Iann Lundegård

It Takes Two to Tango: Studying How Students Constitute Political Subjects in Discourses on Sustainable Development.

A great deal of the ongoing discussion about environmental education and education for sustainable development has to do with democracy and deliberation. Here, for example, the normative approach has been challenged. As an alternative, there is sometimes a call for a curriculum and education that is characterized by democracy, participation, and pluralism. According to this call, it is still far from clear what it actually means to create education in terms of democracy. While the debate is lively, it is not always anchored in empirical research. In this study, three students in a classroom situation talk about resources and solidarity. Using analytical tools developed from a pragmatic base, the study tries to find a methodology to reveal how people create political subjects while engaged in such a discourse. This is associated with the discussion about democracy in education, and the consequences these findings may have in respect of how education on environment and sustainable development can be staged in terms of freedom and pluralism.

Pre-school children’s agency in learning for sustainable development

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in pre-school children’s meaning-making and learning in education for sustainability. Young children should be recognized as ‘agents for change’ and active participants in their own day-to-day practices. Such issues are thoroughly discussed in the early childhood education for sustainability field. However, only a few research reports are presented on the subject. In this paper, our purpose is to examine empirically how agency is constituted when pre-school children explore science-related issues in a context of education for sustainability. The empirical material consists of video-recording sequences of four- to five-year-olds. In the analysis, we use a methodological approach based on Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy. We describe what a small group of children are doing and their ‘course of action’ towards ‘fulfilment’. In view of this, agency is explained as something that children achieve together in transactions rather than something they possess. Furthermore, the findings show the significance of the aesthetic relations in the constitution of agency. At the end of the article, we also discuss agency in relation to the ongoing debate on participation in young children’s meaning-making for sustainability.

Identity Transformation in Education for Sustainable Development: A Question of Location.

Traditionally the individual “I” is described as a relatively stable entity that is carried from one situation to another. However, a growing body of research has argued for a more flexible approach to identity. This article looks at identity as something situated and transformed in social transaction. The analysis made here examines three aspects of identity formation disjunctive space, inter‐subjective space and ethical space. We study the rhythmic shift between those different identity spaces in six college students’ ongoing conversation concerning sustainable development, human freedom, and solidarity. It is shown how identity is constituted in the three different spaces during student discourse. We demonstrate how identity is part of a continuous and contingent inter‐human activity, where the interlocutors are constantly forced to answer the question: Who are you? We discuss the consequences of this finding for education for sustainable development.

Students’ qualification in environmental and sustainability education—epistemic gaps or composites of critical thinking?

ABSTRACT In an ‘age of measurement’ where students’ qualification is a hot topic on the political agenda, it is of interest to ask what the function of qualification might implicate in relation to a complex issue as Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and what function environmental and sustainability issues serve in science education. This paper deals with how secondary and upper secondary teachers in discussions with colleagues articulate qualification in relation to educational aims of ESD. With inspiration from discourse theory, the teachers’ articulations of qualification are analysed and put in relation to other functions of education (qualification, socialisation and subjectification). The results of this study show three discourses of qualification: scientific reasoning, awareness of complexity and to be critical. The discourse of ‘qualification as to be critical’ is articulated as a composite of differing epistemological views. In this discourse, the teachers undulate between rationalistic epistemological views and postmodern views, in a pragmatic way, to articulate a discourse of critical thinking which serves as a reflecting tool to bring about different ways of valuing issues of sustainability, which reformulates ‘matter of facts’ towards ‘matter of concerns’

In-Between Chapter: The Political in Science Education

Science and technology have been of crucial importance for the development of humanity. Throughout history, new knowledge and technological innovations have made it possible to raise the standard of living for new generations in different parts of the world. However, this has also led to an unfortunate acceleration in the use of the world’s natural resources. Nevertheless, scientific and technological findings are often promoted as the drivers of development in our societal and economic systems.

Personal Authenticity and Political Subjectivity in Student Deliberation in Environmental and Sustainability Education.

Abstract This study problematizes what is meant when one talks about classroom activities concerning environmental and sustainability issues as being authentic or not. It reports excerpts from three classroom discussions which start from questions formulated by the students themselves concerning issues related to sustainable development. It examines how the different questions give rise to altered kinds of participation and shows that the students’ involvement shifted between either a distanced factual level of communication, or a personal level of communication. The result indicated that the nature of authenticity in a discourse differs depending on which question initiates it. If the initiating questions allow the students to distance themselves from the subject matter, then one type of authenticity is created. If, on the other hand, the questions give the students an opportunity to establish value-relations, or to dare to take a personal standpoint, as political subjects, to the issues at hand then the personal authenticity becomes another.