When considering educative responses to societal challenges such as health and sustainability problems the UNESCO 2015 call suggests a move away from utilitarian understandings of education, specifically of the utilitarian role of education in economic development (p. 33): “Dominant utilitarian conceptions of education should accede to the expression of other ways of understanding human well-being, and thus, to a focus on the relevance of education for the common good”. Utilitarian conceptions are in play when the role of education is described as solving problems of other social systems (Bergh and Englund 2015), and when education practice is seen as instrumental in relation to other than educative goals, scientifically managed and socially efficient (as opposed to contingent, socially enacted and constitutive of self and other) (Schwandt 2005). The combined focus of improving health and wellbeing and reducing environmental impact on climate change often imply utilitarian conceptions of education, focusing on ideologies and messages around health, consumption and sustainability. Examples of this are Russel et al.’s (2013) discussion of how obesity prevention discourses have joined forces with climate change prevention discourses to fuel weight-based oppression, and Leahy et al.’s (2015) account of how the ‘obesity epidemic’ seems to be omnipresent in environmental education drawing on food pedagogies. Are such and similar discourses related to improving health and reducing environmental impact appropriate for general education in liberal societies? Do they conflict with a liberal purpose of education or are there ways in which these sorts of utilitarian conceptions of education can work with liberal educational purposes?

The symposium includes papers from network 8 (Health and Wellbeing Education) and network 30 (Environment and Sustainability Education Research). Health, sustainability and wellbeing are on the one hand seen as core topics and key problems education should engage in, and on the other as messy and controversial. The theme of the symposium - ‘utilitarian conceptions of education’ - will be explored in different international contexts at education levels ranging from primary to higher education. The diverse set of contributors from United Kingdom, Israel, France, Denmark and Ecuador will offer critical perspectives on: norms and ethical aspects at play when schools address vivid societal issues such as wellbeing and sustainability; integrated approaches to health and sustainability education drawing on notions of contemplation and collaboration; ideas and approaches in school meal programs, accentuating colonizing ideas and practices, as well as possible spaces for decolonization. The symposium will (to paraphrase Cheek 2017) contribute to “our thinking about the mess in which we find ourselves” when doing research in areas that address vivid societal issues, and through this the identification of emerging spaces for theoretical and empirical development. 

The symposium aims to bring together experiences and efforts so far in trying to grapple with paradoxes that arise in attempts to integrate aims of health and wellbeing improvement and reduction of environmental impact on climate change in education, raising discussions of questions including but not limited to:

• In which ways are educational theories and practices engaged in improving health and wellbeing and reducing environmental impact prone to ideological messaging?
• Is the combined focus of improving health and wellbeing and reducing environmental impact in education especially prone to ideological messaging? If so, what is triggering this, which ideologies are at play, and is this messaging explicit or does it remain hidden or implicit?
• How do goals such as improving health and reducing environmental impact sit in relation to a host of other important ‘non-academic goals’ such as providing a space for developing citizenship, a sense of belonging and community, as well as a space for wellbeing and care?

Bergh, A. & Englund, T. (2014) A changed language of education with new actors and solutions: the authorization of promotion and prevention programmes in Swedish schools, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 46:6, 778-797 Cheek, J. (2017) Qualitative inquiry, research marketplaces, and neoliberalism: adding some +s (pluses) to our thinking about the mess in which we find ourselves. In Denzin N.K. and Giardina M.D. (eds). Qualitative Inquiry Through a Critical Lens, Routledge. Leahy, D., Gray, E., Cutter-Mackenzie, A. and Eames, C. (2015) Schooling Food in Contemporary Times: Taking Stock. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 31(1), 1-11. Russel, C., Cameron, E. Socha, T. & McNinch, H. (2013) ‘Fatties cause global warming’: Fat pedagogy and environmental education. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 18, 27-45. Schwandt, T. A. (2005). On modeling our understanding of the practice fields. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 13(3), 313-332. Spratt, J. (2017) Wellbeing, Equity and Education. A Critical Analysis of Policy Discourses of Wellbeing in Schools. Springer. UNESCO (2015) Rethinking education for the common good. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/FIELD/Cairo/images/RethinkingEducation.pdf