Education for sustainability : Transformative processes, actions and systemic change in a Swedish university

• Research on the development of education for sustainability places attention to transformative processes and systemic changes at the university. Literature mainly studies processes to develop courses, programs and management systems but seldom investigates transformative processes and actions triggering organizational change. The objective of this paper is to identify key actions and transformative processes embodying an education for sustainability and to explore the systemic change outcomes, using the perspective of social learning. We relied on a participatory research method for the exploratory case study in a Swedish university. Our findings showed multiple key actions that resulted in five transformational processes. Together these transformative processes resulted in three systemic changes: organizational changes in sustainability perceptions, organizational changes in the working structures and educational curricula, and individual changes in perceptions and engagement on sustainability. A novel finding was that networking cross disciplinary facilitated double loop refection and worked as catalyst for other transformational processes. The result indicates that development of education for sustainability is facilitated by a combination of multiple transformative processes taking place with both top-down and bottom-up rationale. These processes generate individual and collective actions. Individual and network champions and top-managers play a key role in developing education for sustainability. In order to foster systemic change at the university, the existence of this complexity is crucial for developing education for sustainability.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Higher education

sustainability

change

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)