Keynote by Stefan Bengtsson, Uppsala University, Sweden

1. GENERATION 2030
Learning and education
for sustainable
development
A Swedish perspective on the contribution
of learning and education to sustainability

2. GENERATION 2030
Who am I?
― Project coordinator at Uppsala University:
• National focal point national implementation of the
UN Global Action Plan on ESD (2014-2019)
― Associate professor of didactics:
• Research on education, teaching and learning for
sustainability and environmental education
• Research focus: what does sustainability imply for
teaching and education as a broader social project.
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3. GENERATION 2030GENERATION 2030
What are we
talking about
when we talk
about ESD, SD, EE
?
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4. GENERATION 2030
The emergence and history of education
for sustainable development
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Agenda 21 – Chapter 36 – linking education to the idea of sustainable
developmnet (SD)
Education for sustainable Development (ESD) is formalized through the
UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014).
ESD is integrated into the SDGs as part of SDG 4 (4.7)

5. GENERATION 2030
The idea of Education for Sustainable
Development is contested
― Critique of the idea of “for” and “Sustainable Development”
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6. GENERATION 2030
The critique
― Education is seen as a tool to realize predetermined
objectives (Instrumental view of education) (Jickling 1992)
― Against the idea of seeing education as a process where
individual thinking is fostered (Jickling 1992)
― ESD is a tool for making sure that education does not lead to
change (reproduction of the status quo) (Jickling &Wals 2008)
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7. GENERATION 2030
Attempts at mitigating: Different
notions of (E)SD
― Vare & Scott: the importance of understanding sustainable development:
Vare, P.; Scott, W. Learning for a Change: Exploring the Relationship Between Education and
Sustainable Development. J. Educ. Sustain. Dev. 2007, 1, 191–198.
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8. GENERATION 2030
Three perspectives on the link between
education and sustainability (Vare & Scott)
1. Sustainability problems are reducible to their environmental aspect and can be
understood through science and solutions based on knowledge. Assumption: learning of
facts leads to change.
2. Sustainability problems are socio-political and produce in term environmental problems.
Assumption: learning is a tool to facilitate (the right) choice between different futures
that we can predict through knowledge about the present.
3. Sustainability problems cannot be understood in the present and therefore sustainability
can not be defined. Assumption: learning has to be open and need to be able to handle
uncertainty as well as complexity of sustainability issues through reflexive social learning.
Vare, P.; Scott, W. Learning for a Change: Exploring the Relationship Between Education and Sustainable
Development. J. Educ. Sustain. Dev. 2007, 1, 191–198.
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9. GENERATION 2030
― How we understand ESD as well as
education´s and learning´s
contribution to sustainability
transitions is based in underlining
assumptions about how we can
understand and should live the
world.
― There are different understandings
of ESD as well as SD that are not
compatible with another (yet often
are presented as such)
My argument

10. GENERATION 2030GENERATION 2030
How do teachers
understand ESD in
Sweden?
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11. GENERATION 2030
Three traditions in teaching can be
discerned
― Fact-based tradition
― Normative tradition
― Pluralistic tradition
(Skolverket, 2001; Öhman, 2004, 2008 & Sandell, Öhman &
Östman, 2005)
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12. GENERATION 2030
How to understand ESD in teaching?
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Fact-based
tradition
Content
Normative tradition
content > values >
behaviour
Pluralistic tradition
Content, values
and behaviour
View on
sustainability issues
Lack of knowledge Probl. Attitudes and
lifestyles
Political problem and
value conflicts
Solutions More research and
information
Change of attitudes Democratic action
competence
Teaching To fill students with
pedagogically
adapted facts and
models
To teach
sustainability related
values and attitudes
Discuss different
perspectives and
critically analyse
facts and values.

13. GENERATION 2030
ESD and the current debate about
education in Sweden
― The return of the fact based tradition in the debate about schooling and education for
sustainable development.
• View – problems can be understood and solved through scientific solutions and
knowledge of facts.
• Question: what kind of outlook on living in the world is behind this (democratic)?
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15. GENERATION 2030GENERATION 2030
The strength of
Folk/Adult
education
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16. GENERATION 2030
The vantage points of folk/adult
education
― Equality and democracy
• The individuals agency and potential
― Education (Bildung) always starts in personal interest, development and capability
• Non-instrumental view of education
― The learner direct the process of learning
• Bottom-up education and not top-down (curricular) schooling
― Learning is seen as taking place in coordination with other people
• Social and democratic aspects integrated into the notion of learning
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17. GENERATION 2030
Linkages between AE and ESD
― Emancipation (frigörelse) as a way to produce conditions for change of social structures
(democracy) – (transformative key competences)
― Sustainability might challenge us to rethink “folk” at the core of Folkbildning – who is
education for and including?
• The role of the problem in education- that which is beyond the personal and the social.
― Folk and Adult Education and their pedagogical starting points could be a inspiration for
the formal education system to work with “creating/maintaining” democracy
(demokratiunderskott) in education.
• The challenge: to strengthen democratic/ecologic society and to provide new visions
for society. (Sustainability in terms of a world worth living in)
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