Conceptualising Agency for Climate Change and Sustainability in Science Education: A Scoping Review Using a Family Resemblance Approach

Agency has become a prominent yet heterogeneously defined concept in research on climate and sustainability education within science education. While agency is often pictured as a key educational aim and/or goal, studies vary widely in how they conceptualise and operationalise it, limiting theoretical cumulativity and comparability of findings. This scoping review mapped 110 studies published between 2004 and 2024 to clarify how agency is defined, operationalised, and studied. Guided by PRISMA procedures, the analysis identified five recurring conceptualisations: resource, competence, critical-emancipatory, temporally embedded sociocultural, and action-oriented/problem-solving. Each conceptualisation emphasises distinct clusters of attributes. Building on Podsakoff et al.’s framework for constructing concept definitions, the review develops a family resemblance definition of agency that captures this diversity without collapsing it into a single essence. This framework delineates central attributes (capacity to act, situatedness, participation, futures orientation) and peripheral attributes (psychological resources, competencies, empowerment, identity, local problem-solving) that appear in different configurations across studies. The paper argues that treating agency as a family resemblance concept fosters conceptual clarity, supports transparent operationalisation, and allows synthesis across theoretical traditions. Implications are discussed for research design, measurement, curriculum policy, and classroom practice.