In the period following the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Devel-opment the discourse of global ESD policy has turned to ‘scaling-up’ as a crucial component of putting policy into practices/implementation (i.e. UNESCO 2014a; 2014b; 2014c). Meanwhile, interest in ‘scaling’ under-stood as incentives to spread, grow and introduce educational activities that are considered successful or efficient is not new. The attempt of finding straight causal relationships between an educational activity and learning outcomes, exemplified by the interest in ‘best practices’ and ‘good exam-ples’, risk cutting theoretical considerations out of practice leading to imita-tion of what is perceived as successful (Pring, 2000: Spector 2015). In this paper, we aim to contribute with the aforementioned theoretical considera-tions by presenting a view of scaling ESD-activities as a learning process. This conceptualisation of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning draws on trans-actional learning theory based on John Dewey’s writings (Dewey 1938; Dewey and Bentley 1949). The paper is the result of collaboratively con-structed data constructed in three workshops in Sweden, Southern Africa and Ecuador. This scaling data is analysed through a participatory research approach involving an abductive analytical method. This research approach, which is also a reflective workshop tool, Re-Solve, centres on collaborative knowledge creation with participants in context about the opportunities and challenges of scaling ESD-activities. Re-Solve was designed to both enhance both theoretically and experientially grounded scaling of ESD activities, and, to construct data on scaling of ESD In this paper, we present a conceptual framework of scaling as a learning process which enables fruitful ways of dealing with (a) complex sustainabil-ity challenges (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research. To enhance its utility in evaluating and planning scaling in policy and practice the conceptual framework includes a scaling vocabulary that focuses the educational questions of what, why, who, where and how. We argue that a fruitful way to understand scaling ESD-activities as a learning process is to conceptualise the scaling pathway as a movement of re-contextualisations, adaptations and transformations. Scaling of ESD-activities can thus be conceptualised as a process, which transforms the ac-tivities of the contexts as well as the ESD-activities themselves. Our conceptual framework presents scaling as being about creating ena-bling conditions for adapting and re-contextualising these activities as part of a learning process including the people and contexts engaged in the scaling process.

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