Educational theorists, environmmental and sustainability (ESE) researchers in particular, emphasise the importance of paying attention to ‘the political’ in education. Facing the controversy that often arises in the pursuit of sustainable development, ESE researchers argue that being mindful of dissonant and conflicting voices is crucial (e.g. Knutsson 2013; Sund and Öhman 2014). Theories of radical democracy have inspired educational scholars to highlight conflict as an integral part of education (e.g. Todd 2010; Säfström 2011; Ruitenberg 2009). As Mouffe (2005) emphasises, democratic politics always requires making choices between conflicting alternatives. Also in educational practice decisions about inclusion and exclusion, about what to take into account are continuously made – implicitly or explicitly, consciously or not. This contribution focuses on the political within education. It presents and discusses pragmatist educational models/methods that can be used to investigate and reflect on such processes of inclusion and exclusion in university education, particularly with regard to curriculum development, the choice of education goals and learning outcomes, and concrete teaching practice. To investigate the political in the curriculum (textbooks, choice of learning content, etc.), ‘companion meaning analysis’ (Roberts and Östman 1998) can be used. The concept of companion meaning acknowledges that every educational activity has a certain meaning-making in the forefront (e.g. scientific knowledge about atomic theory) while there are always other meanings that follow automatically, in the background: companion meanings (i.c. a particular, atomistic and deterministic view of nature). As such, curriculum development always involves decisions on including and excluding knowledge, values and norms. The ‘political tendency’ (Håkansson et al., in press) can be useful to examine the planning of lessons and courses in relation to the kinds of education goals and learning outcomes one strives for. This typology of approaches to address the political in education distinguishes ‘Democratic participation’, ‘Political reflection’, ‘Political deliberation’ (sub-divided into ‘Normative deliberation’, ‘Consensus oriented deliberation’ and ‘Conflict oriented deliberation’) and ‘Political moment’. They differ as to how they enable the foregrounding and backgrounding of different educational goals. ‘Political Move Analysis’ (Van Poeck and Östman, forthcoming) is useful for investigating how, in the actual performance of educational activities (e.g. through educators’ actions, students’ argumentation) a space for the political in learners’ meaning-making can be opened-up or closed down. Different ‘politicising’ and ‘de-politicising moves’ differently affect what is taken into account and what is not and thereby govern the learning process in a certain direction (cf. ‘privileging’, Wertsch 1993).

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