Student-led sustainability in schools? The emotional ambivalence of student voice for sustainability

Outside of school walls, globally young people are expressing their concerns about environmental issues and have been pressuring for action through youth-led movements. Inside school walls, programs that inform students about environmental issues such as sustainability have been critiqued for not enabling students to act on their concerns. There are issues of class and inequality in both climate activism and in school-based student voice. While there has not been a thorough analysis that breaks down demographic variables of the young people who have participated in activities organised by youth‑led movements, it has been anecdotally suggested that white and middle-class girls are over-represented in strike participants. The data generation occurred in 2019 at a primary school located in an affluent suburb in Melbourne where students were attempting to take action through a student voice sustainability initiative and includes focus groups with students and interviews with teachers. I turn to Bourdieu to think about student voice on the issue of sustainability as a ‘game’ and Ahmed’s ‘sticky objects’ to consider the struggle over the limits of what is possible, within school, in terms of action on sustainability, and the limits of student voice.