General descriptions on research questions, objectives and theoretical framework

Research on education for sustainable development (ESD) put forward the complex and conflicting views of sustainable questions. The uncertainty and complexity of the future, and the many different cultural contexts makes a dynamic approach desirable. Pluralism is often put forward as a means of handling ‘competing visions of the truth’ and to take different opinions, knowledge and conflicting views into account in ESD (Breiting, Mayer, and Mogensen, 2005; Jensen and Schnack, 1997; Lundegård and Wickman, 2007; Rudsberg and Öhman, 2010; Scott and Gough, 2003; Öhman, 2006).  

The aim with my study is to reveal teachers’ repertoires for creating opportunities to challenge students’ thoughts and ideas in issues connected to ESD. The paper departs from the distinction Gert Biesta (2009) makes between three different functions of education. He refers to three functions as qualification, socialization and subjectification. The function of qualification has to do with the domain of knowledge and skills and how students may become more qualified through e.g. learning fact about issues in ESD. Socialization is connected to the many ways we becomes a part specific social, cultural and political order of a community, and are connected to ones identity and ways of acting. The function of subjectification can be understood as a counterforce to socialization. It is not about introducing newcomers to be participators in a community. Rather it is a way to express agency and independence to the orders of a community.

How these functions of education are interrelating and in tension when teachers discuss the teaching of ESD, is the focus of the research questions of this study.

• In what way are the teachers expressing empowering opportunities for students to challenge their views (subjectification) of sustainable issues?

• In what way are the educational functions of qualification, socialisation and subjectification interrelating in teachers’ meaning-making of education for sustainable development, and how could this be interpreted in relation to a pluralistic approach of sustainability?

In this study (in progress) teachers’ reflection on ESD, is analysed to problematize the tension between subjectification (becoming a subject), qualification (knowledge, skills and dispositions) and socialisation (become members of and part of particular social, cultural and political ‘orders’) – as defined by Biesta (2009).

To be revised and continued when the results and the analysis expand during this spring…

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