One of the main goals in education is to provide just educational opportunities for all learners with inclusion and equity as leading principles (UNESCO, 2017). This complex agenda is not yet sufficiently considered in education policy documents (e.g., Gross, Francesconi & Agostini, 2021; Kelly, Hofbauer & Gross, 2021) and in educational practice. Besides this, one of the challenges - also of Education for Sustainable Development - is to link ecological with social justice. A diversity-sensitive pedagogy aims at developing a culture of acceptance of heterogeneity and of democratic equity of people with different life experiences. Thus, diversity-sensitive educational institutions strive for inclusion, equity (Ainscow, 2020) and reflexivity, and recognise and work against disadvantages that derive from intersections of categories (Holzbrecher, 2017). Within the goal number 4 of the 17 SDGs (Ensure inclusive, equitable and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all; UN, 2015) the current efforts to jointly consider and implement Education for Sustainable Development and inclusive education emerge and focus on participatory processes (Rieckmann & Stoltenberg, 2011, p. 117). Learners are thus asked to actively engage in issues of social and ecological justice and to develop corresponding problem-solving strategies, social and personal competences to sensitise, shape and further develop social spaces.

This paper presents first results of a study in a public school in Chemnitz, Saxony (Germany) that highlights its diversity-sensitive and inclusive approach. The school offers forms of open and across age group teaching, in which students learn from grade 1 to 10 in all-day classes.

The aims of the project, on that this paper is based on, are to:

a) study official national, regional, local and institutional policies and documents on social and ecological justice.

a) observe everyday pedagogical practice and explore inclusive and sustainable practices of educational actors.

c) to recognise not only adults (teachers, school leaders and educational administrators) but also learners as actors in the production of knowledge.

In this regard, the questions to be addressed are:

a) To what extent do learners have the opportunity to shape and transform their reality and future in an inclusive and sustainable way?

b) What theoretical and practical knowledge, problem-solving strategies and competences for social and ecological justice do students acquire?

The methodological approach of the study is based on an ethnographic research. Participatory observations and interviews are combined to shed light on the studied phenomenon and to provide an in-depth description of the social and pedagogical reality. Detailed field notes are used to present distinctive observations and their reflected practice. The methodological procedure is not strictly predetermined, as the research process is subordinated to the exploratory world of the people to discover, describe and understand the characteristics and peculiarities. To investigate to what extent the school has already implemented instruments and procedures in its everyday pedagogical life to promote social and ecological justice and whether and how learners are addressed as actors in shaping a sustainable future, a method triangulation of participatory observations of pedagogical practice and ethnographic interviews is used. Participant observations are complemented by an analysis of visual data – i.e., the inclusion of images, photos, video and audio recordings and digital documents of the school (Gobo & Molle, 2017; Pink et al., 2016). The ethnographic observation involves participation in field activities, listening and asking questions (Knoblauch & Vollmer, 2019) and is designed in a participatory way to create a practitioner-researcher partnership (Ainscow, 2022). To answer the research question regarding the students' participation in transforming their reality, participant observation within the research project is not sufficient as the meaning of the actions of the participants remains hidden to observation. For this reason, interviews were conducted with the coordinator in the educational administration, the school leader, teachers, and learners. The interviews are open and do not follow predefined questions, but rather use questions that arise during the research process (Knoblauch & Vollmer, 2019). The data analysis is carried out using the software MAXQDA.

The expected results give insights in the learners' participation in shaping educational institutions towards inclusivity, sustainability, and social and ecological justice, and their contribution to transform the own environment and social reality. The results will stimulate quality development in schools through research-based inputs and raise awareness of diversity-sensitivity and social and ecological justice.

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