Subproject 2 – transformation of concepts; the case of Sustainable Development
Some topics in school are related to several school subjects due to their interdisciplinary character. These topics are often addressed in the general parts of the national curriculum and should thus be addressed by all teachers in their teaching in the different school subjects. Sustainable Development is one such topic that is given great attention in the Swedish curriculum. However, research has shown that teachers find it difficult to implement and teach about sustainable development because they have difficulties in transforming sustainable development into their own disciplinary teaching tradition. In this project, we address this challenge.
The concept of sustainable development has a complex history and has its origins in the interaction between policy writing and research. The concept is generally defined as “a development that satisfies present needs without compromising the possibility of future generations to satisfy their needs”. To assure this type of development, all three dimensions (economic, ecological and social) need to be addressed and handled simultaneously. The interdisciplinary nature of sustainable development often becomes an obstacle for subject specialist teachers.
In the ROSE project, we investigate how teachers of different content areas such as science, social science and language transform sustainable development into classroom practices. We investigate what, how and why they teach by comparing teachers of different subjects regarding these questions. Our aim is therefore to identify how teachers of different subjects can collaborate and complement each other when teaching interdisciplinary issues. This study is conducted in relation to the concept of powerful knowledge, as we try to identify if there are any core ideas related to a topic such as sustainable development, and if this varies between subjects.
In another part of this project, we work with subject specialist teachers in four schools. We investigate longitudinally how a teacher professional development programme can assist teachers in implementing education for sustainable development as a cross-disciplinary topic in which all teachers at a school, from different subjects, can collaborate. We take a mixed-method approach to research the implementation process in order to investigate and follow the transformations of teachers’ and students’ perceptions of sustainable development as well as the teaching practiced by the teachers.
Project leader:
Niklas Gericke, niklas.gericke@kau.se
Researchers:
Gabriel Bladh, gabriel.bladh@kau.se
Per Sund, per.sund@kau.se
Jelle Boeve-de Pauw, Jelle.Boeve-dePauw@uantwerpen.be
Daniel Olsson, daniel.olsson@kau.se
Teresa Berglund, teresa.berglund@kau.se