”Business as usual”? Or transformative and transactive teaching leading towards the Agenda 2030 goals in Swedish Early Childhood Education.

• In Sweden, the national parliament has adopted objectives to implement the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNESCO, 2017). Sweden’s objectives are more ambitious and far-reaching in several policy areas than the targets listed in the 2030 Agenda and outlined in the report Agenda 2030 and Sweden: Challenges and Possibilities for the Earth (SOU 2019; UNESCO, 2017). In this article, we discuss Swedish early childhood education in relation to these new national objectives. We employ a critical perspective and recognize early childhood education as both a political and educational setting, one where major and minor politics are interconnected and embedded in practice. We discuss these interconnections as a narrative inquiry scrutinizing different transformations and transactions in Swedish early childhood education practice. Our inquiry focus is an early childhood teacher case study narrative of her everyday education for sustainability (EfS) practices and the UN, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The findings revealed everyday pedagogical practices where children’s own interests, curiosities and investigations enhanced EfS as integral to transformative and transactive early childhood education. We argue that further action is required to go beyond “business as usual” and embed transformative and transactive teaching for promoting the new national objectives and global objectives as 2030 Agenda. Such teaching for sustainability builds on pedagogical strategies where both children and teachers are engaged in a collaborative critical inquiry to challenge unsustainable thinking and actions in everyday life.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Lärande (hsv//swe)

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

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

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

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

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

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogiskt arbete (hsv//swe)

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

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

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

Keyword

Critical theory

early childhood education for sustainability

transformative education

narrative inquiry

UN SDG:s Agenda 2030

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)