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The Canadian Journal of Action Research
Gallagher, K., & Balt, C. (2025). Global climate education and its
discontents: Using drama to forge a new way. Routledge
Erin Sperling
Volume 25, Number 2, 2025
URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1121212ar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.33524/cjar.v25i2.796
See table of contents
Publisher(s)
Canadian Association of Action Research in Education
ISSN
1925-7147 (digital)
Explore this journal
Cite this review
Sperling, E. (2025). Review of [Gallagher, K., & Balt, C. (2025). Global climate
education and its discontents: Using drama to forge a new way. Routledge]. The
Canadian Journal of Action Research, 25(2), 193–195.
https://doi.org/10.33524/cjar.v25i2.796
Canadian Journal of Action Research
Volume 25, Issue 2, 2025, pages 193-195
BOOK REVIEW
Gallagher, K., & Balt, C. (2025). Global climate education and its discontents: Using drama to
forge a new way. Routledge.
Reviewed by Erin Sperling, PhD, Wilfrid Laurier University.
On November 24, 2024, I witnessed the Verbatim theatre workshop, Climate Play of the
wâhkôhtowin project
1
and Native Earth Performing Arts in Tkaron:to/Toronto. While I had
initially experienced the impact of Verbatim theatre years ago with London Road (Blythe &
Cork, 2011), which is based on interview transcripts of citizens and journalists about
murders in a small English town, I had neglected to consider the intricacies and impact of
producing such a work based on layperson interviews about climate change. It was
extremely powerful. A panel of female and non-binary artists and citizens had applied and
been selected to work and perform with the facilitation of Yvette Nolan and Joel Bernbaum,
who travel across the country to create spaces for these place-based productions and
engaging in meaningful dialogue afterward. With this recent experience at front of mind, I
was eager to read and review this collection of climate-oriented drama-based ethnographic
research edited by Kathleen Gallagher and Christine Balt.
Questions in my mind as I entered into this book were (if/how) the researchers create and
maintain an action research mindset in the work they are doing with youth and drama?
What is it about their positionalities as researchers that lends to this type of work with
youth that is different, and perhaps more innovative and empowering, than traditional
researcher-as-observer roles? Additionally, stemming from my own research and teaching
on hope and action about the climate crisis, I was curious about how these themes and
potential pedagogical implications and implementation would be conceptualized through
the book. Also, would drama as a practice be an invitation for science teacher educators, or
a point of exclusion? Finally, I wondered how these cases addressed issues and practices of
reconciliation with pan-Indigenous oppressions; without this, how can we say we are
taking action on climate change?
The richness of this project was immediately obvious, both in the longevity and complexity
of the participant projects globally, but also through the ethics of care that were embedded,
intentionally or tacitly, among and within the authors. They reflected on the nature of
collaboration that may be due to the added collective yet idiosyncratic experiences of the
1
Climate Play public recruitment notice: https://www.nativeearth.ca/climate-play/
Book Review
Sperling
The Canadian Journal of Action Research, Volume 25, Issue 2 (2025), 193-195
194
pandemic, or perhaps because of their positionalities, intersectionalities and
intentionalities.
There are two parts to the book: local engagements and encounters, and pedagogical and
artistic innovations. It is clear that while the individual chapters and projects have their
own locality-driven strengths and challenges, the book is thematically resonant. There is a
clear dedication to youth practices and pedagogies that lead to knowledge production and
participation, as well as well-being. The geographic, linguistic, and cultural diversities
represented offer snapshots into the lived realities of youth in a particular place and their
individual and collective experiences of climate change, systems of power, and agency
development. There are rich interspersals of youth voices as dialogue or text, which add
meaning to the reflections of the ethnographers.
The role of drama as research and pedagogy in relation to climate education is, of course, at
the core of this collection. Each of the authors are clear that the dramatic work itself is
meant to be a site of hope-development and emotional processing through collectivity and
collaboration. Chapter 8 by Christine Balt caught my attention as it focused on a case study
of Verbatim theatre in a Toronto high school. Balt offers a strong critique of the role and
limitations of this type of dramatic engagement in this post-digital moment of
misinformation, fear, and polarization surrounding climate and society in general. She
notes: “In our research, it was clear that engaging with the facts was not enough for the
students - aesthetically, pedagogically, and emotionally - who found themselves hungering
for an artistically satisfying experience amid the gloom” (p. 198). She continues that artists
and educators might “reframe the climate crisis as a social feeling, not only a scientific
phenomenon” (p. 198). Here she offers insight to the nuance and possibility built into the
reciprocal relationship of knowing and feeling, and the inherent tensions built into the
complexities of climate education.
In terms of overall accessibility, Gallagher, Balt and the team of collaborators definitely lean
into and work from spaces of critical participatory research and socio-ecological justice. If
these are not familiar framings, then readers will find the book’s footnotes especially
helpful. Interestingly, Action Research was not at the forefront of this project. There could
be opportunity, going forward, for youth and educators to reflect intentionally on the
expectations, practices, and outcomes of their drama-based experiences for
implementation in future projects. Given the emotionality of the projects for youth there
would be multiple opportunities for them to consider and reflect on their own sense of
hope and agency development, and how these experiences might apply more broadly to
formal education. There might also be some engagement should there be audiences of
climate education performances, or with families by the youth, to uncover any impacts on
the dramatic participation. To be fair, without overtly using the term action research, the
pedagogy of drama is inherently action-oriented, and invites researchers and educators
from all fields to find their own connection points. With a strong epilogue by Indigenous
community educator, Amanda Buffalo, the attention to the role of Indigenous knowledges
in climate education is woven throughout the book.
Book Review
Sperling
The Canadian Journal of Action Research, Volume 25, Issue 2 (2025), 193-195
195
As someone who often wears a science education researcher’s lens, I was curious if and
how this book would speak to me. Would the language of theatre exclude me from this
conversation? Truly, I felt quite the opposite and note that this book’s representation of
theatre and dramatic play offers entry points, and even a mode of post-disciplinarity that is
much needed in solving this wicked problem of climate change: “...if we are to make real
advances in climate education…both knowledge and dreaming are necessary ingredients,
indeed interdependent” (Gallagher, 2025, p. 32).
REFERENCE:
Blythe, A., & Cork, A. (2011). London road. Nick Hern Books. Doi:
10.5040/9781784601393.00000008
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
________________________________
Erin Sperling, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Wilfrid Laurier University. Her teaching
focuses on science and environmental sustainability education. Her current research
expands on food justice education, citizen science and environmental education for
teachers and youth.
_________________________________
