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- Berglund, Teresa, 1976-, et al.
(author)
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Sustainability change agents in whole school approaches to education for sustainable development (ESD).
- 2023
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study investigates the experiences of teachers working as ESD-facilitators in a whole school approach project designed to implement education for sustainable development (ESD). The project included ESD-facilitators, teachers, and school leaders. The ESD-facilitators took part in designing joint seminars and workshop activities, and facilitated each school’s internal work. This study aims to contribute with knowledge concerning in what ways ESD-facilitators function as change agents in development processes and how their work can be supported. Different types of sustainability change agents who position themselves differently along the two dimensions of personal detachment vs. personal involvement, and instrumental vs. open-ended approaches (to change and learning) have been identified in previous research (Van Poeck et al., 2017). This study investigates the views and practices of ESD-facilitators in relation to these two dimensions, and focuses on what sustainability change agent functions are enacted, and what contextual factors they experience as successful and/or hindering in their work. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with seven ESD-facilitators from five schools. Focus areas were their views on: a) the long term goals of the project, b) their role in the internal development work, and c) factors of central importance for their ability to perform their task effectively. The findings indicate that roles and processes become more open-ended in schools where there is room for collaborative and reflexive work. In schools where the culture encourages shared agency, the ESD-facilitators point to their functions in mediating the process in terms of mobilizer, facilitator, initiator, and/or awareness raiser (Ibid.). When there is little room for collaborative work, or the culture impedes it, the ESD-facilitator role and approach become more instrumental and it is harder to integrate ESD and create agency. Those facilitators emphasized their functions in terms of managers, solution providers, experts, exemplars and councellors (Ibid.).
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| 2. |
- Mogren, Anna, 1973-
(author)
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Guiding Principles of Transformative Education for Sustainable Development in Local School Organisations : Investigating Whole School Approaches through a School Improvement Lens
- 2019
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The importance of an education that empowers students to engage with real societal problems to promote a sustainable future is widely acknowledged. However, the organisational characteristics of schools that facilitate such education for sustainable development (ESD) have received little attention. This thesis aims to fill this research gap by contributing new knowledge on ways that school organisations can implement transformative ESD, while aligning with a whole school approach.Swedish upper secondary schools actively implementing ESD were selected for the study. The research design used a mixed-method approach developed from the field of school improvement research. Methods included semi-structured interviews with school leaders and questionnaire surveys for teachers. School leaders’ and teachers’ understanding of quality in their local school organisation was studied.The thesis identifies the guiding principles that school leaders and teachers found important for promoting transformative ESD. These include four principal quality criteria that need structural support through collegial meetings to establish a holistic idea of ESD, namely collaborative interaction and school development, student-centred education, cooperation with local society, and proactive leadership and long-term perspective. With the support of the guiding principles, the whole school organisation contributes to teaching and learning practices in ESD active schools.The two main contributions are 1) identification of the school organisation that provide firm ground for local implementation of transformative ESD, and 2) that the internal school organisation is a prerequisite for school collaboration with the surrounding society, which is a main goal of ESD, according to policy and theory. In the case of the latter, a student-centred approach in organising education was found to facilitate such links between education and the community, which is a main goal of ESD, according to policy and theory. The results may provide useful recommendations for schools and ESD implementation programmes.
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| 3. |
- Mogren, Anna, 1973-, et al.
(author)
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School leaders’ experiences of implementing education for sustainable development : Anchoring the transformative perspective
- 2019
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In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 11:12
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, we consider the problem of ensuring that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is firmly embedded in a school through appropriate management and planning of the school’s activities (or characteristics of the school organization). To this end, we identify the domains of school organization that would benefit from particular structures and routines in order to embed ESD. We identify these domains by thematically analyzing responses of interviewed leaders of schools employing a transformative approach to ESD. We divided the leaders into two groups, based on the extent to which their respective schools employed a transformative approach to ESD. We analyzed the differences in responses of the two groups, enabling us to identify and compare the structures that school leaders in the respective groups believe to be important. In addition to reporting the results, we discuss their implications. We focus particularly on how structures identified by leaders of highly transformative schools could contribute to long-lasting transformative implementation of ESD, and how structures identified by leaders of the other group could be used to circumvent barriers to such implementation.
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| 9. |
- Berglund, Teresa, 1976-, et al.
(author)
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ESD-facilitators’ conditions and functions as sustainability change agents
- 2023
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Proposal information This study seeks to investigate the experiences of teachers working as ESD-facilitators within a whole school approach project designed to implement education for sustainable development (ESD) in their schools. The program activities included school leaders, teachers, and ESD- facilitators. During a period of three school years, five schools in a municipality in Sweden took part in order to integrate ESD in their organization and teaching practice. The ESD-facilitators took part in the design of the development process, workshop activities and content, and facilitated each school’s internal work. This study aims to identify in what ways ESD-facilitators function as sustainability change agents and how contextual factors might contribute to success or form hindrances in their work.The project was designed based on teachers’ learning and collaborative and reflexive work (Desimone, 2009). The purpose was to direct the development work of the schools towards a whole school approach (Mogren et al. 2019), meaning that ESD is fully integrated in the local curriculum. The main areas of development were to increase interdisciplinary teaching with focus on ESD as holistic pedagogical idea, and that ESD should permeate the work in all levels of the internal and external organization of the school (Sund & Lysgaard, 2013), implying that the different actors in the school and its societal context (students, teachers, school leaders and the outer society) work towards sustainability (Mogren et al., 2019). An additional aim was to integrate pluralistic approaches in the teachers’ classroom practice.The project included two project leaders, who also participated as researchers in the project. Together with the school leaders and ESD-facilitators, they took a leading role in the development of the project, which included joint seminars, and meetings between project leaders and a) school leaders (across schools), b) school leaders and facilitators (within schools), and c) facilitators (across schools). The ESD-facilitators were intended to function as a link between school leader, project leaders and the teaching staff. They were supposed to support the teacher work teams in their discussions and implementation work with transforming ESD principles into practice.A recent study by Van Poeck et al. (2017) explored different change agent roles by mapping the different ways in which change agents actively contribute to sustainability. In relation to different roles, various types of learning is being made possible. The authors identified four types of change agents that position themselves in different ways along the two axes of personal detachment vs. personal involvement, and instrumental vs. open-ended approaches (to change and learning). This study investigates the views and practices of the ESD-facilitators in relation to these two dimensions. Thus, different change agent positions may be taken.The ESD-facilitators have a middle leading role in their schools, which means that they enact leading practices from a position in between the teaching staff and the school leader (Grootenboer, Edwards-Groves & Rönnerman, 2015). There is limited research focusing on practitioners who facilitate processes of professional development (Perry & Boylan, 2018). Thus, little is known about how facilitators, and particularly those who facilitate a whole school approach to ESD, could be supported to carry out their role and tasks in an effective way, and what adequate conditions and arrangements for this might be. Taken together, this implies a gap in current knowledge about ESD implementation strategies, which this study aims to help bridging.The research questions guiding the research are twofold: in the ESD-facilitators’ descriptions of their roles, functions and practices: What kinds of sustainability change agent roles can be identified?What contextual factors are experienced as successful and/or hindering?Methodology or MethodsAfter the project ended, interviews were carried out between November 2020 and April 2021 with seven ESD-facilitators from five different schools. Two of the schools had appointed two facilitators, who either focused on different programs (in upper secondary school) or on different levels in compulsory school (primary or secondary level).The interviews followed a semi-structured approach (Bryman, 2018) and included pre-defined areas concerning the ESD-facilitators’ view on: a) the long term purposes and goals of the project, b) in what ways they viewed their role in the development work in their school, and c) their experiences of factors that were of central importance in order for them to be able to perform their task effectively. Their responses were followed up by the interviewer in a flexible manner.The analysis of data followed a multi-step process. The three parts above constitute the basis for the first step of the analysis, which was performed inductively and followed a broad approach to data driven thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The next step was analyzed deductively, based on the typology of sustainability change agents by Van Poeck et al. (2017). In this step, the utterances connected to the ESD-facilitators’ role in the development work, together with utterances concerning their view of long-term purposes and goals of the project, were analyzed in relation to the four different types of sustainability change agents in the typology. The analysis concerning their role focused mainly on the two dimensions identified as open-ended or instrumental, and personal detachment vs. -involvement. Utterances were identified that could be associated with a specific role description under the four ideal types of change agents. Moreover, utterances of how they viewed the purpose and goal of the ESD development work were analyzed, mainly connected to how different types of change agents may enable different forms of learning (Van Poeck et al., 2017). However, research on middle leading practices as well as research of sustainability change agents emphasizes that roles and practices should be interpreted in relation to the context they are enacted within (Grootenboer, Edwards-Groves & Rönnerman, 2015; Van Poeck et al., 2017). Therefore, the analysis also focused on identifying how different contextual factors affect and enable the roles and practices of the ESD-facilitators. Thus, the final step is to look for relationships between expressed purposes and goals, roles, and what factors are experienced as promoting and/or hindering their role and mission.Findings and conclusions The analysis indicates that teachers struggle with transforming ESD theory into teaching practice. The school culture has great impact on the readiness of teacher teams to engage in transformation of their teaching. The ESD-facilitator’ functions and practices are affected by the school culture and whether teacher teams are well functioning or not in terms of collaborative work.All the four roles in the typology (Van Poeck et al., 2017) were identified in their expressions, and different contextual factors were emphasized as either promoting or hindering their functions. Clear support and leadership from the school leader and the presence of a well-defined long term goal was important to provide direction and legitimize the ESD-facilitator role in schools where a broad anchoring of ESD among the staff was missing. Moreover, roles and processes became more open-ended in schools where there was room for collaborative work and reflexive discussions. In those schools where the culture encouraged collaborative work and shared agency, the ESD-facilitators pointed out their functions in mediating the process in terms of initiator, facilitator, mobilizer and/or awareness raiser (ibid.). When there was little space for collaborative work, or the culture was hindering it, the ESD-facilitator role and approach became more instrumental and it became harder to create agency and integrate ESD as a holistic pedagogical idea (see Mogren et al. 2019) among the community of teachers. Those facilitators emphasized their functions in terms of experts, councellors, managers, solution providers and exemplars (Ibid.).A challenge was how to transform ESD theories, which the facilitators expressed as abstract and far from everyday teaching, into concrete practice. In the school where a collaborative culture was present, a way to solve this was to start doing by daring to explore new ways of teaching, and then evaluate in a collaborative, open and reflexive mannerReferencesBraun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101.Bryman, A. (2018). Samhällsvetenskapliga metoder.(tredje upplagan). Liber.Desimone, L. M. (2009). Improving impact studies of teachers’ professional development: Toward better conceptualizations and measures. Educational researcher, 38(3), 181-199.Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2015). Leading practice development: voices from the middle, Professional Development in Education, 41(3), 508-526, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2014.924985Mogren, A., Gericke, N., & Scherp, H.-Å. (2019). Whole school approaches to education for sustainable development: a model that links to school improvement. Environmental Education Research, 25(4), 508-531.Perry, E., & Boylan, M. (2018). Developing the developers: supporting and researching the learning of professional development facilitators. Professional development in education, 44(2), 254-271.Sund, P., & Lysgaard, J. G. (2013). Reclaim “education” in environmental and sustainability education research. Sustainability, 5(4), 1598-1616.Van Poeck, K., Læssøe, J., & Block, T. (2017). An exploration of sustainability change agents as facilitators of nonformal learning: Mapping a moving and intertwined landscape. Ecology and Society, 22(2).
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| 10. |
- Mogren, Anna, 1973-, et al.
(author)
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Leadership Actions in Education for Sustainable Development – Establishing Leadership Agency for Permanent Accommodation in Education
- 2023
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This empirical study on leadership actions investigate Education for sustainable development (ESD) in Swedish schools. School leaders at five schools in one Swedish municipality are interviewed twice in 2018 and 2020, to evaluate effects from a longitude school improvement project focusing ESD. Actions can be seen as the school leader individual response on a direct stimuli. The school leader take action. Agency on the other hand is the gathered experience of such stimuli and the alternative possibilities at hand for a school leader to act upon (Feldman & Pentland 2003). Leadership agency in this study is defined the sense making of ESD over time by school leaders acting by experience, or what Hallenberg (2018) call expert agency, based in their own actions and related to other school leaders way of acting as a collective (Tourish 2014). The study adds knowledge to how individual leadership actions can contribute or counteract ESD implementation. Further aspects that drives and establishes ESD over time in schools; leadership agency on ESD is outlined. A review study on school leaders and education for sustainable development, ESD (Mogaji & Newton, 2020) reported the need to make school leaders more aware of ESD, as a way to empower students to handle sustainable. Research onschool leadership to raise quality in ESD active schools points out a lack of connection between inner school organizational routines that give support to ESD and the external organizational routines that connect education to the surrounding society (Mogren & Gericke, 2017), which in ESD is a guarantee of the relevance of education to the learner. Knowledge on school leadership and ESD as exemplified is based on case studies that point out important starting points for an effective ESD implementation, holistic ideas (Leo & Wickenberg 2013; Mogren, Gericke & Scherp, 2019) collegial approaches in the school organization (Gericke & Torbjörnsson, 2022) and legitimizing functions (Mogren & Gericke, 2019). This study builds on the knowledge identified at the formulation arena of ESD and take it one step further, studying the realization arena, what actually falls out in practice of ESD implementation over time, based on initial intentions. The formulation arena of a project, setting the scene is not a guarantee for successful implementation, instead schools often fail in their ambitions on ESD (Hargreaves, 2008) and certification programs on ESD with initial ambitions is not always successful (Olsson, Gericke & Chang Rundgren, 2016 ). Sense making activities is a methodological approach in school improvement and used in this study to understand practice (Weick, 2001). Sense making deals with challenges in the daily work patterns for school leaders, when ordinary frames of reference are disrupted and new understandings needs to be incorporated (Weick, Sutcliffe & Obstefeld, 2005). How school leaders make sense of ESD; couple the formulated visions to the practical outcomes of ESD is understood in this study by the framework of coupling mechanism (Liljenberg & Nordholm 2018). The framework of coupling mechanism seeks to understand more than if organizational routines on ESD are in place, but also their outcome and how they are used in practice. The coupling mechanisms is categorized according to either accommodation mechanisms leading to permanent changes of structures and routines in the organization for ESD. Mechanisms can also be assessed as assimilation, then leading to superficial changes, or decoupling mechanisms that shows no positive effects of implementation of ESD or even hinder changes in education. Research questions A, What leadership actions are identified for reaching accommodation in an ESD school improvement process?B, How is leadership agency in ESD formed and characterized in practical ESD implementation? Methods section This study is conducted within a school improvement project, studied by researchers in several different studies over time . The project was introduced to five schools in one municipality starting with a pre-study in year 2016 and followed by research until year 2021. The respondent nine school leaders from five schools all take part in the continues school improvement project on ESD. The aim of the practical improvement work for schools is to steer their processes towards an ESD whole school approach (Henderson & Tilbury, 2004) that establishes ESD in the school organization. The theoretical framework of coupling mechanisms, assessing actions as accommodative, assimilative or decoupling (Liljenberg & Nordholm 2018) link the formulation arena of ESD and the realization arena with outcomes in practice. School leaders actions on three specific organizational routines of ESD are studied over time (a holistic idea of ESD, the interdisciplinary approach of ESD and leadership legitimization of ESD). Accommodation actions are searched as they intend to transform and change pre-defined understanding of education, causing real changes that are permanent. Leadership agency on ESD is analyzed by thematization (White, 2009) of collective action by responding school leaders over time. Leadership agency towards an established ESD implementation is outlined by combining the mechanisms used by school leaders steering their actions and the identified themes of importance for the whole group in leading towards ESD. Interview data was coded, transcribed and narratives was constructed. nd characterized in practical ESD implementation?We make use of the analyzation of narratives to answer research question 1, RQ1, What leadership actions are identified for reaching accommodation in an ESD school improvement process? In the second step, thematization of narratives (from RQ1) for each mechanism of ESD (accommodation, assimilation and decoupling) are analyzed to search for characteristics of leadership agency in ESD, answering RQ2, How is leadership agency in ESD formed and characterized in practical ESD implementation? Conclusions Results on identified leadership actions for reaching accommodation of ESD confirm the importance of leadership actions to establish a guiding holistic idea on ESD in the school organization, as well as acting on communication and feed-back systems where collegial long reaching work can develop over time. Results further shows that a realization on ESD towards a permanent implementation is a pathway of distancing reliance on individual responsibilities of ESD to instead build structural support in the organization. Accommodating agency, as searched in the study consist of school leaders that involve collegial with other school leader to find moral support in decision-making as the same time as they increase their own understanding of the improvement of ESD. Five characteristic expressions for advancement in leadership agency of ESD towards a permanent implementation is identified;1, changes in the infrastructure of education to establish interdisciplinary teacher teams.2, the use of a distributed leadership approach to collaborate collegial on ESD.3, the active use of steering documents to support and legitimize ESD implementation and as a response to critical voices.4, the development of supportive and structural routines as well as continuously keeping school improvement on ESD alive.5, establishing a terminology about ESD that is used at the local school and that need specific introduction to new staff . Over all the pathway towards a permanent accommodation of ESD and the characteristic of accommodation mechanisms state that leadership agency of ESD is a question of nesting ESD to the robust foundations within education to establish structures and processes that prevents ESD implementation to fade or fail. In this study robust foundations are identified as ESD common goals in the organization, collegial work, communication, and leadership ambitions. References Feldman, M. S., & Pentland, B. T. (2003). Reconceptualizing organizational routines as source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48, 94–118. Gericke, N. & Torbjörnsson, T. (2022). Supporting local school reform toward education for sustainable development: The need for creating and continuously negotiating a shared vision and building trust, The Journal of Environmental Education, 53(4), 231-249. Hallgren, E. (2018). Clues to aesthetic engagement in process drama: Role interaction in a fictional business Doctoral dissertation, Institutionen för de humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga ämnenas didaktik, Stockholms universitet.Hargreaves, L. G. (2008). The whole-school approach to eduation for sustainable development: From pilot projects to systemic change. Policy & Practice-A Development Education Review, (6).Henderson, K., & Tilbury, D. (2004). Whole-school approaches to sustainability: An international review of sustainable school programs. Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability:Australian Government Leo, U., & Wickenberg, P. (2013). Professional norms in school leadership: Change efforts in implementation of education for sustainable development. Journal of Educational Change, 14(4), 403-422. Liljenberg, M., & Nordholm, D. (2018). Organizational routines for school improvement: exploring the link between ostensive and performative aspects. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 21(6), 690-704.Mogaji, I. M., & Newton, P. (2020). School Leadership for Sustainable Development: A Scoping Review. Journal of Sustainable Development, 13(5).Mogren, A., & Gericke, N. (2017). ESD implementation at the school organization level, part 2 investigating the transformative perspective in school leaders’ quality strategies at ESD schools. Environmental Education Research, 23(7), 993-1014.Mogren, A., & Gericke, N. (2019). School le
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