From textbooks to classrooms: how climate change is represented and taught in Chinese high schools

This study investigated how climate change was represented in Chinese senior high school textbooks and how teachers interpreted and taught climate change in the classrooms. Focusing on geography, biology, and chemistry textbooks published by the People’s Education Press in 2019, this study combined a qualitative content analysis of textbook materials with semi-structured interviews with 30 senior teachers from Zhejiang Province. The findings indicated that climate change content was moderately represented and unevenly distributed across disciplines. Geography provided the most integrated coverage, connecting scientific mechanisms, socioenvironmental impacts, and policy responses, whereas biology emphasised ecological consequences and chemistry focused on explaining the underlying mechanisms. Teacher interviews revealed that climate change topics were given low academic priority, largely because of their minimal presence in high-stakes examinations, leading to textbook-centred, shallow instruction. Nevertheless, teachers consistently highlighted environmental awareness and civic responsibility as key instructional goals. This study demonstrates that while textbooks provide foundational knowledge, disciplinary silos, exam-oriented content selection, and national policy priorities, such as carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, shape classroom enactment, resulting in fragmented climate-change learning experiences. These findings underscore the importance of curriculum alignment, assessments, and teacher support to foster more coherent, interdisciplinary, and action-oriented climate change education.