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- Hasslöf, Helen
(författare)
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The educational challenge in "education for sustainable development" : qualification, social change and the political
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores how Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as an overarching perspective makes meaningof educational aims and purposes. Sustainable development, as a concept, is by necessity complex, and deals withintegrated dimensions of environmental, social-cultural and economic sustainability. It involves a diverse range ofembedded values and ideologies and calls for engagement in value-related and political issues relating to environment,equality and lifestyle. In my thesis, I have turned to the actors in social practice who are set to realise the educationalperspectives of ESD – the teachers. Accordingly, the analyses departure from secondary and upper secondary schoolteachers’ reciprocal meaning-making when discussing the desirable aims of teaching and ESD. Building upon previouseducational research, the thesis has three purposes, and the results are presented in four articles. The results of thestudies bring new empirical knowledge and perspectives to educational research and practice, by adding furtherunderstanding of the political and democratic dimensions of ESD.The first purpose is to investigate and describe the complexity of the concept of sustainable development from a conflictperspective and to analyse meaning-making discussions of sustainability in an educational context. This is elaborated inthe first study (Article I). To achieve this, a Conflict Reflection Tool (CRT) has been developed, by combining theconflicting dynamics of sustainable development with dialogic and univocal functions of speech. In the included casestudy, the CRT analysis of teachers’ discussions shows how fact-based, univocal science utterances closed thediscussion for conflicting perspectives to emerge. However, conflicting views did emerge and were re-valued in adialogic genre through the interplay of different dimensions of sustainability and different societal levels of conflicts.The second purpose is to investigate how the desired aims of ESD are (re)articulated in areas of educational tension inorder to make particular meaning by teachers with experience in ESD practice. Three complex ESD areas are in focus,namely, the development of students as political subjects (Article II), qualification in relation to ESD (Article III), andeducation for social change in relation to ‘sustainable’ living (Article IV). In each of these areas, the functions ofqualification, socialisation and subjectification (c.f. Biesta) are relationally analysed to further problematise educationalpurposes. Through analyses with inpiration from discourse theory, the results show in Article II the emerging discourse ofcritical thinking as room for subjectification where students were invited to be adressed as political subjects. This discoursewas articulated in struggle with the aims of qualification and socialisation, i.e. challenged by elements articulating a morescientific and rational worldview. Article III shows three discourses of qualification. Of these three, scientific reasoningand awareness of complexity are articulated as contrasting epistemological discourses of qualification. However, in thethird discourse, qualification as critical thinking, these different epistemological views are articulated as intertwined asdifferent ways to view sustainability. Article IV shows how the teachers struggle between three positions: the rationalsubject, as a neutral conductor; the responsible subject, as a role model, or the reconstructing subject, as a reconstructor.The overlapping positions depend upon how socialisation towards sustainable lifestyles, political and ethical perspectivesare identified in relation to the educational aims and the emerging myths of social change.The third purpose is to develop analytical methods where conflicting articulations of environmental issues andsustainability are taken into account based on language and discourse theory for conducting empirical investigations ofmeaning-making.
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| 2. |
- Sonesson, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges and Learning Outcomes in a Mutual Municipal Partnership on Education for Sustainable Development from Southern African/North European Perspectives
- 2021
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Ingår i: Book of Abstract: Vitalizing partnerships - Moving forward to a sustainable future. - : Sanord.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Two cities, Swakopmund and Malmö, in Namibia and Sweden have developed a strong mutual partnership on sustainable development. The collaboration started within The Municipal Partnership Programme at the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD), working with poverty reduction through local democracy development funded by SIDA. The municipal partnership aims to increase civil influence by strengthening local and regional political governance organization within certain core areas, e.g. equity/inclusion, transparency, possibility to demand accountability and/or citizen participation. During 2012-2014 the two cities collaborated on two projects; Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Eco Tourism. The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of processes and learning outcomes of SDG 17 in a mutual municipal partnership in the ESD-project focusing experiences on challenges and solutions. Eight project team member i.e. municipal officials, teachers, museum- and marine pedagogues, as well as three senior municipal officials in the Project Steering Committee were interviewed using semi-structured questions in the second year of the ESD-project. A phenomenographic approach was applied to analyse the transcriptions of nearly six hours recorded interview material. The findings show the experience of various challenges the respondents faced, how the challenges were solved and the benefits of the learning outcomes. This were discussed also in longer terms to shed light on what South and North can learn from one another by being in a mutual partnership, focusing how work processes contribute to develop democratic governance locally in the municipalities.
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