Fundamental questions for education in the 21st century are typically argued to include: which knowledge is of most worth, what schools should now teach, and how particular ways of knowing and knowledge(s) are selected, organized and transformed during formal education (see Baker, 2014; Biesta, 2010; Deng & Luke, 2008). In this symposium, we examine how recent educational scholarship that addresses broader socio-ecological contexts of distress and transformation might illuminate how such questions are framed and responded to.

In brief, the symposium papers explore the significance of diverse and compelling socio-ecological horizons for reinvigorating educational debates and how they are advanced. Examples include considering local to international manifestations of climate change, the Anthropocene, and the Sustainable Development Goals (e.g. SDG #4 on Education - see Reid, 2015, for an introduction) in terms of what is learned in schools and how.

But, as the symposium contributions note, a key theme in such responses is found wanting; namely, directly ‘reading off’ from these horizons strong messages of imperative and the necessity of immediate and imminent change to schooling, including key elements of pedagogy, curriculum and teacher education (see Lundholm, 2011; Nordén & Anderberg, 2011).

In testing the value and adequacy of these and alternative responses from a range of perspectives (theoretically and empirically), the symposium contributors engage the possibilities of both slower and deeper questions of how curriculum and education are traduced and possibly, transformed, when they are deliberately framed around recent advances in the theory and practice of environmental and sustainability education and their research (McKenzie, 2009). Thus, the presentations will address three intersecting areas of curriculum theorizing and research in general and in environmental and sustainability education specifically, namely:

- Questions of epistemology – such as the ways of knowing that are privileged and marginalized in learning, teaching and curriculum about environmental concerns and imperatives

- Questions of normativity – including the purposes of schooling historically and in relation to current and future generations, viz. sustainability

- Questions of practice – drawing on aspects of curriculum-making, development and policy direction in general as well as in relation to specific fields of activity, such as environmental and sustainability education, their in(ter)dependencies and subsidiarity.

As Deng (2015) summarises, around the world, questions of the knowledge or content taught in school have been frequently subsumed—if not sidelined—by an intensified focus on ‘competencies, learning outcomes and high-stakes testing. Accordingly, the task of formalized curriculum making—concerned with knowledge selection, organization, sequencing and transformation—is ignored or bypassed in favour of the work of developing academic standards, competency frameworks and evidence-based practices’ (p.723). This session revisits  questions of what counts as powerful and dangerous knowledge, alongside theories of knowledge and knowing (Biesta, 2005; Hopmann, 2008; Young & Muller, 2013). It does so in relation to the intersections of the abstract and everyday life challenges of the current socio-ecological climate and context for education, and advances fresh arguments for deepening approaches to teaching and learning in the curriculums of environmental and sustainability education. In short, the symposium raises:

- What now counts as ‘critical knowledge capability’ and ‘transdisciplinarity’, and how is this understood, practiced and developed?

- How have the ‘conditions’ and ‘ecosystems’ of knowledge and knowing changed, as questions of place, relation, materiality, sustainability and transformation are pressed further for contemporary curriculum theory, content and practice? And

- From which positions and perspectives should we (now) discuss and evaluate notions of depth in learning, teaching and curriculum?

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