Humanity faces several global challenges, such as poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace, and justice. These global challenges are the point of departure in the Agenda 2030 that was introduced by the United Nation in 2015. Agenda 2030 is a universal call to action for people, planet, and prosperity to create an inclusive and equal society, and to improve the lives of people worldwide. The broad and ambitious Agenda 2030 encompass 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are divided into 169 targets that detail and specify each of the SDGs (United Nations. Division for Sustainable Development, 2015).

In relation to Agenda 2030, education has been acknowledged as one main driver to realise the 17 SDGs (Laurie, Nonoyama-Tarumi, McKeown, & Hopkins, 2016). Also, physical activity and sport has been acknowledged as contributors (e.g., Salvo et al., 2021), and it makes sense that physical education (PE) also has the potential to contribute to the visions set out by the Agenda 2030 (Baena-Morales, Jerez-Mayorga, Delgado-Floody, & Martínez-Martínez, 2021; Fröberg & Lundvall, 2021).

Acknowledging education as a main driver to realise the SDGs means that teachers in primary and secondary school play a critical role. Teachers are positioned at the heart of the micro-level in education as those being responsible for educating future generations to address the global challenges that humanity is facing (e.g., Boeren, 2019). Furthermore, it may be argued that, if any changes are to take place in primary and secondary school, initial teacher education is one critical point of departure. Initial teacher education may contribute to the development of knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for teachers to become active change agents to bring about change to the school curriculum. The previous literature suggest that initial teacher educators generally embed sustainability education in learning and teaching as a component of a compulsory subject, or as an essential part of school policies, and practices and activities (Bürgener & Barth, 2018; Evans & Ferreira, 2020; Evans, Stevenson, Lasen, Ferreira, & Davis, 2017).

Despite the fact that PE has the potential to contribute to the visions set out by the Agenda 2030, little attention has been directed towards sustainability perspectives in PE teacher education (PETE). So far, Agenda 2030 is largely unexplored in the field of PETE, and more research is needed to understand how sustainability can be understood, framed and integrated in PETE. One way to gain an understanding of how sustainability perspectives is framed in PETE is to analyse how sustainable development is framed in current Swedish course syllabi as it constitutes a critical source of information regarding what students should know, understand, and/or be able to do by the end of a course.

The aim of this paper was to investigate how sustainability perspectives are reflected in PE teacher education (PETE) course syllabi, focusing on the LOs.

In this paper, the source of data was LOs from PETE course syllabi collected from eight Swedish PETE institutions. These PETE institutions examine PE-teachers for compulsory school grades 7-9 and upper secondary school. We retrieved the latest version of the PE specific course syllabi available through the institutions’ websites, and excluded courses with focus on teaching practice, methodology, and degree project(s). In total, more than 500 LOs were located. As theoretical framework, two educational resources from UNESCO and Commonwealth developed to support how to use education in achieving the SDGs were used. These educational resources present SDG-related learning objectives and competencies (Osman, Ladhani, Findlater, & McKay, 2017; Rieckmann, 2017). The analyse was conducted in two steps. In the first step, we searched for LOs that explicit related to sustainable development, such as those containing the words “sustainable”, “sustainability”, “sustainability perspectives”, and “sustainable development”. The second step involved an adapted thematic analysis. Braun and Clarke (2006) suggest that thematic analysis is used to identify and analyse patterns within data, such as written text, and that thematic analysis require flexibility to fit the data and the research questions. Our thematic analysis involved a more generous reading of the LOs, allowing an analysis beyond what was explicit related to sustainable development. The adapted thematic analysis was conducted in three phases, as inspired by the guidelines by Braun and Clarke (2006). In the first phase, we familiarised ourselves with the theoretical framework and the suggested SDG-related learning objectives and competencies. We then read the LOs multiple times, allowing ourselves to take notes and mark initial ideas for the analysis. In this second phase, we read the LOs in-depth. To facilitate the analysis, each LO was treated as a unique code. A theory-driven approach was then undertaken, involving a search for LOs that could be linked to the suggested SDG-related learning objectives and competencies. In doing so, a back-and-forth process was used, moving between the LOs and the theoretical framework. In the third phase, the findings were critically reviewed. A final set of analysis that linked LOs to the suggested SDG-related learning objectives and competencies was decided on. Throughout the three phases, the first author had the main responsibility for conducting the analyses. However, the analyses were critically discussed and debated during recurrent meetings with the second author. Any disagreements were resolved by discussion until consensus was reached.

Of the more than 500 LOs, less than two percent explicitly related to learning objectives including sustainable development. These LOs were found in courses dealing with ’friluftsliv’/outdoor life, movement and health from a sustainable development perspective, and work environment, ergonomics, and sustainable health and development. Moreover, a preliminary analysis using an adapted thematic analysis of 20% of the 500 LOs suggest that most of the LOs refer to competencies related to the SDGs good health and well-being and gender equality. The complete version of the analysis will be presented during the conference.

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