Conference Agenda

This paper constitutes the literature review component of an ongoing doctoral research project. It responds to the context of contemporary social and cultural transformation and explores the reconfiguration of intergenerational interaction within cultural learning settings from an adult perspective. Intergenerational interaction is understood as a mechanism through which participation relationships and shifts in subject positions are shaped within cultural learning practices. Drawing on a constructivist perspective and adopting Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital as the analytical framework(Bourdieu, 1984), the study focuses on whether children’s perceptions of art and their behaviours during interaction can exert a reverse influence on middle-aged adults’ motivation and their understanding of art. It further considers whether this process challenges pathways of cultural capital accumulation and transmission.

Since the emergence of New Museology theory (Vergo, 1989), public participation has increasingly become a key focus in museum research. Museum learning is now more commonly understood as a cultural practice that extends across the life course (Trujillo-Torres et al., 2023). At the same time, demographic changes, cultural democratisation, and lifelong learning–oriented educational policies have reinforced intergenerational participation in museum education as an important field of research. Existing studies on intergenerational education have demonstrated positive effects in supporting children’s zones of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotskiĭ et al., 1978) and older adults in rebuilding social connections. (Webster et al., 2024, Krok-Schoen et al., 2025). While acknowledging these contributions, the study further asks whether the generative intergenerational potential of midlife, often viewed primarily as a stage of transmission rather than generation of value, has been consistently underestimated in research on artistic and cultural participation？

Midlife is commonly understood as a life stage that carries responsibility for maintaining continuity and consolidating existing cultural resources(Infurna et al., 2020). At the same time, it represents a key stage for the accumulation, transformation, and redistribution of cultural resources. Individuals at this stage are often positioned at the centre of intergenerational relationships and experience frequent intergenerational contact （(Kim et al., 2024). It is precisely from this intergenerational nexus that middle-aged adults’ cultural participation experiences are not only related to their own learning and development, but also shape family-based cultural practices (van Hek and Kraaykamp, 2015). In this context, contemporary art museums, as cultural institutions characterised by future-oriented perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches, demonstrate distinctive potential in enhancing public cultural literacy and stimulating critical thinking and social engagement.

However, compared with traditional museums, contemporary art museums demand greater cultural capital and present more challenging interpretive processes(Stallabrass, 2020). Within this orientation, younger audiences have become the primary focus of research, In response to this and further critiques (Burns et al., 2025), this research asks whether approaches might enable more inclusive engagement with contemporary art museums, allowing a wider range of groups to become meaningfully involved? As research perspectives have gradually shifted from individual visitors to more situated and process-oriented understandings of cultural participation, family education has increasingly entered the field as an important unit of analysis. Nevertheless, existing studies in this area remain predominantly child-centred. Building on this, the study further considers whether children can be understood as agentic nodes within family learning contexts, and, adopting a decentring of child-focused perspectives, how intergenerational education might operate through children’s perceptions of contemporary art to influence and reshape middle-aged parents’ understanding of contemporary art?

To address these questions, this study reviews current research on museum education, intergenerational learning, middle-aged adults, and family participation in art museums. Through sustained analysis, it seeks to identify and clarify learning subjects, roles within intergenerational interactions, and modes of participation, thereby providing an analytical foundation for subsequent discussion of middle-aged adults’ participation experiences in art museums.

Education plays a crucial role in preparing new generations for global challenges, as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015). There is broad consensus that education should help learners develop competencies for a more sustainable future (UNESCO, 2020). The call by Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, underlines the urgency of action-oriented education: “It’s time to mainstream … education with an action-oriented approach that helps young people understand their power to make a difference” (UNESCO, 2024). This highlights the need to equip primary school teachers with the competencies required to foster such transformative learning processes. However, many teachers are still insufficiently prepared in this area (Boeve-de Pauw et al., 2022; Rieckmann, 2019).

Teachers and teacher educators experience challenges in designing education that strengthens social engagement and participation, particularly in relation to sustainability issues (Van Poeck et al., 2023). Within teacher education, students should be able to develop competencies in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), aimed at fostering knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that contribute to a more sustainable society (UNESCO, 2020). Sustainability is broadly defined through five interrelated pillars: People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership (Rahm et al., 2025). Teacher education can play a key role in promoting ESD in primary education (Rieckmann, 2019).

Like other young people, student teachers often experience emotions such as concern, anxiety, and paralysis when confronted with complex societal issues, such as climate change and inequality of opportunity (Ojala, 2016). Professional action competence for ESD enables (prospective) teachers to channel these emotions into action. A professionally action competent teacher is committed, demonstrates confidence in their own abilities, and possesses the pedagogical knowledge and skills required to teach ESD (Sass et al., 2022).

An individual’s values play an important role in sustainable behavior and influence so-called environmentally significant behavior (ESB), defined as behavior that has direct consequences for the quality of the natural environment (Stern, 2000). Three value orientations - egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric- are considered relevant in the literature for understanding environmental awareness and intentions (De Groot et al., 2008). These value orientations may function as an important moderator of variation in the development of professional action competence among student teachers.

Teacher education has a crucial role in stimulating teachers’ professional action competence; research shows that many teachers experience difficulties in implementing ESD (Sass et al., 2022; Boeve-de Pauw et al., 2022). This PhD research explores how the professional action competence for ESD of student teachers develops over a three-year period during their study. It examines which factors related to coursework, internships, and social experiences are associated with this development, and what role students’ value orientations play. The study will also clarify which subject-didactic design principles contribute to strengthening the professional action competence of student teachers. The aim is to optimize teacher education in order to better prepare future student teachers and the primary school pupils they will teach, for the challenges of their time.

This PhD research addresses the following main questions: How to enhance student teachers professional action competence in ESD? And the following sub-questions: 1. (a) How does the professional action competence of student teachers develop throughout their teacher education, and (b) how are aspects of coursework, internships, and other social experiences related to this development? 2. How does student teachers’ value orientation (egoistic, altruistic, biospheric) influence the development of their professional action competence during their teacher education? 3. Which subject-didactic design principles for ESD create the conditions for teacher education that enhance the professional action competence of student teachers?

We are in 2026, and we are feeling the planetary boundaries affecting our everyday physical and mental health (Patz & al., 2005; Climate Change and Human Behaviour, 2022). What and how do we feel when we are in our workplaces in July and need air conditioning (IEA, 2023), or when we receive a notification on our phone that temperatures will continue to reach record highs this year (Minet, 2025)?

According to Crutzen and Stoermer (2000), the Anthropocene era, which began around the 1850s, has seen an escalation in the carbon impacts and effects of human society in everyday life and across biodiversity. Sustainability discussions began in 1972 with the report The Limits to Growth (Meadows et al., 1972), moving from shyness to “mainstream” subjects (Castro, 2004), to now being back in the daily news, creating controversial discussions, and becoming a challenge (Fischer & al., 2023). Society continues to follow the “business as usual” approach, as if there were sufficient resources, causing sustainability goals to fail (Palomo & al., 2024). It’s time for change.

Human learning influences everyday behaviours and decisions, including social interactions, consumption, travel, and psychological well-being (Green & Bavelier, 2008). Education has the mission of enabling children to manage their future and to play an active role in society (UNESCO, 2015).

Adaptation and sustainability have entered educational debates. In Switzerland, policymakers acknowledge the need to integrate these topics into schools. However, the aspects teachers should address, the depth of classroom discussions, the methods for implementation, and the time allocated to these themes have not yet been clearly specified (Curnier, 2017, pp. 293, 377).

One possibility for integrating these interdisciplinary topics could be games. Collaborative game-based approaches allow children to develop both hard and soft skills (Abdul Jabbar & Felicia, 2015; Hui & Mahmud, 2023). They also offer opportunities for collective reflection and teamwork (Abdul Jabbar & Felicia, 2015), while opening the door to creativity (Daniau, 2016), which can support pupils in their future lives (Romero & al., 2015).

“Games of imagination” (Karwowski & Soszynski, 2008) allow pupils to immerse themselves and engage in different situations (Huynh & al., 2020; Zhang & al., 2025). In the school context, Edu-RPGs (Educational Role-Playing Games) enable students to enhance identity-building, critical thinking, and expression, while fostering motivation, communication, leadership, and problem-solving skills through experiential and reflective learning (Martinez-Lejarreta & al., 2024). Communicating and playing together, in new situations and through problem-solving, develops teamwork habits (Daniau, 2016).

Problem-solving can be approached in various ways, depending on the nature of the problem itself (Csapó & Funke, 2017). Well-structured problems are characterized by a clearly defined initial state, a known goal state, and a constrained set of logical operations that lead to correct and convergent solutions. They follow a direct and linear path, guided by strict parameters and defined outcomes. In contrast, Ill-structured problems are open-ended and complex, resembling real-life dilemmas with unpredictable outcomes. Their resolution is iterative and adaptive, requiring creativity and the integration of diverse knowledge domains (Jonassen, 1997), innovative minds are precisely what our society needs now and in the future, to hold challenges.

To build problem-solving skills through iterative and creative processes, Design Thinking methods represent a powerful tool when implemented at work and in classrooms (Henriksen & al., 2017; Foster, 2021). These methods can focus on exploring all aspects of problems through multiple sources and iterations (Carroll & al., 2010), while encouraging creativity and idea-sharing.

This research investigates the potential of a collaborative table-top game to introduce sustainability in primary education, while using Design Thinking to foster creativity, problem-solving, and essential soft skills.

This study aims to explore how art-based learning processes at the primary school level shape children’s understanding of culture as a space of participation and as a fundamental right. Through classroom practices designed around children’s literature, the study addresses the following research question: How do art-based learning processes influence students’ understandings of cultural participation, equality, and expression? Rather than transmitting cultural rights through didactic instruction, the study seeks to examine how experiencing culture through artistic processes affects children’s subjective meaning-making. Drama and thinking strategies are positioned as pedagogical tools that enable children to develop interpretations, engage in non-verbal expression, and make their cultural experiences visible. The purpose of this study is to investigate how art-based classroom activities developed based on Alain Serres' children's book Tous les enfants ont le droit d’être cultivés (Every Child Has the Right to Be Cultured) reflect primary school students' definitions of culture, their perception of culture as a right, and the ways in which they relate artistic and cultural participation to their daily lives. Based on an experiential approach to cultural rights, the study highlights children's meaning-making processes expressed through verbal, non-verbal, visual, and bodily forms, emphasizing learning through experience rather than transmission. Conceptual Framework The study is structured within the framework of Art-Based Learning, which recognizes knowledge production as not only cognitive but also sensory, embodied, and emotional (Anderson, 2004; Eisner, 2002). Children’s literature is conceptualized as a pedagogical gateway to abstract notions of cultural rights, while drama and visual thinking strategies are employed to support multiple interpretations, non-verbal expression, and the articulation of subjective experience. Within this framework, culture is not treated as a normative body of content to be transferred, but as a rights-based domain constructed through children’s experiences, interpretations, and participation.