Conference Agenda

This contribution addresses the role and function of Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) research in times of poly-crisis. Characterised by the entanglement of ecological, social, economic and political crises, producing high levels of uncertainty, contestation and complexity (Lawrence et al., 2024), such conditions challenge conventional assumptions about the aims, knowledge forms, methodologies and practices of ESE research. In response, we argue for transdisciplinary qualitative research approaches that explicitly connect knowing and acting, and that position educators and other non-academic actors as co-researchers in processes of knowledge production and social transformation.

Transdisciplinary research deliberately crosses disciplinary boundaries to address complex, real-world problems and has become well established in sustainability science (Lang et al., 2012). A defining feature of transdisciplinary research is the involvement of actors beyond academia, integrating multiple forms of expertise and fostering shared ownership of processes and outcomes. Mobjörk (2010) distinguishes between consulting transdisciplinary research, where non-academic actors respond to academically defined research agendas, and participatory transdisciplinary research, where engagement includes framing problems, generating knowledge and interpreting results. Here we focus on participatory approaches, as a form of “transformation in action” (Palavicino et al., 2023). The contested aims of transdisciplinary research reflect epistemological tensions. For instance, Renn (2019) sees researchers as “honest brokers” who synthesise and communicate knowledge from multiple sources to support decision-making, while for others, singular, coherent understandings reproduce dominant paradigms that have contributed to unsustainability, and research should instead open up spaces for plural ways of knowing, being and doing (West et al., 2024).

The iterative relationship between knowing and acting, and recognition of distinct context-based knowledges, is an established feature of professionalisation in education. Educational professionals draw on knowledge in theory and in policy, as well as contextual understandings and relational knowledge to act in complex and uncertain situations (Schön, 1983). Research traditions such as action research have long built on this insight through researcher–practitioner partnerships. For ESE in particular, critical participatory approaches are highly relevant, as they examine how local meanings, identities and practices are shaped by, and reproduce/transform, systemic socio-ecological power relations (Carr & Kemmis, 1986). Drawing on socio-cultural and activity-theoretical perspectives (Engeström, 1987), such approaches can empower educators by rendering “knowledge in practice” available for transformation. Despite this potential, ESE research has often prioritised the development and evaluation of normative competence frameworks intended to “operationalise” global policy visions such as the SDGs (e.g., UNESCO, 2017). This linear knowing–acting logic positions academics as knowledge producers and educators as implementers, reproducing “business as usual” (Wals & Benavot, 2017) and neglecting research-based understandings of professional autonomy (Hamborg, 2023). In contrast, we argue that participatory, transdisciplinary qualitative research offers more adequate responses to poly-crisis by embracing complexity, reflexivity and relationality.

In this research workshop, we present and critically discuss three transdisciplinary qualitative methods, which we have used to research social phenomena in societal transformation processes: situational analysis, social network analysis, and generative target group development. For each approach, we present the methodological framework, and establish its transdisciplinary suitability and its relevance to ESE. Together with participants, we explore the roles of academic and non-academic actors, tensions between knowledge-oriented and process-oriented research aims (Bulten et al., 2021), and the implications of centring relationships, contexts and more-than-human collectives (Gould et al., 2023).