In Western countries, citizens spend a significant part of their life embedded in an educational system. Educational systems present facts and structures explicitly by WHAT is taught and assessed, and implicitly by HOW it is taught and assessed. Hence, education affects citizens’ perceptions of societal values in terms of both knowledge and behavior. Consequently, education can be expected to have homogenizing effects on citizens. Depending on WHAT and HOW we teach and assess, diversity in knowledge, values, and attitudes can either be acknowledged and embraced, or silenced and rejected.

In times of sustainability crisis, education has been identified as a key component to solve environmental and sustainability challenges. Education for Sustainability (ES) andEnvironmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) acknowledge educational systems’ potential to prepare citizens, and aim at fostering responsible citizens that act for sustainable futures (Eilks et al., 2019; Niebert, 2018). To pursue sustainability - the mitigation of environmental impact to ensure the prevailing of a viable and livable planet Earth for all living organisms (human and non-human) - demands radical societal change in Western countries. Economies and lifestyles must be adjusted (Niebert, 2019, and this in ways that decenter us humans to make room for more relational approaches to planet earth and its inhabitants (UNESCO, 2021). For this adjustment of economies and lifestyles, citizens must perceive change and diverse views as valued in society. Educational systems must ensure not to reproduce, but to reconstruct, societies to enable transformation (Wals, 2022). Students and teachers must be invited to contribute to the diversity of solutions as knowledge producers rather than being presented with homogenizing one-fits-all solutions.

I intend to stimulate awareness of and attentiveness to diverse views on sustainability in educational research. My focus concerns the diversity of applications and understandings of the concepts, ESand ESE, in peer reviewed educational research literature. A diversity with spatial, temporal, and cultural dimensions, and a concept with economical, ecological, and social dimensions. In Western countries, tensions between the economic dimension, and the ecological and societal dimensions have far-reaching consequences, not least on which views are amplified and which may be muffled. While economic forces ask for effectivization, ecological and social dimensions demand a slowdown of economy. A slowing down necessary to discover and explore alternative paths in a complex world. A complexity that must not be simplified for the sake of effectivization, but that should be embraced to explore diverse routes to sustainable futures (UNESCO 2021). Hence, I explore how the economically-dependent research machinery (cf., Savat & Thompson, 2015) affects the pace of ES/ESE research, and thereby our openness for true change in the worst-case causing diversity loss in ES/ ESE discourse. An unintended loss of alternative views that could cloud our judgement of how to act towards sustainability.

With my critical analysis of the ES/ESE discourse in the peer-reviewed literature, I intend to further stimulate discussions regarding educational systems’ purpose and ability to prepare students for our journey towards sustainability.  A matured discourse that has and still tends to evolve around dichotomies like instrumental - emancipatory (e.g., Wals, 2011), alternatively qualification – citizenship (e.g. (Bauer, 2003; Hansen & Phelan, 2019; Willbergh, 2015). Human-centered dichotomies questioned by researchers that take more critical posthuman perspectives on ES/ESE (e.g. Lysgaard 2019). Recently, the diversity of perspectives on ES/ESE has taken a leap. This development led me to ask the following questions:

What strands of ES/ESE discourse are represented in western peer-reviewed educational research literature? How does ES/ESE research utilize these diverse views, are there tensions or co-actions?

To answer my research questions, I apply a critical discourse analytical perspective on sustainability problems’ representations in research literature concerning ES. My analytical methodology is inspired by Carol Bacchi’s (2009) “What is the problem represented to be?” (WPR)-approach, an approach developed for policy texts, but equally applicable to other text types dealing with problem identification and solution proposals. The WPR-approach is inspired by Foucault, and aims to make visible the unsaid, the presupposed, the assumed, the silenced, the historical and cultural influences, the taken-for granted, and unintended effects (Bacchi, 2010). To keep the study feasible, I chose to limit data collection culturally to the Western countries and to the last 10 -15 years. Even with this scope, the volume of publications dealing with ES/ESE is still immense. Therefore, I use a 3-step selection method to limit the number of publications for analysis: (1) database literature search followed by machine language learning assisted relevance check using ASReview (van de Schoot et al., 2021), (2) citation network analysis using the bibliometric tool Bibliometrix (Aria & Cuccurullo,2017) to analyze co-author, co-citation, and term-co-occurrence networks, and (3) argumentative zoning (Teufel, 1999). Steps 2 & 3 allow me to identify clusters to draw random samples for the critical discourse analysis on publications’ introduction and discussion sections. This methodology enables me to identify and validate clusters representing the ES/ESE discourse. To identify differences in discourse within and between co-author/co-citation clusters, I use term-co-occurrence to compare the use of ES/ESE specific terms. Overlap between term-co-occurrence clusters and co-author/citation clusters indicate similarity in term use. Non-overlapping discourse clusters, then, represent different ES/ESE constructs indicating a potential for homogenization within isolated clusters. Argumentative zoning uses machine language learning to label text sections according to whether the argument made is neutral, affirmative, or contradictory. This method can confirm clusters’ distinctions and relations. Publications assigned to the same cluster should be either found in affirmative or neutral zones, while publications assigned to different cluster should be in contradictory or neutral zones, if cited in a different cluster.

I expect the analysis to reveal diverse strands of ES/ESE imageries represented by different clusters. Here, the WPR-approach enables me not only to depict imageries that are in the spotlight, but also to lighten up those imageries’ twilight zones that are constituted of the usually unintendedly taken-for-granted or silenced imageries. My aim is to show the diverse applications and understandings of the concept sustainability that frame Western ES/ESE research. Research that will have implications for what and how sustainability issues are presented in our schools and universities, because it is this research that informs national and international education policies. As educational researchers, we provide society not only with knowledge but we are societies’ critical friends. Being a researcher means taking responsibility for society, and demands a self-reflective practice to be aware of your own assumptions, biases, and what we take for granted. I see my analysis of ES/ESE imageries in Western educational research as my contribution to self-reflection on the research-community level. I expect to find several ES/ESE imageries which will overlap to varying degrees. In other words, diverse ways of imagining ES/ESE and futures to create that are a necessary but not sufficient foundation to build sustainable futures upon. Not sufficient because for a foundation to support what is built sustainably, the foundation has to be utilized in a robust manner. How the foundation is utilized is what argumentative zoning and citation network analysis help me to unravel. Overall, I intend to map the complex Western ES/ESE research landscape by putting together the different ES/ESE imageries how they relate to each other, and where tensions and co-action occur. A map that can help us orient ourselves in a complex landscape ES/ESE of discourse and to stimulate co-actions.

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