Abstract
This article examines youth participation the school climate strikes of 2018 and 2019 (also
known as #Fridays4Future), through an exploratory study conducted in seven diverse
cities. Despite the international nature of the climate strikes, we know little about the factors
that influenced youth participation in these protests beyond the global North. This matters
because youth of the global South are disproportionately impacted by climate change and
there is growing concern that the climate movement is dominated by narratives that
marginalize the voices and priorities of Indigenous communities and people of color. In this
context, the exploratory research reported here aimed to compare the attitudes of climate
protesters (n 314) and their non-protester peers (n 1,217), in diverse city samples
drawn from a wider study of children and youth aged 12–24 years, living in Christchurch
(New Zealand); Dhaka (Bangladesh); Lambeth, London (United Kingdom); Makhanda
(South Africa); New Delhi (India); São Paulo (Brazil); and Yokohama (Japan). Using crosssectional
data (N 1,531) and binary logistic regression models, researchers examined
three common explanations for youth participation in protest: availability (biographical and
structural), political engagement (reported individual and collective efficacy of strikers and
non-strikers), and self-reported biospheric values amongst participants. Results indicate
that even in diverse city samples, structural availability (civic skills and organizational
membership) predicted strike participation across city samples, but not political
engagement (self-efficacy and collective efficacy). Youth who reported that ‘living in
harmony with nature and animals’ was important for their wellbeing, were also more
likely to strike than their peers. Descriptive statistics indicated that the majority (85 percent)
of all protestors in this study agreed climate change was a serious issue and a startling 65
percent said that they think about climate change “all the time”. Reported rates of youth
climate protest participation varied across city samples as did the extent to which
participants reported having friends take part or expecting climate change to have a personal impact. While the study is exploratory, it points to the need for more extensive
research to understand the diversity of youth participation in ‘global climate strikes’.