Higher education institutions, as societal educational institutions, are always subject to processes of change: Educational questions and research questions are oriented towards current societal values, challenges, problems and expectations (Becker 2017). Changing societal demands also require responses and constant adaptation from higher education lecturers.

These find themselves between multiple roles and expectations: In many countries, they are not only lecturers, but also researchers and/or must fulfil additional tasks in administration, student examination, supervision of student theses, etc. (Billot 2010). Furthermore, within their role of lecturers, they need to respond to diverse expectations: On the one hand, they must convey fact knowledge to students, on the other hand, they are increasingly expected to promote competences for acting in a rapidly changing world (Öhman & Östman 2019). And especially when it comes to complex societal topics which contain controversial and normative questions, they sometimes need to choose their position between freedom of research and freedom of teaching and societal responsibility (Müller-Christ et al. 2018).

Sociological role theory offers a fruitful frame for understanding the diverse expectations university lecturers assume in their daily job life. Sociological role theory refers to socially pre-formed positions and culturally pre-formed patterns of behaviour and understands social structures as a connection between positions and roles. The socially pre-formed positions are referred to as positions, the behavioural patterns associated with them as roles. Ralph Linton is considered the founder of sociological role theory, which was expanded by Robert K. Merton and Ralf Dahrendorf. Dahrendorf refers to social roles as "bundles of expectations that attach to the behaviour of the bearers of positions in a given society." (Dahrendorf, 2006 [1958]: 37) A social position is related to several other social positions. The position of the teacher is related to the positions of the student, the parents, the colleague, the headmaster, etc. Consequently, a position holder has several role partners, each of whom directs certain bundles of behavioural expectations towards him or her and demands different role actions from him or her to a certain extent (Schulz-Schaeffer 2018: 388). If different reference groups address diverging expectations to an individual, this may cause role conflicts.  

It is especially interesting to observe diverse roles and role conflicts of lecturers in the field of teaching sustainability topics. Such topics, as for example climate change, loss of biodiversity and increasing global disparities, often contain multiple actors and can therefore not be treated by just showing one perspective. The so-called “wicked problems” consist of complex entanglements and there are often no simple solutions. The solutions which are chosen strongly depend on the perspective and values of an individual and therefore are controverse in themselves (Miller et al. 2011).     

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a concept which aims at enabling present and future generations for tackling such “wicked problems” and acting responsibly in an intertwined world. The concept not only aims at conveying knowledge and skills, but also values and attitudes linked to sustainability topics (UNESCO 2020). According to policy makers on all political scales, ESD should be implemented at all levels of educational systems (e.g. UNESCO 2020). Higher education institutions are important leverage points for societal change, as the future decision makers and experts are trained there.

How do university lecturers understand their roles in teaching sustainability topics? Which challenges and other fields of tension do they face? These questions shall be discussed in the paper presentation. In a first step, the questions will be examined by a theoretical approach through sociological role theory. In a second step, the theoretical reflexions will be translated to a practical level with examples from a qualitative reconstructive study.

The empirical data used to shed light on the above-mentioned questions is based on a qualitative, reconstructive interview study designed and evaluated based on Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2014). The participants are university lecturers with different subject and discipline affiliations. They are recruited among participants in professional development workshops on ESD and they therefore already have basic knowledge of the concept of ESD. The workshops are carried out in the context of the project “How to teach sustainability. Promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in higher education – Setting up professional development structures across higher education institutions with a focus on teacher training at selected higher education institutions in Germany”. The project is located at Heidelberg University of Education. The problem-centered interviews based on Witzel (2000) are part of a PhD thesis examining how higher education lecturers deal with normativity in the context of ESD. The interviews shall shed light on the lecturers’ challenges and coping strategies when dealing with controversial and normative topics in their teaching in higher education institutions – not only, but also in the context of ESD. They allow insights in how the lecturers define themselves as teaching persons, how they position themselves in relation to their students and how they understand their roles and responsibilities in teaching. Corresponding to the methodology of Grounded Theory, the study is developed in an iterative, cyclic process. This means that the analytical focus emerges during the research process: The research questions and the topics dealt with are constantly adapted to the new insights gained by preliminary analyses. The conduction of interviews and of analyses alternate. According to the principle of theoretical sampling, the characteristics of further interview partners are chosen successively. By now, five interviews have been led with lecturers working in the fields of business studies, mechanical engineering, and regional sciences. They work in two different universities in Germany. The analytical insights which will be presented at the conference are gained from this first cohort. In sum, we estimate that 10 to 15 interviews will be conducted until theoretical saturation is achieved.

Role conflicts can arise either from incompatible demands of different role relations of a social position or also from incompatible demands of roles that the actor assumes as the holder of different social positions (Schulz-Schaeffer 2018: 388). Using the example of university lecturers, we would like to show that dealing with and teaching sustainability issues can lead to personal role conflicts, which can then also be transferred to the professional context. There is the position as a university lecturer, as a consumer, as a traveller, as an energy consumer, etc. The different positions can lead to role conflicts, the discussion of sustainability goals contains many such conflicts or even contradictions. In teaching sustainability issues, university teachers face the challenge of dealing comprehensively with the issues and problems that are based on both individual and structural behaviours and mechanisms that underlie our current unsustainable lifestyles in the global North. The publication aims at illuminating the diverse roles higher education lecturers (are expected to) assume in their professional life and elaborating possible role conflicts especially in the field of sustainability education. The findings can also be transferred to societal challenges in other fields and on other scales. They could support the lecturers’ self-reflexion of their roles and their sensitization to antinomies and contradictions. This could help them to adopt more reflexive positionings in their teaching activities, which might open up a space for a more controversial discussion culture in university teaching and deeper learning processes in students becoming responsible citizens in our future world.

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