Teaching and Learning Business Economics for Sustainability

Author(s):

Pernilla Andersson(presenting / submitting)Johan Öhman

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 08 A, Broadening the Issue of ESE: Curriculum and Organization

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

09:00-10:30

Room:

B119 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Johan Öhman

Contribution

The role of business in sustainable development is a contested issue. As argued in When Corporations Rule the World doing business could be argued as being the very problem of unsustainability (Korten 2001). The role of a business could also be to make as much profit as possible, while abiding with the law, as argued by the influential economics Friedman (1970). Others argue that capitalism needs re-invention and that a business also must have a social purpose (Porter and Kramer 2011). In addition Nelson (2006) question that good things automatically are either provided or destroyed by economic life and argue that acknowledging the ethical capabilities within businesses would be more helpful when addressing environmental and social challenges. Last, Palmås (2011) has described environmental and social activists doing business and accordingly ‘hacking’ the presumed first priority purpose (to maximize profit) of a business. So, there are different positions regarding how a business can take social responsibility that might have implications for business and sustainability education.

As a part of the UN decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), the concept sustainable development (SD) has been mainstreamed in school curricula worldwide. As a part of the reform of upper secondary education 2011 in Sweden the concept ‘sustainable development’ was infused in the syllabus for the subject Business economics. As a part of the same reform the subjects Geography and Science studies, which previously had contributed to the overall ‘sustainability content’, were removed or reduced in the programme structure of the Business management and economics programme. As the reform of programme structure coincided with ‘sustainable development’ also being fore grounded in the examination goals (Swedish National Agency for Education 2012), the expectations on teachers in Business economics increased with regard their overall contribution to the sustainability content of the educational programme.

Considering the contested role of business in sustainable development I therefore find exploring business education when SD is mainstreamed into the curriculum important. The purpose of this article is therefore to explore business education when sustainable development is mainstreamed in the syllabus of business economics. As the contested role of business implies different expectations on the role of a business person the more specific purpose is to explore the subject positions that come into play in educational practice and the function of the teachers’ actions for the students learning of how a business can, and cannot, take social responsibility.

In order to avoid a predetermined view of the educational practice being explored, a post-structuralist theoretical approach was employed, drawing on the concept 'subject position' from Laclau and Mouffe (2001).

Method

As a way to approach and select teachers and students for the study an interview study with eight teachers in business economics was made prior to this study. The result from the interview study was used as a means to capture a variety of different logics of business education. Each logic differing with regard to how a business can or ought to take social responsibility and how educational content ought to be legitimised as well as the purpose of education. In the end of the interviews the teachers were asked if they would consider taking part in a study which involved video recording classroom practice. Most teachers’ approved while some were more hesitant referring to practical difficulties. In the end we recorded classroom practice with three different teachers and students ranging from 17 to19 years old. Written approvals were collected from the students. The author of the paper made recordings and field notes taking the role of a passive observer (Yin 2009). The teachers were informed that we wanted to observe and record classroom practice when they were working with sustainable development but were not given any guidance of how to design the lessons. The empirical material consisted of video-recordings, audio-recordings, field notes and written material in the form of lesson plans, instructions and educational materials used during 15 hours of lessons in business economics. The video-recordings were transcribed in detail apart from the parts of the lessons that covered practicalities or were irrelevant for the analysis. In order to clarify the role the teachers played in the students’ privileging process, about how a business can take responsibility, a methodology analysing classroom communication developed by the research-group SMED (Studies of Meaning Making in Educational Discourses) – Epistemological move analysis (EMA) was employed (Östman 2010, Lidar, Lundqvist, and Östman 2006, Rudsberg and Öhman 2010). The analytical procedure involved: • Listing all subject positions that directly or indirectly were pronounced in the classroom communication (business leaders, consumers, politicians, journalists, citizens, employees etc) • Searching for changes in how the students talk about different subject positions (practical epistemology) and comparing the teachers’ moves with the changes in how the students talk about the different subject positions. • Categorising the teachers’ moves as to how different subject positions are constituted with specific focus on the subject position of a business person.

Expected Outcomes

The different functions of the teachers’ moves found as a result of the study were: • Clarifying expectations as expressed in curricula, reward criteria, customers and legislation; • Encouraging critical thinking and specifying what one can be critical about; • Specifying the limit to when a business cannot take responsibility; • Specifying what sources that are relevant to turn to when thinking critically; • Directing attention to what can be sustained, improved or changed and addressing the students emotions as relevant when making business decisions. The results show how the teachers’ moves have different functions with regard to the students learning of how a business can take social responsibility. The results are discussed using a distinction between different functions of education, qualification, socialisation and subjectification, developed by Biesta (2009) as well as using a typology of responsibility, distinguishing between liability, accountability and responsiveness developed by Pellizoni (2004).

References

Biesta, Gert. 2009. "Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education." Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability (formerly: Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education) no. 21 (1):33-46. Friedman, Milton. 1970. The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. New York Times Magazine, 126. Korten, David C. 2001. When corporations rule the world. San Francisco, Calif. :: Berrett-Koehler Publishers ;. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and socialist strategy : towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso. Lidar, Malena, Eva Lundqvist, and Leif Östman. 2006. "Teaching and learning in the science classroom: The interplay between teachers' epistemological moves and students' practical epistemology." Science Education no. 90 (1):148-163. Nelson, Julie A. 2006. Economics for humans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Palmås, Karl. 2011. Prometheus eller Narcissus? : entreprenören som samhällsomvälvare [Prometheus or Narcissus?: The Entrepreneur as Social Change Agent]. Göteborg: Korpen koloni. Pellizzoni, Luigi. 2004. "Responsibility and Environmental Governance." Environmental Politics no. 13 (3):541-565. doi: 10.1080/0964401042000229034. Porter, M. E., and M. R. Kramer. 2011. "Creating Shared Value." Harvard Business Review no. 89 (1-2):62-77. Rudsberg, Karin, and Johan Öhman. 2010. "Pluralism in practice – experiences from Swedish evaluation, school development and research." Environmental Education Research no. 16 (1):95-111. doi: 10.1080/13504620903504073. Swedish National Agency for Education. 2012. Upper secondary school 2011. Stockholm: Fritzes Förlag. Yin, Robert K. 2009. Case study research : design and methods, Applied social research methods series, 99-0497898-0 ; 5. London: SAGE. Östman, Leif. 2010. "Education for sustainable development and normativity: a transactional analysis of moral meaning‐making and companion meanings in classroom communication." Environmental Education Research no. 16 (1):75-93. doi: 10.1080/13504620903504057.

Author Information

Pernilla Andersson (presenting / submitting)

Södertörn University

School of Natural Sciences, Technology and Environmental Studies

HUDDINGE

Johan Öhman

Örebro University, Sweden

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