As master’s degree students in Learning and Innovative Change at Aalborg University, the following is our master’s thesis. The thesis has been developed in participation with the project ‘Green Transition of Education’, that aims to act in solving the global and environmental problems of the future, by designing a theoretical framework for integrating Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the Danish school-system.
Our motivation behind this thesis, is to contribute with design concepts, through an inductive methodology that aims to validate and strengthen the design, by including and cooperating with the users from the context. Therefore, the thesis has been based upon the User Innovation Management (UIM) process, as a method to facilitate the cooperation with practitioners from the Danish school-system, in creating innovative design principles and context based theoretical concepts.
The findings showed that the practitioners had a particular focus on the communities of students, and innovations addressed the potential in implementing these communities in ESD. Another finding showed the lack of educational material in ESD, where innovations suggested a holistic approach in handling the complexity of the many discourses in sustainable development. The practitioners’ innovations also suggested integrating ESD as a core value in the Danish school-system, thereby granting a flexibility for teachers to handle the complexity of the ESD practice, through implementing perspectives of interdisciplinary teachings, partnerships with external educators and student communities.
In further facilitating the practitioners’ innovations, a design concept was developed, based upon the practice theoretical perspectives of Stephen E. Kemmis, Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. With this theoretical framework, the idea behind the concept is to suggest an approach where ESD consists of green projects, carried out by teachers and students, with the aim to participate in solving problems around sustainability. This involves an understanding of the Danish school-system, through Kemmis’ theory Ecologies of Practices, where green projects consist of Practice Architectures that are enabled and constrained by other practices. By defining the Practice Architectures of a green project, ESD is carried out as a social practice where teachers facilitate communities of students in becoming “green power fighters”. This involves drawing upon the students’ motivation for participating in the student community, and thereby engaging students in a common definition of a “green power fighter”, who understands the complexity of sustainability and performs actions in changing the unsustainable practices.
In conclusion the thesis suggests further studies for validating the design through the context. These studies should focus on developing new material for teachers in ESD, drawing upon the ideas, values and perspectives of students, by including examples of sustainable and unsustainable actions, backed by scientifically based evidence. Further studies should also investigate the possibilities in drawing upon potential external partnerships, and thereby benefitting the students by expanding on their understanding of the complexity in sustainability.