Austria’s largest network for schools and sustainability is ÖKOLOG, which currently comprises 11% (over 690 schools) of the Austrian schools of all types as well as 13 (out of 14) university colleges for teacher education. ECOLOG is a key action programme and network for the sustainable development of schools and education for sustainability. Itwas developed in 1996 by an Austrian team of teachers working on the international ENSI project (Affolder & Varga, 2018). ÖKOLOG is a national support system with the aim of promoting and integrating a sustainability approach into the development of individual schools and attempts are being made to embed the programme in Austria's federal states inter alia by regional networks and a webpage (http://www.ecolog.at).

ECOLOG is structured in three levels to support schools in the ECOLOG program: (1) the coordination by the Institute of Instructional and School Development at the University of Klagenfurt in partnership with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, (2) nine ECOLOG regional teams (one in each Austrian province) in collaboration with educational and environmental authorities, University Colleges of Teacher Education and various organizations of environmental and sustainability education, and (3) ECOLOG coordinators and teams in all ECOLOG schools (Rauch et al., 2023). Schools analyse the ecological, technical, and social conditions of their environment and, resultingly, define objectives, targets, concrete activities, and quality criteria to be implemented and evaluated. Students and other stakeholders of a school should be involved in a participatory way, and collaboration with authorities, businesses, and other interested parties is encouraged. The measures concern, among others, areas like saving resources (energy, water, etc.), reduction of emissions (i.e., waste, traffic), spatial arrangement (from the classroom to the campus), the culture of learning (communication, organisational structure), health promotion, social learning, as well as the opening of the school to the community (Rauch & Pfaffenwimmer, 2020).

Since the beginning of the ECOLOG-schools network's existence, a series of evaluations, inquiries, and studies have been produced and published both using qualitative and quantitative methods (Rauch et al., 2023).  

In this presentation we show the current accompanying research within the framework of ÖKOLOG which focuses on all-day schools. Traditionally, school lessons in Austria are mainly held in the morning. In recent years, all-day schools have gained in importance, not least for social reasons (e.g. parents working). In principle, all-day schools spread school life over the whole day (usually from 8:00 to 17:00) and offer lunch. The structuring of lessons and extracurricular activities at the schools is additive or integrative.  About 20% of ECOLOG schools are all-day schools in one form or another.  In four case studies at selected ÖKOLOG schools, the extent to which a whole-day organisation of school life can support ESD in the context of ECOLOG is investigated. The research is also part of a current international Erasmus+ Project „SustainAll“ (https://sustainall.eu/en/). The case studies on good practice examples aim to answer the following main research questions: How are Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) projects and initiatives integrated in the all-day schools? What are the characteristics or factors that contribute for an ESD project or initiative to be a good practice example within ÖKOLOG?

We investigate good practice examples according to the goals of ECOLOG. A common criterion of all four ECOLOG all-day schools is therefore that the schools already have documented and reflected experience in working with ESD. In addition, the following criteria are applied for selection: • The sample should include primary schools (grades 1 - 4), middle schools (grades 5 - 8) and secondary upper schools (grades 9 - 12) as well as urban and rural contexts. • The sample should cover all-day schools interconnecting formal and informal activities, and in separated form involving afternoon care staff. • The ESD activities involve several stakeholder groups such as students, teachers, parents and different out of school partners. Based on these criteria, the following ECOLOG schools were selected: • Case A: primary school (grades 1 - 4) in a rural area • Case B: grammar school (grade 5 - 12) in a city • Case D: upper secondary vocational school (grades 9-13) in a large city • Case E: middle school (grades 5-8) in a city In order to gather rich data about the case from different sources, the research team decided to conduct interviews and observations and analyze documents (triangulation) (Flick, 2011). Semi-structured single and group interviews were conducted with the school leaders, teachers, pupils, the team of afternoon supervisors and the parents' association chairwoman. Observations took place during different lessons as well as of inner and outer school areas. The school websites, school reports and ÖKOLOG annual reports were integrated in the analysis. The transcripts were analyzed by content analysis using MAXQDA. The qualitative content analysis follows mixed procedures of content structuring/theme analysis (Mayring, 2022), consisting of two steps. The first step is deductive. Based on the literature, research questions and interview script a list of themes was defined beforehand, and a coding line was developed according to deductive category assignment. The second step is inductive. Given the text coded into the themes (and also those that do not fit into the deductive scheme), summaries are produced and categories are developed, defined and tested against the text. Drafts of the case studies were send to the interview partners for feedback (communicative validation).

The results are four written case studies and a cross-case analysis. Additionally the ECOLOG cases will also be analysed comparatively with case studies on good practice ESD in all-day schools from Germany, Norway and Portugal. At this point, the first preliminary results are outlined. As the analysis will continue until summer 2023, the results will be presented more comprehensively following the research questions mentioned above in the presentation. The primary school (Case A) is a good example that shows how ESD can successfully be implemented in a primary all-day school (in separated form) and how to overcome the gap between morning lessons and afternoon care. This could be achieved due to a good and supportive team culture and open communication as well as the sharing of (class)rooms and the school garden. Further factors that support the ESD initiatives are the strong backup of the school leader, the motivation of teachers and the freedom of methods how to work on ESD topics. ESD is integrated in the school development plan and the school’s mission statement and pays attention to sustainability in all areas of the school (whole school approach). The school maintains many co-operations with institutions in the region and external learning facilities. Studying sustainable change at the Case B (a private grammer school) – an integrated all-day school with widely established ESD into a whole-school culture – points towards its students, teachers, school staff and parents which learn and act heartful, progressive, reflective and ambitious: toward the intention of being sustainable and experiencing it in its many facets. Sustainability initiatives and ideas got integrated into the all-day life of the school: e.g. into the school lessons and projects, in the canteen with meat-free days, the school garden and the democratic structure of the school.

Affolter, C. & Varga, A. (2018) (Eds.), Environment and School Initiatives. Lessons from the ENSI Network - Past, Present and Future. Environment and School Initiatives, Vienna and Eszterhazy Karoly University, Budapest. Flick, U. (2011). Triangulation (3. aktualisierte Aufl.). Wiesbaden: VS. Mayring, P. (2022). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. (13. Aufl.). Beltz. Rauch, F. & Pfaffenwimmer, G. (2020). The Austrian ECOLOG-Schools Programme – Networking for Environmental and Sustainability Education. pp. 85-102. In: A. Gough, J. Chi Kin Lee and E. Po Keung Tsang (eds.). Green Schools Globally: Stories of Impact for Sustainable Development. Dortrecht, Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-46820-0_1 Rauch, F., Glettler, C., Steiner, R. & Dulle, M. (2023). Environmental and Sustainability Education in Austria, In R. Rieckmann, & R. Thomas (Eds.), World Review: Environmental and Sustainability Education in the Context of the Sustainable Development Goals. RiScience Publishers/CRC. (In Print)