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Since 2018, millions of students have mobilised as organisers, advocates and activists for action on global warming in movements like the School Strike 4 Climate. In Australia, an estimated 500,000 school students, some as young as five, and predominantly girls and young women, have taken part in coordinated school strikes, protest actions online and in cities and towns around the country (Hilder & Collin, 2022). While children and young people have long been central to politics, this more recent mass mobilisation raises new questions about how the various new forms of political participation and expression adopted by young people are significantly reshaping political norms, values and practices in ostensibly liberal democratic regimes like Australia. In this chapter, we propose that close attention be given to whether young people’s political views and demands for political recognition, rights and climate justice is re-constituting politics and whatever passes for ‘democracy’ in contemporary societies. Drawing on a study of the student climate movement in Australia, this chapter briefly describes the emergence of the movement globally and locally. Deploying Isin’s notion of ‘acts of citizenship’ (Isin, 2008), we examine the ways young climate activists are engaged in critical, performative, political practice, making claims for political recognition, rights and climate justice.

The purpose of this study is to examine the potential of integrating material from the arts into postgraduate curricula to deepen students’ engagement with marketing phenomena. The authors assess the use of arts-based activities, within a broader critical pedagogy, for encouraging imaginative and analytical thinking.

The authors devised two learning activities and an interpretive method for studying their value. The activities were an individual essay connecting themes in song lyrics to marketing, and a group photography project. These were applied, within a broader, critical approach, in postgraduate modules on sustainability, ethics and critical marketing. Data collection comprised diaries kept by the teachers, open-ended feedback from students and students’ assignments.

Students showed high levels of engagement, reflexivity and depth of thought, in felt experiences of learning. Their ability to make connections not explicitly in the materials, and requiring imaginative jumps, was notable. Several reported lasting changes to their behaviour. Some found the tasks initially intimidating or, once they were more engaged, stressful or saddening.

This adds to scholarship on management education by showing the usefulness of an arts-based approach towards a transformative agenda.

It offers a template of how to draw from the arts to strengthen critical engagement upon which marketing teachers can build. It also contains practical advice on the challenges and benefits of doing so.

The authors provide evidence that this approach can enhance sensitivity and reflexivity in students, potentially producing more ethical and sustainable decisions in future.

The pedagogical interventions are novel and of value to lecturers seeking to enhance critical engagement with theory. An empirical study of an attempt to integrate arts into teaching marketing represents a promising direction, given the discipline’s creative nature.