Conference Agenda

How are universities supporting the development of knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes required for climate or sustainability action? Do students feel prepared and able to act for a sustainable future after graduation? What is a 'good education' in the context of a changing climate and societal expectations?

This research considers modules and courses from a range of English universities. Reflecting on an international review of literature and practice around competence development for sustainability, the research reports on the knowledge, attitudes, skills and values that participating students and lecturers hope to develop and build. Perceptions of learning gain were captured through both qualitative and quantitative means.

The theoretical framework to the doctoral research that informed this paper centres around action research, Gert Biesta's domains of education and Ulrich Beck's consideration of theories of modernity and democratisation in the context of education and sustainability. Lozano, Merrill, Sammalisto, Ceulemans and Lozano (2017)'s work to establish connections between competence development and pedagogical approaches informed the qualitative investigation as a theory to test against academic practice.

Student voices are typically silent in the academic literature in this area. This research challenged this through interviews, focus groups and a unique questionnaire measuring perceived competence gain. The perspectives of lecturers and university staff offer context for how individual institutions currently or could better support education for sustainability, with additional input from several sustainability leaders nationally.

Education in a post-pandemic university and world features an ever-increasing number of challenges, including a growing awareness of intersecting climate and sustainability crises that are driving many students to demand changes across their time at university. This paper will highlight opportunities and examples of good practice that are relevant to an international audience.

In regard to the discussion on societal transformation towards sustainable development, great importance and expectations are attributed to education of sustainable development (ESD) (Fischer et al., 2022). Particular focus is placed on school education as “an institution play[ing] a leading role in the implementation of sustainable development” (Bertschy et al., 2013, S. 5068). In order to enable the implementation of ESD in schools, the importance of teachers is emphasized. Although ESD-related teacher education is a central prerequisite (Rieckmann, 2020), it is still a niche innovation, as Fischer et al. (2022) state. In designing teacher education on ESD, Bertschy et al. (2013) highlight that both sustainability-related knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge are crucial for building professional action competence. Bürgener and Barth (2018) express a need in practice-based learning opportunities for student teachers and therefore view collaboration with educational practice as essential. The implementation of ESD related to teacher education can be considered on two levels: On the one hand, student teachers should be enabled to implement ESD in schools. On the other hand, teacher education itself represents an implementation of ESD. In this context, the question arises what is to be achieved with ESD. International scientific discourse distinguishes between two approaches (Vare & Scott 2007). ESD 1 assumes that the task of education for sustainable development is to impart knowledge and behavior defined as sustainable (ibid.). In this context, Pauw et al. (2015) warn against instrumentalisation or even indoctrination through educational policy guidelines if a pluralistic and holistic view is not desired. Furthermore, Ideland (2019) considers the danger of subjectification of sustainability, as the responsibility for societal transformation rests on the shoulders of the individual and thus the possibilities for change may even disappear. The emancipatory approach (ESD 2) focuses on a critical examination of issues relevant to sustainability. The complexity and contradictoriness of the social sustainability problem and the uncertainty resulting from it, are particularly taken into account and addressed. Accordingly, sustainable development is not a closed expert discourse, but an open social (learning) process. Education for sustainable development, in the sense of emancipatory ESD, promotes the ability to self-reflect and take responsibility in the social negotiation process (Sterling 2010). In this sense, Vare and Scott (2007) understand sustainable development in itself as a learning process. Ojala (2013) highlights the need to include the emotional level, as dealing with global challenges can be associated with negative feelings and hopelessness. In the context of teacher education, student teachers are therefore initially required to engage with the concept and content of ESD themselves (Rieckmann, 2022). In this light, critical-emancipatory reflection processes play a special role in teacher education. Viewing education for sustainable education itself as a learning process requires the training of teachers as learning facilitators. "This avoids viewing teachers as technicians who deliver predetermined results and instead views them as facilitators of knowledge production and value identification" (Vare, 2022, p. 15).

Looking at the state of research on teacher education in ESD in this regard, Evans et al. (2017) find, based on an international literature review, that while ESD is embedded in schools and curricula in many cases, there are still no requirements for teacher education in most countries. Little progress can be seen here in recent years - this includes European countries (ibid.). A research desideratum is to explore to what extent the required competencies of prospective teachers in the field of ESD are supported by the teaching-learning concepts used (Brandt et al., 2019). According to Evans et al. (2017), there is a lack of critical reflection on the applied teaching-learning concepts and the evaluation of their effectiveness.

Education is widely perceived as having great potential for the transformation towards sustainability (eg. Unesco 2014). It is , however, also seen to be complicit in reproducing historic and systemic violence and our unsustainable status quo (Stein et al 2022). Education needs to be fundamentally rethought and reimagined. Contemporary dominant approaches to educational development that are based on standardisation and curricula have been challenged (Holfelder 2019, Osberg and Biesta 2020). Transformative and transgressive learning have been proposed as generative for higher education (Lotz-Sisitka et al 2015, Ojala 2016).

We, the authors of this paper, have recently been employed to lead educational development and research for sustainability at a technical university. The university is known for their engineering programmes but it also provides education in other fields including science (e.g. physics), architecture, and education. Our activities as educational developers include teaching in different courses on higher education pedagogy, facilitation of workshops, coordination of collegial networks, supporting course and programme development collaborating with teachers, programme directors and university leadership. We also coordinate a new research group on sustainability and education, in which we explore educational development and research for sustainability in a bigger group.

With the aim to inform and inspire other educational developers and researchers and invite a dialogue on how to promote and support transformation for sustainability at universities, we are in this paper exploring and shaping our new roles as educational developers and researchers, learning and becoming in affective relationship with each other, sharing and learning from the pains and pleasures of working with sustainability education at a technical university.

The pleasures and pain comes from working within an influential social context. Technology, the way it is applied today, is seen to be driving social and environmental exploitation (e.g. Barca 2020). At the same time, science and technology is being highly valued in society today and young people are being attracted to education in those fields, e.g. in recruitment programmes reaching out to students from under-represented groups (e.g. women). Decades of research suggest engineering and technology is socially produced in ways associated with masculinity (Ottemo et al. 2020). Engineering is positioned as technical and mathematical, objective, rational, and reductionist, which implies that aspects central to sustainability are neglected or have low status. The pain comes from working within disciplinary structures in which the ill-defined and complex concept of sustainability can be rejected as “fuzzy”. Both of us have a background in engineering, which may help in understanding teachers and students' situations. However, as has been described by Machado de Oliveira (2021), our expertise within social science such as our knowledge in education can be met with arrogance, silencing us and limiting our possibilities of working for change.

In this paper we explore our roles and work as educational developers and researchers supporting and promoting change of university education for sustainability in collaboration with various actors at university. We engage with the following research questions:

1. What emerges in shared learning and affective relationships, among us educational developers and researchers and those we engage with for transformative change in education?

2. What strategies for the work as educational developers for transformative change can be drawn from that which emerges (see 1.)?

3. How can our research approach be used and further evolved for educational development?