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SYSC: Symposium The Sustainability Challenge: A Decade of Transformation

SYSC 1: The Sustainability Challenge: A Decade of Transformation

SYSC 1.2: Invited Talk

Monday, March 9, 2026, 15:30–16:00, HSZ/AUDI

Education as a Social Tipping Element: Evidence from Climate and Physics Education Research — •Thomas Schubatzky — University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

The concept of social tipping elements draws attention to societal leverage points that may accelerate transitions towards sustainability. Education is frequently named as one of these leverage points. In this talk, I outline key findings from recent meta-analyses and review studies in climate and physics education research and discuss the conditions under which educational processes may exert transformative effects. The evidence thereby consistently shows substantial gains in climate-related knowledge, while effects on attitudes and behavioural outcomes are smaller but reliably detectable. The pronounced heterogeneity across studies, however, indicates that the underlying mechanisms of effective climate education are still insufficiently understood. The talk addresses this challenge by drawing on selected empirical studies that illustrate how educational interventions can initiate reinforcing feedbacks at both the individual and collective level. These studies are intended to highlight concrete pathways through which education may operate as a social tipping element, and how micro-level learning processes could scale up to support broader societal transformation.

Keywords: Climate Change Education; Social Tipping Element; Physics Education Research