Conference Agenda

Sometimes it is difficult to find a common basis for identifying focal actions or competences in environmental and sustainability education and learning, particularly when broad sustainability transitions are the goal. Some people refer to installing solar panels, while others emphasise sustainable values, awareness, knowledge, and pro‑environmental behaviour. Some focus on structural sustainability efforts, whereas others question how any of this relates to the global sustainability crises, where the most urgent problems often seem to occur elsewhere, outside our immediate sphere of activity.

This theoretical study combines results from two empirical research projects and literature on sustainability transitions, sustainability competence, levels of activity, and learning for sustainability. The aim is to develop a multi‑level model that answers the question: What kinds of competences are needed in sustainability transitions, and how do learning processes unfold across different levels of activity — technical‑material, individual, collective, and systemic?

In this study, sustainability is defined according to the concept of planetary well-being: the continuity of life and the significance of all parts of the biosphere are placed at the centre. Competence is defined as “an adequate range of capacity or ability; sufficiency to deal with what is at hand”. Sustainability competence is understood simply as the ability to act for sustainability, and it can be possessed not only by humans but also by organisations, societies, and even by nature itself. Learning is viewed as change within individuals, organisations, and societies, and change is regarded as something that generates learning in all of these. Learning produces sustainability competences across different levels of action. The goal of the entire process is a sustainability transition and a sustainable future—one that we can see only vaguely on the horizon, and which becomes clearer only through exploration during the transition process.

The model is grounded in Geels’ multi-level transition theory and Engeström’s Theory of Expansive Learning: the transition unfolds through phases across different, intertwined levels of activity. Understanding the essence of each level has been further developed through O’Brien and Sygna’s Three Spheres of Transformation framework, Kemmis and Grootenboer’s practice architectures, and the work of Willamo et al. related to the complexity of sustainability transitions. These show that, at different levels, the nature of activities varies, and although the levels are nested, one level cannot be fully understood through the properties of another. Sterling, building on Bateson’s work, has shown that learning for sustainability varies in depth across different levels. Coole and Frost, in introducing New Materialism, have provided inspiration for considering how our material environments can be actors in sustainability. Bianchi, synthesising research on sustainability competences, has helped to elaborate the role of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Scott’s Institutional Theory has contributed to the understanding of the organisational level by highlighting regulative, normative, and cultural aspects. The works of West et al. concerning relational thinking and Willamo and Engeström concerning how organisations interact and develop in networks around urgent issues have an impact on the model.

All these different theoretical insights have advanced thinking on the relationships between the material environment, human initiatives, communal structures, and complex systems in sustainability transitions. Bringing together theories from different origins and disciplines—even from different epistemologies—and allowing them to speak to one another is one way of interpreting the relational sustainability competence that this model associates with the systemic, global‑network level of sustainability transitions.

Agenda 2030 positions education as a central long-term strategy for enabling societal transformation towards sustainability. The research project presented here responds to the pedagogical challenge that many young people are simultaneously well informed about global sustainability challenges, while expressing pessimism and limited confidence in adults’ willingness and capacity to respond (Ojala & Bengtsson, 2019). The project is premised on the assumption that teaching that strengthens students’ conceptual knowledge and deeper understanding of sustainability issues can support their future-oriented engagement (Ojala, 2022).

The study is part of a research project that examines how visual sustainability models can be used in upper secondary teaching to support students’ understanding of the complex interdependencies that characterize sustainability issues. Sustainability issues are shaped by complex relationships between ecological, social and economic dimensions (Raworth, 2017; Stiglitz, 2006), which students often find difficult to grasp (Lundegård & Hasslöf, 2022). Visual models, such as a venn diagram or the donut model, are commonly used in teaching to help students structure such complexity. However, although making sustainability more accessible, visual models risk oversimplying the relations involved, resulting in a possible loss of essential complexity (Connelly, 2007; Gallopin, et al. 2014).

The overall aim is to examine how teaching based on visual models of sustainability can be designed to support students’ learning of complex relationships in sustainability issues. The research questions are: (I) Whether and how visual models of sustainability mediate students’ reasoning about different sustainability dimensions when such models are introduced in teaching about sustainability in upper-secondary school? (II) How do sustainability models function differently depending on subject-specific teaching traditions?

Empirically, the study focuses on two Swedish upper secondary subjects where sustainable development is particularly prominent in the curriculum: social science (in Swedish, Samhällskunskap) and science studies (in Swedish, Naturkunskap). Both subjects have a strong civic mission and are described as interdisciplinary, although developed within historically different disciplinary traditions. This affects how sustainability is framed and which sustainability dimensions become foregrounded. For instance, social science addresses how ecological, economic, and social conditions shape and are shaped by individuals and societal structures; science studies approaches sustainability through themes such as health, energy and socio-scientific issues at the intersection of science and society.

Theoretical framework

The project is theoretically grounded in Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987; Leontiev, 1986; Roth & Lee, 2007). Within CHAT, teaching practices are understood as historically evolved systems of goal-directed actions, shaped through culturally situated tools and norms. The project specifically investigates how sustainability issues are constituted differently across subjects when teachers and students engage in distinct teaching actions (e.g., tasks, descriptions, dialogue) using language and visual models, thereby creating different conditions for student reasoning and learning.

Such teaching actions within specific teaching practices are identified through a practical adaptation of Radford’s theory of objectification (Radford, 2018), focusing on the underlying motives and aims of classroom activity. Analytical attention is directed towards how visual sustainability models mediate sustainability reasoning (Davydov, 1998; Elkonin, 1999). Importantly, the models are not treated as neutral representations. Rather, they are understood as tools developed in societal practices outside school to explain complex phenomena and shape public discourse about sustainability. Because these models incorporate multiple sustainability dimensions beyond what has historically structured school subjects, their classroom use may challenge established subject-specific aims and norms—a tension that can be analysed through CHAT and used to support critical reflection on how teaching can better equip students to address uncertain and conflict-laden sustainability issues.