anxiety can generate transformative capacity when linked to collective hope and political participation (Ojala et al., 2021). In this context, the climate justice perspective positions collective action not as an ethical choice but as a democratic imperative (Cripps, 2025; Gooding et al., 2025). Practices such as voting, participating in civil society activities, campaigning, and demanding policy change have therefore become fundamental components of climate citizenship. Thus, critical climate citizenship shifts the behavioral dimension from individual consumption choices to the realm of collective and public intervention.

The third axis is the dimension of democratic participation and power analysis. Westheimer and Kahne (2004) emphasize that justice-oriented citizens are not merely helpful individuals but also question the origins of inequalities and structural problems. This approach defines citizenship as a critical and transformative stance rather than passive compliance. Dobson (2003) points to the multiscale nature of the climate crisis, arguing that environmental citizenship requires a global sense of responsibility that transcends nation-state boundaries. Climate education loses its transformative capacity when it fails to open up a space for democratic debate (Stevenson et al., 2016). Findings that citizenship requires active democratic intervention (Bessant et al., 2025) and that education becomes politically neutralized if climate justice is not placed at the center of citizenship education (Cripps, 2025) reinforce the importance of this axis. This theoretical framework reveals that critical climate citizenship aims not only to cultivate knowledgeable and environmentally conscious individuals but also to develop subjects who can analyze power relations, establish systemic causality, and intervene in democratic processes. Therefore, critical climate citizenship can be considered a higher conceptualization that reintegrates the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of environmental literacy within a democratic and political depth.

Climate Education and Climate in Textbooks

Research shows that textbooks are a fundamental pedagogical tool in the construction of environmental literacy and shape students’ environmental worldviews by placing climate-related content within everyday learning contexts (Lee and Nguyen, 2024; Portus et al., 2024). In this sense, textbooks are not merely materials that convey information. They function as cultural texts that structure students’ relationship with nature, their perceptions of self-efficacy regarding sustainability, and their potential for environmental action (Lee and Nguyen, 2024; Pujiastuti and Nurmala, 2025; Vesterinen, 2024). Indeed, it is emphasized that the language, metaphors, and visual representations used in textbooks can guide students toward active citizenship on environmental issues; however, they can also reproduce passive approaches that present nature as a passive and unchanging backdrop (Bonilla and Quesada, 2024; Schauss et al., 2024).

Textbook analyses in the literature reveal that climate change is mostly addressed in a descriptive and conceptual framework in textbooks across different countries; the dimensions of critical thinking, citizenship, and action remain relatively weak (Bagoly-Simó and Caracuta, 2025; Kushwah et al., 2025; Ojala et al., 2021; Schauss et al., 2024; Stevenson et al., 2016, 2017). Studies conducted in the European context also point to a similar picture (Bonilla and Quesada, 2024; Hansson and McKenzie, 2022; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2021; Sterling, 2001; UNESCO, 2020). This general trend largely coincides with studies in the Turkish context (Başoğlu and Sarıdede, 2020; Gülersoy et al., 2020; Gülersoy and Civil, 2023; Tok et al., 2024). When national and international findings in the literature are evaluated together, it is seen that environmental awareness and climate education in textbooks are structured within a narrow thematic framework and mostly remain at the cognitive awareness level (Lee and Nguyen, 2024; Sağlam and Miçooğulları, 2021; Stevenson and Whitehouse, 2023). However, a significant portion of existing studies focus on content frequency or thematic presence; in-depth thematic analyses of how environmental themes are structured within pedagogical orientations and meaning patterns remain limited. This necessitates examining questions such as “how it is structured” and “what learning horizons it enables” at the thematic level, rather than merely asking “how much environmental information is included.” In this context, the present study aims to fill the gap in the literature within the framework of thematic analysis by focusing on revealing recurring patterns of meaning, dominant thematic orientations, and areas of pedagogical emphasis rather than the quantitative presence of environmental content.

This study conceptualizes critical climate citizenship not as an alternative to environmental literacy, but as its critically and politically expanded form. While environmental literacy addresses the dimensions of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors in a holistic manner (Hollweg et al., 2011), critical climate citizenship deepens this framework along the axes of systemic causality, collective action, and democratic power analysis. Therefore, critical climate citizenship is considered the normative and political expansion of environmental literacy.

Research Questions

Based on the Environmental Literacy Framework (Hollweg et al., 2011), this study examines how climate change and environmental issues are structured in middle school Turkish textbooks through thematic analysis.

The study focuses not only on whether environmental representations exist at the content level but also on how they are organized in terms of recurring thematic patterns, pedagogical orientations, and environmental literacy dimensions. In this regard, the research addresses the following questions: RQ1:

How are climate change and environmental issues addressed in Turkish secondary school textbooks?

RQ2:

How do these representations frame causality and responsibility (individual or structural)?

RQ3:

How do these representations position students in the context of environmental citizenship and climate action?

These questions aim to reveal which forms of environmental knowledge are prioritized by recurring thematic patterns in textbook content, which action horizons are supported, and which dimensions remain limited.

Method

Research Context

Turkey confronts climate change via policy document sets in four tiers, where it integrates it with the national development vision. The international agreements to which Turkey is a party, as well as national strategies and plans for action, treat climate as something more than an environmental issue and a structural problem involving economic, social, and educational aspects as well. This perspective has been further elaborated in the Climate Change Mitigation Strategy and Action Plan (2024–2030) formulated by the Climate Change Directorate of the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change (Climate Change Presidency, Ministry of Environment, 2024), where social awareness, behavioral change, and education are identified as key policy tools for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change. While the existing policy documents refer to climate change as being a structural problem, how this theme of structural significance is presented thematically in textbooks and which dimensions that emphasize the point are illustrated is an examination in its own right. This policy orientation has been directly reflected in the education system through the Climate Change Action Plan developed by the MNE, which views education as a critical domain for addressing climate change and aims to cultivate students who understand the origins, impacts, and social implications of climate change from an early age (Ministry of National Education, 2022, 2023a). In this context, environmental and climate themes in curricula and textbooks have also been embraced as an education policy to meet sustainable development goals. The literature has only scantly written on how this holistic view, as outlined in the policy instruments, is expressed in textbooks in thematic order and the distribution of the dimensions of responsibility and action. In the Turkish context, Turkish language classes and Turkish books occupy a privileged position to accomplish these goals. But, at the middle school level, Turkish language classes are one of the core subjects covering all basic language skills: reading, listening/viewing, speaking, and writing. They have high-volume instruction hours per week and are obligatory to all pupils. So Turkish language classes are also different than other subjects in terms of the assessment and evaluation system. Under the relevant laws, students must score a minimum of 70 points in Turkish language classes to pass the grade and a minimum of 50 points in other subjects (Ministry of National Education, 2023b). The above makes Turkish a subject with high stakes at the middle school level and establishes Turkish books as the central pedagogical instruments for all students’ progress and development of value. In this regard, Turkish textbooks serve as both pedagogic and cultural texts that structure the formation of values, attitudes, meanings, and even perspectives—as opposed to being just materials that impart information on complex interdisciplinary themes, such as climate change. Thus, Turkish textbooks provide an important field of study by providing insight into how environmental and climate issues affect children’s intellectual, emotional, and social growth. Especially in language education, core questions that require interpretation at the thematic level include the following: To what extent does environmental content frame, to what role does responsibility become individualistic, and to what extent do students become subjects of environmental citizenship? Although Turkey’s national policy documents and education strategies have put more emphasis on climate change, few studies have investigated the manner in which this approach is exhibited in textbooks. In particular, previous research has not explicitly examined which themes, discursive frameworks, and learning orientations Turkish textbooks adopt in representing climate change, nor how these relate to the knowledge, attitude, and action dimensions of ecological literacy. Most of the literature concerns content presence or topic frequency and the influence of these themes on responsibility distribution and capacity for critical environmental citizenship is reported to be relatively scarce. Through this lens, the study of Turkish textbooks is not simply a teaching matter, but a politically as well as a theoretically important subject in terms of assessing whether Turkey’s objectives of increasing social consciousness and promoting behavioral transformation via education in the context of the climate change issues are thematic constructs. The objective of the study is to investigate climate change and environmental issues as they are depicted in Turkish middle school textbooks, using reflexive thematic analysis. The research applies the reflexive thematic analysis. Reflexive thematic analysis is a versatile and analytical method that seeks to detect recurrent patterns of meaning in qualitative data, organize these into consistent themes, and interpret the resulting themes in a theoretical context (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2019).

Data Collection Tool

In this study, a total of 24 Turkish language textbooks approved by the MNE between 2019 and 2025, currently used in schools, and accessible to the researcher were included in the analysis. The textbooks were selected using a purposive sampling strategy based on specific criteria to ensure alignment with the national curriculum and current educational policy context. The textbooks that were included in the study were chosen to include textbooks aimed for books that are taught to the official curriculum and that are from various publishers. Accordingly, the selection criteria included (a) being officially approved by the MNE, (b) being used in middle schools in Turkey during the study period, (c) covering grades 5–8, and (d) being accessible to the researcher. The books were approved by the MNE, which actually operates in various geographical areas in Turkey, and are currently in use. Sources were curated based on current trends in the curriculum by prioritizing the topic of curriculum to have national representativeness in terms of their national context, including climate change workshops, national action plans, and education policy in Turkey for the last years. As a result, the books reviewed have not only the content but also the teaching period that extends till 2030. Limiting the data to the one subject allowed the implications of the findings to be situated in Turkey’s contemporary educational policies and practices in the domain of curriculum. Information on the textbooks that are examined can be found in Table A1 (Akyurt et al., 2024a, 2024b; Bayram-Turkak et al., 2023; Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019; Ceylan et al., 2019; Cin et al., 2025a, 2025b; Demir et al., 2025; Demirel, 2019; Duru and Pastutmaz, 2024; Erdal, 2023; Erkal and Erkal, 2019; Ertürk et al., 2020; Eselioğlu et al., 2020; Gerek, 2024; İlhan et al., 2025a, 2025b; Kır et al., 2019; Sarıboyacı, 2021; Saygı, 2023, 2024; Sevim, 2022; Yavuz and Kahraman, 2019; Yıldırım-Şen, 2024).

The main reason for restricting the study to books published between 2019 and 2025 is that the use of Turkish textbooks can last, at the most, 5 years after receiving an official certification of use from the MNE. For instance, an approved Turkish textbook from 2025 can be taught in official academic settings until 2030. Examining textbooks from the past five years provides insight into the pedagogical content currently in use and likely to remain relevant in the coming years. This enhances the temporal validity of the study and its congruence with the current education policy.

Another reason for choosing 5th-, 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade Turkish textbooks as the source data is that Turkish language instruction occupies a leading and critical position in the middle school curriculum in Turkey and spans the four linguistic skills: listening/watching, speaking, reading, and writing. Turkish textbooks aim not only to develop language skills but also to convey higher-level cognitive and affective gains such as values education, critical thinking, establishing intertextual relationships, and social awareness. In this respect, Turkish textbooks offer strong pedagogical potential for conveying interdisciplinary topics such as the environment and climate to students.

Data Analysis

The coding process followed a hybrid thematic analysis approach that combined inductive coding with theory-informed interpretation based on the Environmental Literacy Framework. In this study, Braun and Clarke’s (Braun and Clarke, 2006) thematic analysis was adopted to examine the pedagogical representations of climate change and environmental themes in Turkish textbooks used at the middle school level. Thematic analysis offers a flexible and analytical method that allows for the systematic identification of recurring patterns of meaning in qualitative data and the interpretation of these patterns within a theoretical framework. Accordingly, the analysis was conducted following the six-phase framework proposed by Braun and Clarke (Braun and Clarke, 2006, 2019).

Stage 1: Becoming Familiar with the Data

In the first stage of the analysis, the researcher became familiar with the data by repeatedly examining the reading texts, listening/viewing texts, and related learning activities included in the dataset. During this process, content related to themes such as climate change, environmental awareness, natural events, sustainability, energy use, and green spaces was identified; preliminary analytical notes were created while preserving the contextual characteristics of the texts. In addition, the texts and activities were subject to a preliminary assessment in terms of the explicit/implicit presentation of environmental content and normative, descriptive, action-oriented, or problem-based presentation formats. Thus, dominant representational forms were considered in the early stages of the analysis. This preliminary evaluation laid the groundwork for more systematic tracking of thematic patterns that would emerge in the subsequent coding stage.

Stage 2: Coding

The unit of analysis consisted of meaningful text segments related to environmental and climate issues, including sentences, short paragraphs, and activity instructions found in the textbooks. In the second stage, the data were coded at the sentence and paragraph level using an open coding approach (Saldaña, 2021). The coding process was conducted using inductive logic, without relying on a predefined code list. Codes were created by focusing not only on word repetitions but also on semantic, pedagogical, and ethical emphases in the texts (Braun and Clarke, 2019). At this stage, conceptual subcodes such as “energy efficiency,” “climate justice,” “ethical responsibility,” “nature observation,” “recycling,” “resource management,” and “environmental awareness” were systematically derived and clearly linked to relevant text passages. While creating the codes, references to the causes of environmental problems, the actors to whom responsibility is directed, and the level of proposed solutions (individual behavior, social participation, structural transformation) were tracked as separate points of analytical attention. During the coding process, it was also noted which dimension of environmental literacy (knowledge, attitude/values, action/participation) each code corresponded to, thus structuring the analysis not only at the content level but also in terms of the pedagogical dimensions of critical climate citizenship. This matching allowed the themes to be positioned within the knowledge–attitude–action continuum of environmental literacy.

Stage 3: Creating the Initial Themes

Before creating themes in the third stage, certain criteria were considered. First, the initial codes that could be related to the research question were categorized, considering whether the extracted codes and categories came together around a common topic. The process of creating the initial themes also revealed the need to return to the second stage to reorganize and refine some codes. After all this, codes showing conceptual proximity were grouped under higher-level categories, and themes were created through these categories. Repeating patterns of meaning, dominant representations, and pedagogical focuses among the codes were examined comparatively; similar codes were combined within the same thematic clusters (Guest et al., 2012). At this stage, themes were formed based on patterns that repeatedly appeared in the data and showed consistency across texts. As a result of this analytical process, five main 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. In the theme formation process, not only content similarities were considered but also the educational orientation of the texts, the targeted learning outcomes, the dominant forms of representation, and the components of critical climate citizenship within the knowledge–attitude–action continuum of environmental literacy.

Stage 4: Development and Review of Themes

The themes created in the fourth stage were systematically reviewed in terms of internal consistency and differentiation between themes (Braun and Clarke, 2006). At this stage, some codes were moved to more appropriate conceptual contexts, the thematic structure was reorganized, and the level of overlap of each theme with the research purpose was specifically monitored. This clarified the conceptual boundaries of the themes and strengthened their analytical purity.

Stage 5: Refining, Defining, and Naming the Themes

In the fifth stage, the themes were named and defined. Each theme was treated not merely as a descriptive heading but as an analytical construct with its function clearly defined in the context of conceptual, pedagogical, and environmental literacy (Nowell et al., 2017). Themes were reported with highly representative direct text quotations and relevant page numbers, thus concretizing abstract thematic categories within the textbook context. The relationships between codes, categories, themes, dominant representations, and environmental literacy dimensions are presented in detail in Table A2.

Step 6: Writing Process

In the final step, the relationships between themes were interpreted holistically from a vertical learning pathway perspective. The findings of the analysis revealed that, as the grade level progressed, climate and environmental awareness showed a gradual development from predominantly value-based and normative representations to observation-based cognitive depth and, to a limited extent, scientific-ethical responsibility and action-oriented environmental citizenship orientations (Elo and Kyngäs, 2008). The findings are presented with highly representative text and activity examples under each theme; the analysis process is reported in a transparent, traceable, and verifiable manner. This comprehensive interpretation was conducted within the thematic analysis framework; the inferences are based directly on the thematic patterns observed in the data.

Validity and Reliability

The study addressed validity and reliability based on the reliability guidelines introduced by Lincoln and Guba (Lincoln and Guba, 1985) for qualitative investigations and the methodological rigor of thematic analysis proposed by Nowell et al. (Nowell et al., 2017). The coding process was conducted with autonomy by three experts practicing environmental education and qualitative research methodology. In particular, the analysis covers texts related to the themes of environment, climate change, and sustainability in 24 textbooks for grades 5–8 Turkish language courses, as well as the learning activities associated with these texts. This multiple-coder approach was to facilitate the steady theme discovery independently of the researcher. After free coding, the first rate of agreement among the coders was 82 percent. Cohen’s kappa coefficient (κ = 0.78) was used to estimate coding reliability based on randomly selected units of data. This means that there is generally a good level of agreement in qualitative thematic analyses. Codes could be resolved as per consensus discussions based on the data context and theoretical framework, and final codes were determined via consensus (Miles et al., 2014). This process aimed to ensure that the code and theme structure in the analysis was stable and reproducible. Throughout the analysis process, code definitions, theme revisions, and decision justifications were recorded in writing, thus creating an audit trail to ensure the traceability and verifiability of the analysis process (Guest et al., 2012; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Each theme was supported by direct quotations and page numbers from different textbooks to ensure data-interpretation consistency (Braun and Clarke, 2006). The systematic use of direct quotations aimed to demonstrate that the themes were developed based on the data and to enable the reader to follow the interpretation process. To limit researcher subjectivity, the principle of reflexivity was adopted during the coding process; care was taken to ensure that interpretations were data-driven (Finlay, 2002; Nowell et al., 2017). This approach acknowledges the inevitability of the interpretive dimension in thematic analysis, while adopting the fundamental principle that inferences must be grounded in textual evidence.

Findings

Thematic analysis identified five main themes. These themes reveal how climate change and environmental themes are structured within meaning patterns in middle school Turkish textbooks and how they are positioned in terms of environmental and critical climate literacy dimensions. Each theme is presented below based on direct text examples.

Theme A: Selective Construction of Environmental Knowledge and Areas of Silence

Environmental issues are presented in textbooks primarily through measurable risk indicators and striking examples. Desertification is made visible on a national scale with the statement “Turkey is gradually becoming a desert” (Demirel, 2019, p. 20); the annual “743 million tons” of soil loss reveals the scale of erosion as a quantitative reality (Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019, p. 75). On a global scale, the problem is universalized with the information that 6 percent of the world’s surface is desertified and 29 percent is in the process of desertification (Yavuz and Kahraman, 2019, p. 188). The consequences of climate change are exemplified by the prediction that a 1-m rise in sea level will submerge 17 percent of Bangladesh and displace millions of people (Ertürk et al., 2020, p. 207). Similarly, it is emphasized that global warming causes glaciers to shrink and disappear (Sevim, 2022, p. 147).

These findings show that the effects of environmental destruction are made visible through strong statistical data and concrete examples. In contrast, explanations regarding the causal background of these processes and the distribution of responsibility occupy a more limited place in the texts. At the thematic level, this pattern reveals that environmental content is predominantly structured around outcomes and impacts.

Theme B: Emotional Discourse and Moral Loading Regarding Nature

In textbooks, nature is not just depicted as an environmental factor that needs to be preserved, but as personified with a rich emotional and moral connotation. Soil is framed as “too precious to lose,” and this value is linked to a form of existential threat by the statement “if we lose our soil, we lose our lives” (Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019, p. 75). This discourse transcends treating environmental loss as a biophysical problem and associates it with the preservation of life. Likewise, “Protecting our nature is also considered national defense” places both environmental protection into national responsibility and moral duty discourse (Cin et al., 2025a, p. 115). Nature, as seen in the texts, is a “subject” that “responds” to human activity, while at the same time, the messages emphasize that people are indifferent to these responses. This contrast sets up the human–nature relationship as an ethical tension. Furthermore, “My family is about to be wiped off the face of the earth. If things continue like this, my lineage will be lost,” frames environmental destruction not just as a loss of ecosystem but as a catastrophic threat to intergenerational sustainability (Erdal, 2023, p. 111). In textbooks, environmental issues are presented in a discourse that appears highly emotionally driven and with moral implications and yet is largely divorced in terms of structural causes and transformative actions. Nature is conceptualized as a powerful ethical value; responsibility is primarily framed as a matter of conscience and moral sensitivity.

Theme C: Individualization of Environmental Responsibility

In textbooks, environmental responsibility is structured within a framework that is largely reduced to individual attitudes and behaviors. Responsibility for protecting the environment is presented as a universal but individual-based obligation with statements such as “everyone should be sensitive” (Ceylan et al., 2019, p. 169) and “we should be individuals with environmental awareness” (Cin et al., 2025a, p. 115). This approach defines environmental issues through everyday individual practices rather than collective, structural, or political contexts.

Indeed, responsibility toward the environment is concretized through behavioral norms such as not littering, not lighting fires, or not harming plants, and these actions are presented as fundamental indicators of environmental awareness (Cin et al., 2025b, p. 117). Similarly, combating climate change is linked to individual choices through the call to “reduce your carbon footprint” (Ertürk et al., 2020, p. 209), while environmental well-being is reduced to a universal desire in the form of “everyone’s desire to live in a green and clean place” (Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019, p. 75). The findings show that environmental responsibility is largely separated from systemic actors and structural factors and transferred to the realm of individual ethics and behavior.

Theme D: Skill Orientation in the Axis of Participatory Citizenship

In textbooks, environmental and climate issues are addressed through activities that shift students from being passive recipients of information to engaging in public participation and skill-based learning orientations. Students are expected to follow current environmental discourse, evaluate it, and share it through guidelines such as “Share the TV and radio news you follow about environmental protection and environmental awareness” (Demirel, 2019, p. 17) and “Follow TV and radio news about environmental protection and environmental awareness, read articles on the internet, in newspapers, and in magazines…” (Demirel, 2019, p. 16) to follow, evaluate, and share current environmental discourse. In addition, the guideline “Design posters on the theme of protecting nature” (Yavuz and Kahraman, 2019, p. 188) enables students to represent environmental issues through public forms of expression. The statement “Research what global warming is and its effects on the climate” (Erkal and Erkal, 2019, p. 147) encourages research-based learning; the instruction “Organize a discussion in your class on the effects of seasonal changes on people” (Saygı, 2023, p. 64) supports collective negotiation. These examples demonstrate a skill orientation that encourages student participation in research, discussion, and production processes.

Theme E: From Behavioral Compliance to Critical Environmental Citizenship

The discourse on the environment and climate in textbooks is structured within a framework that acknowledges the tension between environmental protection and economic growth but does not critically deepen this tension. This tension is explicitly articulated with the question, “We will industrialize on the one hand, but we will not destroy nature on the other… How will this work?” (Demirel, 2019, p. 18), followed by a conciliatory discourse that resolves it with the statements “Yes, we will protect our natural resources. Yes, we will advance in industry and technology” and “This is what we want: to develop intelligently” (Demirel, 2019, p. 20).

Similarly, the statement “One of the most effective things that can be done to solve the problem of climate change is for people to meet their energy needs from renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuels” links the solution to technical and individual choices (Bayram-Turkak et al., 2023, p. 77). The statement “Technology has brought countless benefits to our lives. However, we must not lose control over our use of technology” presents technology in a cautious but fundamentally positive framework (Demirel, 2019, p. 79). Thematic analysis shows that economic-environmental tension is acknowledged but not deepened at a critical level.

The relationship between the five themes identified through thematic analysis and the dimensions of environmental and critical climate literacy is presented in Table A3. This situation reveals that the transition to critical climate citizenship has not yet achieved a comprehensive pedagogical framework.

Synthesis of Findings

When the findings are evaluated holistically in line with the research questions, it is seen that representations of climate change and critical climate citizenship in Turkish textbooks are structured around five main thematic patterns. These themes reveal the dimensions in which environmental content is made visible and the dimensions in which it remains limited (RQ1–RQ3). Thematic analysis shows that these patterns exhibit a structure that is repeated across different grade levels and publishers and shows relative consistency. This comprehensive picture reveals that the content presents an asymmetrical distribution from the perspective of critical climate literacy.

The first theme shows that environmental issues are predominantly presented through measurable outcomes and quantitative indicators. Indicators such as desertification, erosion, melting glaciers, and sea-level rise are made visible with strong data, while the historical, economic, and political contexts of these processes and the distribution of responsibility are covered to a limited extent (RQ1, RQ2). This situation shows that the information dimension is concentrated at a descriptive level, while the critical causality and structural analysis dimensions are relatively underrepresented.

The second theme reveals that nature is structured within an emotional and moral framework. Nature is associated with existential and national values; environmental protection is positioned within the realm of ethical responsibility (RQ2). This pattern strengthens the attitude/value dimension of environmental literacy; however, it limits the structural and political analysis dimension. Thus, a clear imbalance exists between emotional intensity and critical inquiry.

The third theme is characterized by the reduction of environmental responsibility largely to individual behaviors. Proposed solutions are defined through everyday practices; collective, institutional, and structural actors are visible to a limited extent (RQ2). When evaluated together with the first theme, it is seen that the limitation in causality is also concentrated at the individual level in the action dimension.

This situation shows that the collective and structural action capacity dimension of critical climate literacy is weakly represented. The fourth theme reveals that students’ participation in the process is encouraged through activities such as research, discussion, and media monitoring (RQ3). This structure supports the skill dimension of environmental literacy.

However, participation mostly remains at the level of expression and awareness production; the dimensions of collective decision-making, policy discussion, and social transformation are underrepresented. Therefore, although the skill orientation exists, it does not fully extend to the level of critical participation.

The fifth theme shows that the development-environment tension is acknowledged but is mostly addressed within the framework of conciliatory and technical solutions (RQ2, RQ3). This reveals that the potential for critical and transformative citizenship is implied but has not been systematically structured pedagogically. The critical orientation does not form a continuous thematic line.

When the dimensions of environmental literacy are evaluated together, it is seen that the dimension most strongly represented in textbooks is attitude/values, followed by the descriptive knowledge dimension. The action dimension, on the other hand, mostly remains at the level of individual behavior; the capacity for collective and structural action appears to be limited. Inter-thematic comparison shows that the knowledge–attitude–action dimensions do not form a balanced and holistic learning line. Overall, the findings reveal that environmental content is structured within a strong value-based framework; in contrast, the dimensions of structural causality, collective action, and critical climate citizenship are represented to a limited extent.

This result is a holistic assessment of recurring patterns identified through thematic analysis.

Discussion

The findings of this study show that, within the scope of RQ1, climate change and environmental issues are selectively constructed in Turkish textbooks through specific thematic framing strategies. When the five themes are evaluated together—(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 (5) from behavioral compliance to critical environmental citizenship—climate content is structured not within a holistic knowledge framework, but rather through a fragmented and gradual pedagogical logic. The reflections of climate change are mostly made visible through striking statistics, dramatic predictions, and powerful descriptions; however, the historical, economic, and political causes of these processes are addressed only to a limited extent. When the knowledge–attitude–skill–behavior dimensions of environmental literacy theory are considered together, this distribution points to a fragmented and axial concentration rather than a balanced structure in textbooks. Climate-related content is particularly concentrated on the axis of moral awareness and emotional sensitivity; in contrast, opportunities for scientific explanation, causal reasoning, and action-oriented learning remain relatively limited. Therefore, the findings of the thematic analysis point to a structural asymmetry between the four dimensions of environmental literacy, showing that the knowledge and action dimensions are pedagogically weaker than the attitude dimension. This structural asymmetry indicates that the capacity to establish systemic causality, analyze power relations, and analyze multilayered responsibility distribution, as required by critical climate citizenship as defined in the theoretical framework, remains pedagogically limited. Critical climate citizenship requires not only ethical sensitivity but also structural analysis, public agency, and collective intervention awareness; therefore, the current thematic distribution does not fully align with this normative framework.

These patterns of representation revealed through thematic analysis directly highlight the issue of the limits of critical climate citizenship. This is because the multilayered analysis of structural causality, power relations, and distribution of responsibility, which is a prerequisite for critical climate citizenship, is pedagogically structured in a limited way. This points to a regime of representation that emphasizes effects but leaves causes and distribution of responsibility relatively implicit. This representational regime presents environmental issues within a result-centered visibility, producing a pedagogical framework that limits systemic analysis and collective intervention capacity. From the perspective of critical climate citizenship, this representational regime empowers students as “sensitive individuals” but does not sufficiently equip them as “critical and public subjects.” Such a pedagogical structure produces moral responsibility; however, it can limit political agency and democratic participation capacity. In this context, the findings show that environmental literacy is particularly strengthened in the attitudes/values dimension, but the knowledge and behavior/action dimensions are not systematically integrated. This selective visibility and obscuring practice can also be linked to the framing and representation issues discussed in the climate communication literature (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Federio, 2023). This finding is consistent with international research indicating that school-based climate education often exists at the awareness level and fails to support transformative learning processes (Hansson and McKenzie, 2022; Huoponen, 2023; Monroe et al., 2019; Stevenson et al., 2016). From the perspective of critical climate citizenship, this points to a pedagogical gap between awareness and democratic participation. At present, positioning students not just as “environmentally conscious individuals” but also as citizens with the capacity for collective and transformative action remains limited within the current structure. Viewed through the lens of RQ2 and RQ3, this thematic order locates the causes, responsibility, and solutions for environmental issues within a particular distribution. The findings show that, in the context of the selective construction of environmental knowledge, the results are strongly represented; however, structural causes and opportunities for transformative social action remain limited. Climate literacy, meanwhile, means the holistic development of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors (Aeschbach et al., 2025; Hollweg et al., 2011; Huoponen, 2023). The results indicate that the value and awareness dimension is dominant, whereas cognitive depth, systemic causality, and collective action capacity are relatively secondary. The fact that environmental literacy appears thematically not to progress along an educational continuum from the vertical suggests a fragmented and unequal distribution. This indicates that environmental literacy presents a high profile, especially in relation to the attitude/value dimension, while the knowledge dimension is not holistically supported by systems thinking, and the behavior dimension is not holistically supported by collective action capacity. More specifically, the capacity to encourage affective participation cannot simply be paired with cognitive depth and action competence at the institutional level. This parallels the literature showing that climate education is structured around the axis of “raising awareness” and can stray from transformative pedagogical goals (Stevenson et al., 2016; UNESCO, 2020) and also coincides with studies showing that young people’s political participation in the climate field is largely not sufficiently supported in the educational context (Neas et al., 2022). This limitation shows that the collective action and democratic participation dimensions of critical climate citizenship have not been sufficiently expanded pedagogically. Limiting the solution to the climate crisis to individual adaptation strategies narrows citizenship from the realm of public intervention to everyday ethical choices.

The first theme, the selective construction of environmental knowledge and areas of silence, reveals that environmental issues are largely represented through risk indicators and dramatic consequences. This form of representation ensures that students perceive the environmental crisis as a significant threat on a global scale; however, it does not systematically reveal the historical and structural context of the crises. Schauss et al. (2024) show that fragmented and context-free representations in textbooks can limit students’ capacity to develop systems thinking. Similarly, Ibourk et al. (2025) emphasize that climate literacy cannot deepen without conceptual coherence. This theme indicates that the knowledge dimension remains at a descriptive level. This situation shows that students’ capacity to establish multilayered cause-and-effect relationships is not sufficiently supported due to the limited causal and structural explanations. Therefore, the knowledge dimension produces visibility based on data presentation; however, it remains limited in terms of systemic explanatory capacity. From the perspective of critical climate citizenship, this situation points to a pedagogical limitation that could lead students to perceive the climate crisis only at the level of “negative consequences” without being able to analyze the economic systems, energy regimes, and political decision-making processes behind these consequences. As Gustafsson (2019) implies, critical climate citizenship requires not only acquiring scientific knowledge about climate change but also questioning how this knowledge is produced and how it relates to policy processes. The weak representation of the systemic context weakens the structural understanding that forms the cognitive basis of critical citizenship.

The second theme, emotional discourses and moral framing of nature, frames environmental issues on an ethical and existential plane. Nature is represented as a sacred value to be protected and an area of national responsibility. This approach is consistent with studies emphasizing the importance of the affective and value-based dimensions of environmental education (Chawla and Cushing, 2007; Portus et al., 2024; Walshe and Sund, 2022). The findings show that emotional mobilization is strong; however, this mobilization mostly remains at the level of individual conscience and moral responsibility. This situation shows that the attitude/value dimension has been strengthened; however, this dimension cannot be systematically transferred to the behavior/action dimension at the collective and political levels. In this context, the attitude dimension cannot transformatively feed the action dimension. When evaluated from the perspective of critical climate citizenship, the failure of moral sensitivity to integrate with political agency and collective action means that citizenship practice is limited to individual ethical preferences. This situation may pave the way for the emergence of a type of citizenship that is environmentally sensitive but has limited capacity for public intervention.

The third theme, the individualization of environmental responsibility, defines environmental protection largely through individual behavioral norms and personal preferences. However, sustainability transformations are related not only to individual behavioral change but also to communication with policymakers, institutional regulations, and multiactor governance processes (Ettinger et al., 2025; Itten et al., 2021). The thematic pattern shows that the solution area is concentrated at the individual behavior level and that this situation narrows the public and political nature of critical citizenship. In the context of environmental literacy, this situation reveals that the behavior/action dimension is concentrated at the individual level, while the capacity for collective and systemic intervention remains pedagogically limited. This limitation leads to a pedagogically weak representation of the public dimension of critical environmental citizenship. From the perspective of critical climate citizenship, the individualization of responsibility carries the risk of obscuring multiactor responsibility regimes and institutional power relations. This pedagogical narrowing may cause students to reduce the climate crisis solely to individual lifestyle choices and fail to sufficiently develop their capacity for collective transformation.

The skill orientation in the fourth theme, participatory citizenship, supports participation and expression skills through practices such as media monitoring, conducting research, organizing discussions, and designing posters (Aeschbach et al., 2025; Chawla and Cushing, 2007; Wals and Corcoran, 2012). This finding shows that the skills dimension of environmental literacy is visible; however, these skills are not fully integrated with decision-making, political participation, and collective intervention capacity. However, the income and food security impacts of the climate crisis on vulnerable communities reveal the justice and inequality dimension of citizenship awareness (Zakari et al., 2022). Concrete changes observed in local ecosystems show that climate citizenship must be shaped by place-based awareness as much as global responsibility (D’Antraccoli et al., 2023). Therefore, although the skill dimension exists, it does not produce a consistent and sustainable integration with the action dimension. Critical climate citizenship requires the integration of participatory skills not only at the level of expression and awareness but also with the capacity for action that can intervene in democratic decision-making processes. The current thematic structure supports this expansion to a limited extent.

The transition from behavioral compliance, the fifth theme, to critical environmental citizenship shows that sustainability is mostly presented through technical and conciliatory solutions. This situation reveals that the knowledge–skill–attitude–behavior continuum struggles to evolve into a critical and transformative capacity for action. Consequently, the holistic structure theoretically anticipated between the four dimensions exhibits a thematic and pedagogical disconnect in practice. This disconnect indicates that critical climate citizenship has not been systematically established as a pedagogical goal and that there are structural limitations in building transformative citizenship capacity.

Overall, the findings show that Turkish textbooks strongly support the affective and attitudinal dimensions of climate literacy; however, they contain structural gaps in terms of systemic causality, critical inquiry, and collective action competence. In other words, there is no balanced distribution among the four dimensions of environmental literacy; in particular, there is a lack of structural integration in the knowledge and behavior dimensions. This structural imbalance limits the evolution of environmental literacy into a critical and transformative pedagogical framework. However, contemporary environmental education and climate communication literature clearly states that climate literacy must be supported by holistic and transformative pedagogies (Federio, 2023; Kushwah et al., 2025; Ojala et al., 2021). The findings make the normative limits of the thematic structure of critical climate citizenship more visible. However, while there is a strong production of ethical sensitivity, systemic analysis, public responsibility, and collective intervention capacity, they are not sufficiently integrated pedagogically.

When this thematic picture is evaluated together, it is seen that representations of climate change in Turkish textbooks do not fully achieve the knowledge–skill–attitude–behavior integrity predicted by the environmental literacy theory pedagogically. Thematic analysis reveals that the attitude/value dimension is strongly constructed; in contrast, the knowledge dimension does not deepen at the systemic and multilayered causality level, while the behavior dimension remains limited to individual adaptation practices. This structural asymmetry leads to a pedagogically weak representation of the cognitive depth, public responsibility, and collective intervention capacity required for critical environmental citizenship. Consequentially, climate education needs to be reinforced for interdisciplinary purposes to enhance beyond awareness-raising education and an ethical sensibility and to organize systems thinking, political investigation, and collective action competencies in a holistic learning method. Within this context, Turkish textbooks should be reevaluated in their role as more than just teaching a language and as the formation of students who are considered critical ecological citizens capable of grasping the climate emergency, examining possible causes, and developing responsible public action.

Theoretical Contribution

This study adds to the environmental literacy literature by showing that affective environmental understanding and structural silence can coexist within the texts. The existing literature highlights the importance of the holistic development of knowledge, attitude, skill, and action dimensions within climate education, but there is little literature that discusses the pedagogical implications of representational asymmetries between these dimensions. The results of this research suggest a systematic framework where moral-affective involvement is heavily constructed while systemic causality, power relations, and collective citizenship capacity remain relatively limited. This situation requires rethinking environmental literacy not just as a component-based model, but as a pedagogical configuration that works with representational priorities and practices of elision. Within this context, using its conception of “selective pedagogical structuring,” the research emphasizes not just what environmental content articulates but also what it renders invisible, raising questions about the extent of critical climate citizenship. More specifically, the findings demonstrate that environmental education materials may simultaneously strengthen moral engagement with environmental issues while silencing systemic causality and limiting the representation of collective climate action. This insight constitutes the central theoretical contribution of the study. Thus, textbooks in the context of language education are positioned not only as tools for transferring knowledge but also as pedagogical spaces that thematically construct and simultaneously constrain responsibility, subjectivity, and the horizon of political action.

Conclusions and Implications

This study examined how climate change and environmental themes are represented in Turkish textbooks based on the Environmental Literacy Framework (Hollweg et al., 2011). Findings based on the five identified themes—selective construction of environmental knowledge, emotional-moral framing of nature, individualization of responsibility, skill orientation along the axis of participatory citizenship, and transition from behavioral compliance to critical environmental citizenship—show that textbooks support environmental awareness to a certain extent, but this support is primarily concentrated in the attitude/value dimension of environmental literacy. The knowledge, skills, and behavior/action dimensions of environmental literacy, such as causal explanation, structural responsibility distribution, and collective action capacity, have not been sufficiently integrated into a holistic pedagogical design. This situation coincides with the problem of “transition from awareness to action” emphasized in the climate education literature (Hansson and McKenzie, 2022; Rousell and Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, 2020).

When considering the theoretically grounded perspective of critical climate citizenship, these findings point not only to a pedagogical deficiency but also to the normative limits of citizenship building. In textbooks, students are predominantly positioned as individuals bearing moral responsibility; conversely, a critical climate citizenship model capable of systemic analysis, questioning power relations, and developing collective intervention capacity is not sufficiently structured pedagogically. In this context, the study provides a comprehensive answer to RQ1 and RQ2 by revealing how climate change is discursively constructed in Turkish textbooks in terms of themes, forms of representation (explicit–implicit–absence), and dimensions of environmental literacy. while also revealing that, within the scope of RQ3, students are predominantly positioned as individuals bearing moral responsibility and that the behavioral and participatory dimensions of environmental literacy are structured in a limited manner.

The findings show that nature is mostly presented as an area of moral and civic responsibility, while a shift toward the concepts of sustainability, technology, and climate justice has also been observed. However, the causal relationships between human activities and climate systems are not established in a clear and systematic manner; environmental learning often remains at a descriptive and intuitive level. As noted by Khalidi and Ramsey (2021) and Ratinen et al. (2013), addressing climate change in a fragmented and contextually disjointed manner makes it difficult for teachers and students to develop systems thinking and critical climate citizenship. These findings show that systems thinking and the understanding of multilayered causality, which form the cognitive basis of critical climate citizenship, are not sufficiently deepened pedagogically. Thus, the disconnect between awareness generation and transformative citizenship practice becomes more apparent.

The findings reveal that Turkish textbooks have the potential to develop environmental literacy; however, this potential has not been fully activated pedagogically. Language education offers a unique learning space that can link emotional engagement through narrative, metaphor, and discourse to scientific reasoning and responsible action. However, when emotional appeals are not systematically linked to structural analysis and participatory action pathways, the development of the knowledge and action dimensions of environmental literacy risks remaining limited.

In the context of critical climate citizenship, the failure of emotional engagement to integrate with democratic participation and collective intervention capacity may lead to the stagnation of citizenship practice at the level of ethical sensitivity. Therefore, climate themes must be supported not only by value transfer but also by pedagogical designs that generate opportunities for public agency and political participation. Numerous studies show that when environmental content is supported by critical thinking, participatory learning, and action-based pedagogies, behavioral environmental literacy is significantly strengthened (Ardoin et al., 2023; Ardoin and Bowers, 2025; Chawla and Cushing, 2007). In this respect, the study contributes to the literature as one of the comprehensive thematic analyses showing how climate change is pedagogically reframed in the context of Turkish language classes, a nonscience field, through affective emphasis, narratives of individual responsibility, and limited structural questioning. At the same time, the study makes an important contribution to the literature’s discussion of the “limits of critical climate citizenship” by revealing the thematic and discursive boundaries encountered in the process of evolving environmental literacy into critical climate citizenship.

At the policy and program development level, textbooks need to be reevaluated not only as language teaching tools but also as eco-pedagogical resources that shape how environmental crises are understood, how responsibility is distributed, and what forms of action are made possible. The interdisciplinary integration of environmental literacy into the curriculum and the systematic support of teachers in this area appear critical for transformative climate education (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2025; Sterling, 2001; UNESCO, 2020). Under this context, textbooks could be repurposed as not just pedagogical tools for raising up environmentally responsible individuals but as pedagogical spaces that can be used to embody the cognitive, ethical, and public sides of the vision of critical climate citizenship. Turkish textbooks can contribute to the education of students, not as people of knowledge of the environment but as environmentally literate individuals who are able to integrate dimensions of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behavior. The full potential of this education potential can be realized by enhancing environmental literacy through the lens of critical climate citizenship and by fully mirroring systems thinking, structural analysis, and collective action capacity in educational design.

Strengths, Limitations, and Future Research

One of the important aspects of this work is that it includes textbooks that have been approved by the MNE and are suitable for 5 years of instruction. The sample covers books published and in use between 2020 and 2025. The fact that textbooks approved in 2025 are allowed to be taught until 2030 as per the MNE regulations, thereby indicating that the contents presented are relevant not only for how current and educational is going forward but also the way educational is going to be addressed by Turkey in the context of the 2030 Climate Action Plan. This is possible due to the use of a sociotemporal resource—in effect a policy context—that provides an account of the construction of environmental literacy and critical climate citizenship at a higher school curriculum phase. However, the research is limited to middle school Turkish textbooks and cannot be directly generalized to other subject areas. Furthermore, the study focused on textbook content through reflective thematic analysis; teacher practices and student comments were excluded. Future research examining textbook representations within a multilayered design framework, alongside teacher discourse, classroom practices, and student perceptions, will reveal the relationship between curriculum, practice, and student perception in a more comprehensive manner. Furthermore, policy-alignment analyses evaluating the extent to which textbooks approved for the 2020–2025 period and remaining in use until 2030 are consistent with Turkey’s climate policies and sustainability goals present an important area of research. Interdisciplinary and comparative studies will make important contributions at the national and international levels by examining how critical climate citizenship is positioned within the curriculum. Furthermore, comparative studies across different subject areas and educational levels will be important for evaluating the interdisciplinary consistency of climate education and its position within the curriculum.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants for inclusion in the study.

Data Availability

Datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Author Disclosure Statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding Information

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Studies marked with an asterisk (*) in the reference list also represent the works analyzed within the scope of this research.

Footnotes

Appendix

Table A3.

The Thematic Structure of Climate Content in Turkish Textbooks and the Dimensions of Environmental Literacy and Critical Climate Citizenship

Main Theme	Category	Code	Sample Direct Quotations	Environmental Literacy	Critical Climate Citizenship	Limited/Weak Dimension	Pedagogical Interpretation	RQ
Selective construction of environmental knowledge and areas of silence	Risk- and consequence-oriented representation	Quantitative disaster indicators	“Turkey is increasingly becoming desertified.” (Demirel, 2019, p. 20); “Our country loses 743 million tons of soil each year due to erosion.” (Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019, p. 75); “If sea levels rise by just one meter due to climate change…” (Ertürk et al., 2020, p. 207)	Knowledge (risk and impact awareness)	Questioning structural causality and distribution of responsibility (limited)	Causal and structural analysis	Problems are made visible through strong data; however, historical, economic, and political contexts are represented in a limited manner	RQ1
Emotional discourse and moral loading regarding nature	Ethical and existential representation	Nature = life/homeland	“If we lose our soil, we lose our lives.” (Çapraz-Baran and Diren, 2019, p. 75); “Protecting our nature is also considered a defense of the homeland.” (Cin et al., 2025a, p. 115); “My family is about to disappear from the world…” (Erdal, 2023, p. 111)	Attitude/Values	Strong ethical sensitivity; weak linkage to political and economic contexts	Political-economic context	A strong affective framing increases environmental awareness; however, structural questioning remains in the background	RQ1, RQ2
Individualization of environmental responsibility	Individual adaptation	Daily behavioral call	“Everyone should act responsibly.” (Ceylan et al., 2019, p. 169); “By reducing your carbon footprint…” (Ertürk et al., 2020, p. 209); “Not littering, not lighting fires…” (Cin et al., 2025b, p. 117)	Behavior (everyday practices)	Limited development of collective action and public responsibility	Collective and structural action	Environmental action is reduced to individual ethical behavior; systemic actors remain in the background	RQ2
Skill orientation in the axis of participatory citizenship	Participation and expression	Research–discussion–production	“Follow TV and radio news…” (Demirel, 2019, p. 16); “Design posters on the theme of protecting nature.” (Yavuz and Kahraman, 2019, p. 188); “Research the causes and consequences of global warming.” (Eselioğlu et al., 2020, p. 233)	Skills/Participation	Participation and expression present; limited involvement in policy and decision-making processes	Political participation and collective transformation	Students are guided toward research and expression processes; however, collective decision-making and structural transformation remain limited	RQ3
From behavioral compliance to critical environmental citizenship	Development–environment tension	Reconciliatory solution framing	“We will industrialize while also avoiding damage to nature… How will this be possible?” (Demirel, 2019, p. 18); “Developing in a smart way.” (Demirel, 2019, p. 20); “Meeting energy needs through renewable energy sources.” (Bayram-Turkak et al., 2023, p. 77)	Knowledge + Behavior	Discussion of development–environment tension present; systemic transformation and climate justice dimension limited	Critical systemic inquiry	The tension is acknowledged; however, solutions are framed within technical and behavioral adaptation. Critical and transformative citizenship remains limited	RQ2, RQ3

RQ, research questions.

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