Abstract
Sustainable development as a subject area and learning objective increasingly finds its way into the curriculum from pre-school to university level, and education and learning are emphasized as key drivers for sustainable development. At the same time, the sustainable development discourse has since its inception been met with critique, not least that it is a post-political discourse, which favours an instrumental view of knowledge and a simplified view of the relation between knowledge and action. In this article, we focus on the possibilities and challenges of teaching sustainable development in higher education. We argue that it is the formative role of higher education that is particularly important to explore in relation to the possibilities of education for sustainable development. In addition, we suggest that sociology can provide a good basis for both critical thinking and normative action, in ways that reaches beyond instrumental and narrow views of knowledge, human action and change.
Keywords
Introduction
In many instances, education and learning are emphasized as key drivers for sustainable development (Boström et al., 2018, p. 2), and sustainable development as a subject area and learning objective increasingly finds its way into the curriculum from pre-school to university level. Analyses of the overall policy framing of education for sustainable development suggest a consistency over time. A study of UN documents on education, environment, and development, 1972–2005, identified three recurrent features: an instrumental view on education, a focus on resources, and an emphasis on sustained economic growth. According to the study, this instrumental view on education, in turn, meant that there was an emphasis on the need for consensus and problem-solving, and a focus on scientific and technological knowledge (Sauvé et al., 2007, p. 40). Documentation on the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development gives a somewhat more nuanced picture, recognizing the uncertainty and complexity of many sustainability issues and admitting a need for critical thinking in education for sustainable development (UNESCO, 2014, p. 20). At the same time as this notion includes learning to ask critical questions and to clarify one’s own values, a number of basic values (such as justice, equity, tolerance, sufficiency and responsibility) and principles (sustainable living, democracy and human well-being) of sustainable development are specified by UNESCO.
Despite the ambitions to integrate universal sustainable values and principles into higher education operations during the 10-year period of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, there are according to UNESCO (2014, p. 31) few examples of ‘fully “green” universities’. In addition, sustainable development is often not defined, and the institutions of higher education come to represent containers for development of various norms and behaviours. Thereby the integration of sustainable development in higher education has come to include a broad array of activities, including non-formal ‘campus greening activities’, such as, energy saving and recycling assumed to foster sustainable behaviour among students, and the formal aspect of curricula development (Hopkins, 2012; Papenfuss et al., 2019). With increased focus on the role of education for sustainable development and ongoing curricula development, there is a need to address both the possibilities and challenges this entails in higher education.
The inclusion of sustainable development as a learning objective in higher education, implies a balancing between the encouragement of students’ independent critical reflection and the fostering of subjects embracing certain values and lifestyles implying a focus on individual behavioural change. To a great extent, this balancing act has become the responsibility of individual teachers, which may give rise to crucial questions about the content, forms and objectives of the education. The focus on individual behavioural change has been prevalent in higher education related to sustainable development (Mochizuki & Bryan, 2015; Otte, 2016). In line with other scholars (e.g., Boström et al., 2018; Schank & Rieckmann, 2019) we argue for approaches in higher education that go beyond the goal of supporting individual behavioural change, that is, approaches that attend also to how actors are embedded in various social contexts as well as how both transformative learning and structural transformation can be fostered through higher education.
In this article, we discuss the possibilities and potential challenges of teaching in higher education in relation to sustainable development as a learning objective, for example, the sometimes contradictory roles in advancing students’ critical thinking and fostering them to become agents for sustainable development. In addition, we draw on the concept of
In the following, we first give a brief introduction to the area of sustainable development and education. We do this, by giving a short overview of the critique that has been directed to the sustainable development discourse. Thereafter, we give an overview of two central discussions of sustainable development and education. In a section after that, we argue that it is the formative role of higher education that is particularly important to explore in relation to teaching sustainable development. Taking our starting point in sociology, we suggest four dimensions that can all support critical thinking and normative action in relation to sustainable development, that go beyond a narrow view of individual behavioural change. In a concluding section we summarize the main arguments of the article.
Sustainable Development and the Critique
Sustainable development is a concept that because of its positive connotations and utopian character can have a mobilizing effect (Drago, 2012). The concept may function as a ‘boundary object’, that is, a concept that enhances the capacity of an idea or practice ‘to translate across culturally defined boundaries, for instance, between communities of knowledge and practice’ (Fox, 2011, p. 71), but there are also a number of critical points. In this section, we give an overview of the critique against the inconsistencies and/or vagueness of the concept of ‘sustainable development’.
The emphasis on the ecological, economic and social dimensions as three intertwined dimensions is partly explaining the success of the term. The notion that sustainability and economic growth are compatible has been cherished, and a common view not least among governments (Redclift, 2000, p. 152). This is also one of the points that have met substantial criticism from scholars in both natural and social science, concluding that the notion of development in terms of continuous economic growth is incompatible with a finite Earth. One of the earlier and harsh critics argued that economic growth can never be sustainable:
Since the human economy is an open subsystem of a finite, closed, global ecosystem which does not grow, even though it does develop, it is clear that growth of the economy cannot be sustained over long periods of time. The term ‘sustainable growth’ should be rejected as a bad oxymoron. (Daly, 1990, p. 402)
The idea of a finite Earth is also discussed within the degrowth discourse, a discourse including both the notion of the limits of an external nature and that humans can ‘limit themselves to a fair (and sustainable) share’ (Kallis, 2019, p. 270).
Another critical point is directed to the vagueness of the term, meaning that the consensus around the term is actually concealing conflicts about its meaning: ‘sustainable development is necessary for all of us, but it may be defined differently in terms of each and every culture. This is superficially convenient, until we begin to ask how these different definitions match up’ (Redclift, 2005, p. 213). In practice, there are always trade-offs between divergent ecological, economic, and social sustainability goals and values.
The circumstance that the sustainable development concept primarily is associated with consensus, and ‘win-win’ solutions has made it subject to critique that points to its post-political nature, which ‘reduces the political terrain to the sphere of consensual governing and policymaking’ (Swyngedouw, 2013, p. 5). This, in turn, means that tensions, conflicts, and injustices are obscured, and the political tends to become reduced to technical and managerial issues, and ‘individual moral and action-competence’ (Knutsson, 2013, p. 114). In addition, ‘sustainability’ has been detached from the original concept and is today used in numerous contexts. No one is against ‘sustainability’ and the term can be found in an array of expressions, for example, ‘sustainable wetlands’, ‘sustainable processes’ and ‘sustainable companies’ (Swyngedouw, 2007, p. 20), labelling even activities that are apparently unsustainable (Blühdorn, 2007). Powerful actors, such as multinational corporations and nation states can be involved in activities that are exploitative or environmentally damaging and simultaneously write sustainability reports or collect scores in sustainability indexes. Explicit admittance to sustainability goals may function as to conceal unsustainable practices and make it harder for those who are affected by the decisions of these powerful actors, to make such unsustainable practices, and the injustices these lead to, attended and responded to.
Two Critical Discussions within Research on Sustainable Development and Education
Research focusing on education policy and teaching practices relating to sustainable development is a broad field (see, e.g., Van Poeck et al., 2018; Van Poeck et al., 2019). The research field includes an array of perspectives and approaches, entailing debates and tensions. In this section, we attend to two central discussions in the field. The first discussion concerns the labelling of the education—
Label and Focus of the Education
Based on a systematic review of thematic trends in this research field Aikens et al. (2016) identified two competing paradigms. Environmental education, with its roots in conservation ecology and rural studies, dominated in the 1970s and 1980s and had its peak in the late 1990s. The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development emerged in the research in the 1990s and started to peak in 2005. This shift from EE to ESD has not only been a change in terminology. Compared to EE, ESD represents a broader approach with an increased focus on human development.
For many scholars the concepts of sustainable development and ESD have been welcomed as providing a positive, proactive approach in education focusing visions of a desired future instead of environmental problems (Stevenson, 2006, p. 277). According to these scholars, it could even be counterproductive to present the environment ‘as a world of problems’ (Smyth, 2006, p. 254), or in terms of ‘doom and gloom’ scenarios (Tilbury, cited in Stevenson, 2006). Smyth’s (2006, p. 254) vision is that the healthy environmental state should be the norm, and problems metaphorically described as injuries or diseases to be remedied. The positive understanding of the shift to ESD includes welcoming of the broadened perspective with an increased focus on social and human development issues. The vagueness of the concept is not seen as an obstacle but an opportunity for reflection and dialogue (Stevenson, 2006, p. 277)
Other scholars have been less intrigued by the shift towards sustainable development. These scholars have pointed out the vagueness of the concept as problematic (e.g., compared it with a policy slogan) and argued that the shift to ESD also has implied a shift to a more instrumental and anthropocentric approach to the environment (Stevenson, 2006). Kopnina (2012, 2019), for example, points out the risk to lose the ecological justice perspective and the ‘environment’ as a specific value to foster and protect in this course.
Role and Objectives of Education
Another related discussion concerns the role and objectives of education. One of the key points here is about the role of education in society, and another key point is about the formation of subjects. Some scholars within the ESD field oppose what they see as managerial tendencies and pre-specified outcomes of education, which among other things include the formation of a specific type of action competence. Others try to nuance the discussion stressing that although the purpose and dominating ideas of the desirable outcome may vary over time all education is purposive (Ferreira, 2009). Acknowledging this aspect of education, Van Poeck and Lysgaard (2016, p. 310) contend that there is a ‘difference in forming and shaping particular types of persons, for example, critical thinkers willing and able to shape the future, versus people that are trained for “correct” behaviour and steered, however gently, towards a particular vision’. However, even if some educational objectives and a specific version of person formation may appear as more appealing and/or legitimate at a certain time and in certain contexts, education cannot be value-free and there is always an inbuilt aspect of power—from curriculum formation to the teaching practice (Öhman & Öhman, 2019).
The discussion about tensions between normative and pluralistic approaches in education, reflects an ambiguous relationship between the urgency to attend to the severe environmental situation we are facing and reluctance to use education in an instrumental way. There have been different ways to address this aspect within the research field, for example, by formulation of conceptual typologies or by identifying different educational modes or traditions. Based on evaluation of environmental education (from pre-schools to upper secondary schools) three different traditions were identified (Öhman & Östman, 2019). The
All the above-mentioned teaching traditions involve decisions about content, presentation, and student activities, inviting educators to reflect on their choices and the inbuilt aspect of power in all education (Öhman & Öhman, 2019). Based on Foucault’s conceptualization of knowledge and power, the different teaching traditions can in an ideal-typical way be related to different subject positions. Fact-based teaching has been suggested to enable students to see themselves as ‘informed citizens’, who are competent, rational and reliable. Normative teaching has been suggested to enable students to see themselves as ‘moral citizens’, who are caring, committed and responsible. Pluralistic teaching, finally, has been suggested to enable students to see themselves as ‘political citizens’, who are conscious, concerned and critical (Öhman & Öhman, 2019, p. 190). Despite the differences, all these subject positions are directed towards the empowerment of the individual, implying an individualization of responsibility for sustainability issues. This is in line with the results of a literature review suggesting that learning for sustainable development focuses individual’s learning of facts and values but tends to disregard social structures and institutional inertia (Boström et al., 2018).
ESD and the Formative Dimension of Higher Education
The instrumental approach found in ESD is prevalent in higher education at large. This situation has been critically examined, for example, by focusing on the institutional context of teaching. Drawing on the concept of ‘greedy institutions’, Wright et al. (2004) address the continuously increasing demands on faculty, including both market pressure and political goals. The uptake of ESD in higher education is an example of such political goals. Other scholars have critiqued and challenged the instrumental view on higher education by a call for revitalizing the concept of
Like sustainable development,
Although the emphasis of what
The different approaches to
Another point we want to raise here is the biases towards individual improvement that occasionally permeate the discussions of both
The Role of Sociology in Higher Education related to Sustainable Development
In the following discussion, we relate sociology to the concept of
We have already problematized the focus on behavioural change as a too narrow approach to sustainable development, which might even have the function to support unsustainable practices, when not targeting the problem in an adequate way. We are contrasting the instrumental and individualized view with a
Confrontation
A crucial task in basic sociology courses is to encourage students to question taken-for-granted assumptions about themselves and the society they live in. Sociological thinking is based on the notion that society is a social construction and the understanding that human experiences and life trajectories must be understood in cultural and historical contexts (Buechler, 2008). With reference to the concept of
In his book
Norgaard (2018) suggests that we need both ecological and sociological imagination to understand and respond to environmental problems. The former concerns ‘the relationships between human actions and their impacts on earth’s biophysical system’, and the latter concerns ‘the relationships within society that make up this environmentally damaging social structure’ (Norgaard, 2018, p. 171). Together these imaginations provide a perspective that can challenge the often post-political and individualistic notion of sustainable development and constitute a useful starting point to address sustainability issues. Confrontations can be practically stimulated in teaching by making students aware of discrepancies, for example, between their own and others’ short-term interests and natures’ and societies’ long-term interests and between various sustainability goals.
Contextualizing
Sociology can put sustainable development into context and contribute to an understanding of the concept’s political and practical dimensions. Sociology can contribute by elucidating the concept’s historical trajectory and how sustainable development in some contexts has become a hegemonic and consensus-oriented environmental discourse, and the implications thereof. For example, sociological analyses of environmental policy and regulation, have elucidated how environmental responsibility increasingly has been transferred from political institutions to private actors, and how the conduct of organizations and individuals are steered in an environmentally friendly direction by various techniques of governance, implying that contemporary morality of sustainability has become embedded in the market (Shamir, 2008). Sociology thus provides tools for analysis of potential consequences of this framing and handling of environmental problems. Like any other social phenomena, sustainable development must be put into context in order to be understood as ‘discourse’, ‘policy’, and ‘practice’. Highlighting the discursive and organizational contexts that the concept initially emerged from, and is currently practiced within, also enables us to explore alternative discursive and organizational contexts. For example, the historical emergence of ‘sustainable development’ is seen to largely relate to processes of de-regulation, with increased emphasis on market mechanisms and voluntary rules, such as standards and certification largely replacing legislation and command and control forms of regulation. Such insights, in turn, open the possibility to discuss and reflect over societal organization, social norms, and distribution of responsibility.
Sustainable development is connected to a plethora of organizational forms and practices. The concept’s emergence and influence will most likely differ, in various situations, practices, and relations. Thus, in the teaching practice we need to be explicit about the particular context and cases we as teachers provide and emphasize, and point out that there might be other contexts and relations of worth to examine since they may highlight different kinds of shifts and trajectories. This is not to embrace relativism and abandon the authority of sound research and knowledge, but to acknowledge that ‘sustainable development’ is a multifaceted and contested concept. In the teaching practice the use of concrete cases is one way to enable different relations such as state–citizen, market–consumer, or nature–society relations, to come into focus. Case-based teaching can help students to explore issues, such as, who sets the agenda, who loses and who gains from these developments in different situations and contexts, as well as how the notion of ‘sustainability’ is rhetorically used in various practices, such as marketing and branding. It is also possible to engage the students to make their own case studies to explore both the potential and challenges, for example, of local sustainability initiatives (cf. Stevenson, 2006, p. 112).
In the teaching practice, it is important to encourage students to not only look at policy documents and prescribed goals of sustainable development as if these were self-evident, and that the task is entirely about how to implement them. Instead, students should be encouraged to contextualize the concept of sustainable development and treat it as a phenomenon that appears in various contexts (e.g., policy documents, business strategies, sustainability reporting, CSR documents, local initiatives, teaching practice, and curricula) and that all of these can be made subject for sociological analysis.
Normative Critical Analysis
Sociology has a normative dimension that calls for a critical analysis of contemporary society, focusing issues such as hierarchies, inequalities, and power structures. We suggest that such critical perspective could and should be applied both to social relations and humans’ relationship with the environment. This is not to encourage lamentation over the flaws of modern society, or to advocate ‘critical thinking’ as a generic skill out of context (cf. Canning, 2013). Although sociology cannot give a distinct definition of or recommend any clear-cut solutions or agendas for sustainable development, it can inspire analyses and profound discussions about social structures and driving forces behind the current unsustainable situation and inertia in the process of change as well as about the human ability to mobilize resources and agency for change (see, e.g., Boström et al., 2018; Norgaard, 2018). Our suggestion for critical sociological analysis is based on the belief that such analysis can elucidate and scrutinize the consequences of processes of domination, oppression, or exploitation (of both humans and nature), and in doing so promote emancipation by pointing out alternative futures (cf. Buechler, 2008), without being limited to prescribing a certain set of individual behaviour. With such sociological analyses, it is also possible to address issues such as production and distribution of risk, and global environmental justice.
The need to contextualize and analyse the emergence and implications of the sustainable development concept in a critical way does not imply that we cannot use the concept at all or take a stance against unsustainable practices in society. On the contrary, critical thinking and analysis must be performed from a standpoint from which we can scrutinize societal structures and practices. Instead of dismissing the sustainable development concept, we believe that general definitions of sustainability can stimulate both critical and creative thinking and help the sociologically informed student to avoid falling into the pitfall of simplistically prescribing a particular behaviour. General and minimalistic definitions of sustainability, such as environmental sustainability requires that we use natural resources at the same pace that they are renewed, or economically sustainability requires that resources are used in harmony with nature’s pace for renewal and recovery, can function as a starting point for discussions and examination of what this may mean in different settings. For example, such definitions enable a number of questions: how do we know that something is renewed? What are the timespans for the renewal of various materials? Who is using these natural resources and for what, with what gains and losses, and for whom?
The general definitions of sustainability suggested above allow sociology education to engage in the critical analysis and reflection upon unsustainable structures and practices, and still remain cautious about stating what is sustainable in a simplistic way. Questions about sustainability always need to be answered in relation to a particular situation and context. When statements are made about ‘sustainability’, the sociology student should be prepared to ask: Sustainable for whom? What is it that needs to be sustained? Who gains and who loses in this situation? Who or what values are spoken for, or can make themselves heard?
Tools for Self-reflection
In addition, and related to the above, sociology can provide tools for self-reflection in relation to sustainable development. When talking with undergraduate sociology students a common experience among them seems to be that sociology has been an ‘eye-opener’. Sociology has helped them see the familiar and their own life trajectories from new perspectives, which simultaneously can be both stimulating and challenging. Sociology not only enables critical analysis of social phenomena, but also provides tools for self-reflection. Self-reflection may start from discussions about various every-day life situations enabling reflection over one’s own position in society and potential responsibility in relation to sustainable development, including relations to nature, fellow human beings, and other species.
An important part of education is also to provide opportunity for reflection about the future professional role and enable an understanding of the organizational context of the future profession. While such self-reflection can only be fully developed in relation to the professional practice, we also believe that sociology can provide important tools that can be used in this practice. In order for students to reflect upon their future professional role, it is helpful to be able to distinguish between the self and one’s own values and the values promoted within this organization. There might be contradictory values and conflicting demands both within the person, and in societies, the professional ethics or codes, and the organization a person works for (Uggla & Boström, 2018).
Our experience is that sociology classes can inspire discussions about responsibility and entail insights about the room of manoeuvre in everyday life situations. Such insights may concern the students’ own values and lifestyles but also have important bearings on their future professional roles. Discussions with the students may entail how overarching societal shifts such as individualization of environmental responsibility may pressure the individual and entail feelings of guilt. However, reflecting and acting upon these issues may also lead to hope and engagement (Ojala, 2016). It is thus also relevant to reflect around gaps between individuals’ sense of responsibility and potential feelings of guilt, and what they actually can do, and the resources and knowledge required to act. Such reflections may lead to new insights relevant for the student’s personal lives, but also for their coming professional lives. This enables an understanding of the own personal responsibility and means to act, as well as of how professional identities are governed, for example, by curricula, standards and professional norms.
Conclusions
In this article, we have discussed some remaining challenges to education for sustainable development in higher education. Drawing on the concept of
Drawing on Norgaard (2018) we have contended that it is the ecological and sociological imaginations
Sustainable development inevitably has a normative dimension. However, instead of being normatively prescribing in an absolute way, this potential of sociology is explorative. Different ways of normative reasoning are required to solve different kinds of normative problems (Carleheden, 2020). This means that we constantly need to contextualize, maintain an empirically open attitude, and to critically interrogate our own presumptions and ask what they mean and if they are valid in each particular situation.
We strongly believe in the potential of higher education—sociology as well as other disciplines—to contribute to the necessary transformation to more sustainable societies. One specific contribution of sociology we have pointed out is its potential to elucidate and contribute knowledge about both possibilities and obstacles to such societal transformation. Another specific contribution of sociology in relation to societal transformation is its potential to inspire self-reflection, including reflection over one’s own position in society and potential responsibility in relation to sustainable development.
Given the situation that the young students participating in sustainability courses today will end up in a broad variety of occupations in the future, self-reflection and normative critical analysis are important aspects of teaching. Students may end up as employees or leaders in municipalities, national or regional authorities, in private corporations or civil society organizations. They may be responsible for personnel, conducting research and writing reports, or working with various administrative tasks. There may be many future work–life situations when these students will come across particular challenges in relation to sustainable development where both profound knowledge and the ability to critically reflect upon the problem as well as upon one’s own position and responsibilities will be crucial. In discussions and exercises including such self-reflection, it is important to provide a non-judgmental atmosphere and to be sensitive and responsive to what is going on in the room. As teachers in the field of sustainable development, we can help the students to be prepared for various dilemmas by neither treating sustainable development as an instrumental issue nor the human being as an empty container for advice on how to lead sustainable lives.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.