Conference Agenda

Environmental citizenship means responsible behaviour of citizens that act as agents of pro-environmental change in society (Hadjichambis & Reis, 2020). Like global citizenship, it is not limited to national borders, and both individual and collective actions can be viewed as acts of environmental citizens (Dobson & Bell, 2006; Schild, 2016). As a topic it exists at the crossroads of environmental and sustainability education (ESE) and citizenship education. It has often been mentioned as an important goal of ESE, yet the implementation has been lacking (Chawla & Cushing, 2007; Hadjichambis & Reis, 2020; Schild, 2016). Teachers in formal schools tend to view their students’ possibilities of environmental citizenship as narrow, mainly consisting of acts within the private sphere (Aarnio-Linnanvuori, 2019). In an era of severe environmental crisis meeting a crisis of democracy, supporting children’s and young people’s environmental citizenship has become an increasingly important aim of ESE.

Nonformal learning environments offer great potential for supporting the development of environmental citizenship. Nonformal education tends to be supportive and children and young people often have more agency in setting their learning goals within nonformal than formal contexts, thus giving them a possibility to connect to the topic of their interest (Boeve-de Pauw & Halbac-Zamfir, 2020; Paraskeva-Hadjichambi et al., 2020). In addition, nonformal environmental education often focuses on local topics, which may make these more relevant to the young participants.

One promising possibility to enhance education for environmental citizenship is to offer children and young people the possibility to take part in citizen science initiatives. Citizen science means collaboration between citizens and professional scientists, where citizens have a meaningful role in generating new knowledge, the collaboration produces a genuine science outcome, and both the professional scientists and the citizen scientist benefit of taking part in the collaboration (Robinson et al., 2018). Research shows that taking part in citizen science helps young people to connect to environmental issues and supports their identity as active citizens and connection to place (Flanagan et al., 2022; Smith et al., 2024). Participating in citizen science enhances understanding of science and empowers responsible environmental actions, though mainly locally and within the private sphere (Adamou et al., 2021). Nonformal organisations such as guides and scouts can act as facilitators that enhance the participation of children and young people (Smith et al., 2024). However, very little research has been conducted on the outcomes of their ESE work.

In this qualitative case study, we explore Finnish guides’ and scouts’ experiences of citizen science and their perceptions of what a guide or scout can do for the environment. In particular, we ask:

1. How do young guides and scouts and their adult leaders perceive their citizen science experience and to what extent do their perceptions connect to the elements of environmental citizenship?
2. To what extent do the guides’ and scouts’ perceptions of environmental action relate to collective and individual action?

In response to transnational demands for socio-ecological sustainability articulated in Agenda 2030 (UN, 2015), particularly SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 17 (Partnerships), education systems are increasingly positioned as catalysts for systemic transformation. Collaboration, framed as a shared responsibility and a democratic practice, has gained prominence across research, policy, and practice to mobilise diverse stakeholders and expand learning beyond school boundaries (Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018; Bengtsson & Lunneblad, 2025; Essuman, 2019; Jesacher-Rößler et al., 2025; Fang et al., 2022; Locatelli, 2024). This study examines how Vienna’s Educational Neighbourhoods (ENs), launched by the City of Vienna in 2017–18 within the city’s long-term sustainability strategy, operationalise these ambitions through place-based networks connecting schools with libraries, youth centres, adult education providers, and community organisations. ENs can be understood as exhortative/developmental policy instruments that rely on local agency (Ball et al., 2011), shared principles, and voluntary participation to foster holistic education, inclusion, and collective responsibility in a migrant society.

While collaboration is widely advocated, its concrete enactment within institutional settings and its capacity to reshape organisational routines, governance, and professional practice remains underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating the institutional opportunities and challenges that arise when ENs are planned, implemented, and sustained by heterogeneous actors. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 participants across nine ENs (stakeholders, school leaders, and partners from informal education and social sectors) the analysis identifies six overarching themes: three opportunity themes (Strengthening Community Engagement and Institutional Collaboration; Knowledge Sharing and Resource Optimisation; Motivation and Innovation through ENs) and three challenge themes (High Organisational Effort and Insufficient Commitment; Resource Constraints and Limited Institutional Support; Divergent Goals and Communication Issues).

Findings indicate that ENs provide structured arenas that reduce inter-institutional prejudices and foster mutual appreciation, thereby enabling continuity and depth in collaboration. Regular networking enhances shared understanding of institutional perspectives and constraints, supports needs-based planning, and optimises local resources, particularly in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Modest financial support and recognition for locally initiated projects stimulate creativity and context-responsive pedagogical innovation (e.g., thematic workshops, digital scavenger hunts, parent-focused offerings), while reflective negotiation of aims improves role clarity and the visibility of educational profiles. These opportunity structures align with the European Commission’s whole-school approach (2015) and international agendas that conceptualise education as a common good grounded in multi-stakeholder partnerships.

However, collaboration in ENs remains vulnerable to systemic and organisational constraints. Coordination is time-intensive and often rests on voluntary, uncompensated labour, producing uneven participation and reliance on a few motivated coordinators; turnover among these key actors disrupts continuity. Persistent staff shortages, limited funding, and competing institutional priorities restrict engagement and the delivery of inclusive offerings, pressures exacerbated by external shocks such as COVID-19, which redirected capacity back to core operations and weakened network ties. Moreover, heterogeneous mandates and accountability regimes yield divergent goals, leading to fragmented initiatives and one-off events rather than sustained, problem-solving collaboration.

The study contributes a practice-near account of how global sustainability and collaboration agendas translate into local educational ecosystems. It highlights actionable design principles: protected time, flexible resources, negotiated shared purpose with locally measurable goals, backbone supports for knowledge mobility across neighbourhoods, equity-centred resource allocation, and city-level convening power paired with local autonomy. By illuminating both the enabling capacities and the limits of voluntarist collaboration, the findings offer guidance for policymakers, leaders, and community partners seeking to strengthen the institutional conditions under which ENs and similar initiatives can deliver durable, equitable, and context-responsive improvements to learning and wellbeing.

The potential of third sector nonformal sustainability education has long been recognised for example by UN and UNESCO (e.g. Gillett, 1977; UN, 1992) and it’s still, at least implicitly, in sustainable development goals (SDGs) (UN, 2015). Rogers (2019) claims that none of the SDGs can be reached only through formal education but nonformal education done in cooperation between different actors is needed. Nonformal education for SDGs is more flexible, non-standardised, contextualised and participatory (Rogers, 2019). Despite this, nonformal education is still struggling to get validation even within sustainability education research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in nonformal sustainability education, focusing on factors that either promote and enable or hinder and prevent their work in promoting sustainability. Many NGOs reach groups that are not otherwise reached by other educational institutions, especially among adults. Many NGOs act flexibly at the interfaces of nonformal and formal education by collaborating with schools and other societal actors. The versatility of the action, networks, ideologies and educational approaches makes NGOs interesting and potentially powerful sustainability actors.

My PhD research explores NGOs across Europe that engage in nonformal sustainability education as part of their core activities. I am interested in their views of sustainability and sustainable futures and what constrains or enables their sustainability education towards those futures. Understanding the enabling and constraining practices are essential not only for the agency of the NGOs but also for the wider sustainability and planetary well-being.

Planetary well-being emphasizes the well-being as a fulfilment of basic needs of all the ecosystems including humans and non-humans, like animals, organisms and geophysical systems (M. Elo et. al., 2023; Kortetmäki et al. 2021). Education that enables planetary well-being stresses humans as part of nature and our responsibility in nurturing a liveable planet to all via dialogue and actively critical stance to consumption (Aaltonen et. al., 2023). All actions and practices have consequences on temporal, spatial and ethical spheres effecting on planetary ecosystems and therefore learning needs to happen as a dynamic process that affects to agency and future literacy (Salonen et. al., 2023). Understanding everyday life practices as ways to participate in the community of life allows transformation and new kind of praxis aiming towards planetary well-being (Heikkinen et. al., 2024).

Different NGOs have diverse understanding of sustainable futures and what it looks like from their organisation’s perspective. Futures can be seen as individual or collective images that reflect national, regional or cultural characteristics (see e.g. Son, 2013; Zheltikova & Khokhlova, 2019). Future images are composed of concepts, beliefs and desires that affect decision making and action in present time (Rubin & Linturi, 2001).

In this research project, a central concern is to examine the factors that prefigure sustainability education practices within European non-governmental organisations; in other words, the ’practice architectures’ (Kemmis 2022) that enable or constrain what educational practices are possible. The sustainability education practices are shaped by interconnected cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political conditions, which together constitute the practice architectures of the site. These preconditions do not determine practices but prefigure them, opening possibilities for action while limiting others. (Kemmis, 2022). By focusing on prefiguring arrangements NGOs may learn new ways to change their practices and future images. More significantly research on this topic can shed light on the uniqueness of nonformal sustainability education of the NGOs and reveal new perspectives to other educational actors and to sustainability education research.