Sustainable development and societal approaches to migration-related diversity are crucial for shaping our future. Various education policy documents at the international and national level address this challenge, including those of the UNESCO (2006, 2020), KMK/BMZ (2016) and KMK (2013). Additionally, several pedagogical concepts have emerged within the context of education for sustainable development (ESD) and intercultural education that are based on different societal views and goals. Approaches to intercultural education in German-speaking countries range from "assimilation/foreigner pedagogy" to "classical intercultural pedagogy", and more recent approaches include migration pedagogy, intercultural pedagogy of belonging and intersectional post-migration and postcolonial approaches (Nohl 2014; Allemann-Ghionda 2009). In the context of the environment and sustainability, ESD has replaced traditional environmental education and includes key aspects of global learning (Gräsel 2018). However, the understanding of sustainability (strong and weak sustainability) and the concept of ESD varies (Sinakou/Boeve-de Pauw/Van Petegem 2019; Vare/Scott 2007).

As teachers are regarded as “change agents” for developing awareness of sustainability, intercultural aspects and racism in schools in pluralistic societies (Koskela/Kärkkäinen 2021; Leeman/van Koeven 2019), teacher training increasingly emphasizes ESD and intercultural education. However, although sustainability and migration-related diversity are seen as central cross-cutting issues within the German school system (KMK/BMZ 2016; KMK 2013), they are rarely discussed together. The few discussions on both issues focus on social sustainability (Garcia-Arias/Corbetta/Baronnet 2023; Lasonen 2009), which ignores the interplay between social, economic and ecological sustainability, as conceptualised under "weak" and "strong" sustainability. This is not only the case in Germany, but also internationally (Catarci 2021; Pusch 2023a). Consequently, it is not surprising that these two future-oriented educational focuses are seldom considered together and linked in teacher education. This paper explores the perspectives of student teachers at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU) on sustainable development and ESD, migration and intercultural education.

The presentation is divided into six sections, beginning with a brief introduction, followed by an outline of the relevant ESD concepts (Section 1) and approaches to intercultural education (Section 2) in the German discourse. Section 3 summarises the current state of research on ESD and intercultural education in teacher education in Germany and relates it to findings from international comparative studies. In this context, the paper highlights the lack of consideration of these two cross-cutting issues together. Building upon this background, Section 4 presents the research question, outlines the study design and explains the methodology. Section 5 presents the preliminary research findings, which form the main body of the proposed paper. Finally, Section 6 provides a brief summary and outlook.

The methodology of the proposed paper is based on an online survey conducted with student teachers at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau. The survey is part of a larger study called "Towards an intercultural ESD: Approaches for future-oriented teacher training". The first sub-project, which is the focus of the presentation, consists of an online survey investigating the knowledge and perspectives of student teachers on ESD and intercultural education. The survey will consist of 32 open and closed questions/items and will be conducted at the beginning of the summer semester in 2024 using the web application SoSci Survey. All student teachers (around 5,000) in the 96 teacher education programmes at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau will receive an invitation to participate via the university's internal mailing list. With an anticipated participation rate of 20 to 30 percent, we will gain insights into the attitudes of 1,000 to 1,500 students with regard to ESD and intercultural education as well as the meeting point where ESD and IC intersect. The questionnaire is divided into four thematic blocks: (1) personal information and field of study, (2) student teachers' understanding of sustainable development and ESD, (3) student teachers' attitudes towards migration-related diversity and intercultural education and (4) student teachers' knowledge and attitudes related to ESD and intercultural education. The questions in Blocks 1 to 3 are based on previous quantitative studies, namely Grund/Brock 2018, 2022; Brock/Grund 2018; Merten/Yildirim/Keller 2014; and Funk 2017. The questions in Block 4 are based on the preliminary research results of two qualitative pilot studies (Pusch 2021, 2023a) and a small survey on ESD in extracurricular education programmes (Pusch 2023 b). The collected data will be analysed using descriptive statistics, specifically frequencies and cross-tabulations with the IBM SPSS Statistics software platform. Group discussions with student teachers will provide the empirical foundation for the second sub-project, which aims to reconstruct the interconnected realms of student teachers’ experience related to ESD and the migration society using the documentary method (Bohnsack 2021). Drawing on the empirical findings from the first two sub-projects, the aim of the third sub-project is to develop potential areas for future-oriented teacher training related to ESD and the migration society.

The online survey aims to provide new insights into the nexus of ESD, intercultural education and teacher education, an area that has not been extensively explored yet. We hope to gain a statistical overview of the attitudes and knowledge of student teachers related to ESD and intercultural education. With these findings, we aim to contribute to the development of multidimensional and forward-looking teacher education in the light of the climate crisis and of the growing intercultural challenges in pluralistic societies arising from increasing migration-related diversity.

Allemann-Ghionda, C. (2009): From intercultural education to the inclusion of diversity: Theories and policies in Europe. In: J. A. Banks (eds.), The Routledge International Companion to Multicultural Education. Routledge: 134-145. Bohnsack, R. (2021): Rekonstruktive Sozialforschung. Budrich. Brock, A./Grund, J.(2018): Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in Lehr-Lernsettings-Quantitative Studie des nationalen Monitorings-Befragung von LehrerInnen. https://www.ewi-psy.fu-berlin.de/erziehungswissenschaft/arbeitsbereiche/institut-futur/aktuelles/dateien/executive_summary_lehrerinnen.pdf Catarci, M. (2021). Intercultural Education and Sustainable Development. Social Sciences (10/24). https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10010024 Funk, B. (2017): Migrationssensible Lehrkräfteausbildung durch Praxiselemente an der Universität Bremen. https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/bitstream/elib/4491/1/FUNCK_Migrationssensible_Lehramtsausbildung_durch_Praxisprojekte_Evaluation_Uni_Bremen_Mai_2017bb.pdf Garcia-Arias, J./Corbetta, S./Baronnet, B. (2023): Decolonizing education in Latin America: critical environmental and intercultural education as an indigenous pluriversal alternative: British Journal of Sociology of Education, DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2023.2234088 Grund, J./Brock, A. (2018): Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung in Lehr-Lernsettings – Quantitative Studie des nationalen Monitorings – Befragung junger Menschen. https://www.bne-portal.de/bne/shareddocs/downloads/files/nationales-monitoring_quantitative-studie_lehrerinnen.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=1 Grund, J./Brock, A. (2022): Formale Bildung in Zeiten von Krisen – die Rolle von Nachhaltigkeit in Schule, Ausbildung und Hochschule. http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/refubium-36890 Gräsel, C. (2018). Umweltbildung. In: R. Tippelt/B. Schmidt-Hertha (eds.), Handbuch Bildungsforschung (S. 1093–1109). Springer VS. Koskela, T./ Kärkkäinen, S. (2021): Student Teachers’ Change Agency in Education for Sustainable Development. Journal of Teacher Education for Sustainability (23/1): 84-98. Lasonen, J. (2009): Intercultural Education: Promoting Sustainability in Education and Training. In: Fien, J. et al. (eds.), Work, Learning and Sustainable Development. Springer: 186-202. Leeman, Y. /van Koeven, E. (2019): New immigrants. An incentive for intercultural education?. Education Inquiry (10/3): 189-207, DOI: 10.1080/20004508.2018.1541675 Merten, M./Yildirim, D./Keller, C. (2014): Einstellungen zu Heterogenität und Unterrichtskriterien bei Lehramtsstudierenden. https://kobra.uni-kassel.de/handle/123456789/12588 Nohl, A.-M. (2014): Konzepte interkultureller Pädagogik. Klinkhardt. Pusch, B. (2021). Pädagogische Ansatzpunkte in der Umweltbildung für Zuwanderer/-innen. Zeitschrift für internationale Bildungsforschung und Entwicklungspädagogik (44/2), 17-26. https://www.pedocs.de/volltexte/2021/23728/pdf/ZEP_2_2021_Pusch_Paedagogische_Ansatzpunkte.pdf. Pusch, B. (2023a): Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitsorientierungen von Wiener Jugendlichen mit Migrationshintergrund? Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung (13): 87–107. Pusch, B. (2023b): Zusammenfassung der Online-Umfrage „BNE in der Migrationsgesellschaft“. https://zenodo.org/uploads/10254906. Sinakou, E./Boeve-de Pauw, J./Van Petegem, P. (2019). Exploring the concept of sustainable development within education for sustainable development. Environ Dev Sustain (21): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-017-0032-8 Ständige Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland/ Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (KMK/BMZ) (2016): Orientierungsrahmen für den Lernbereich Globale Entwicklung. Bonn: Engagement Global. https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2015/2015_06_00-Orientierungsrahmen-Globale-Entwicklung.pdf Ständige Konferenz der Kultusminister der Länder in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (KMK) (2013): Interkulturelle Bildung und Erziehung in der Schule https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/1996/1996_10_25-Interkulturelle-Bildung.pdf UNESCO (2020). Education for sustainable development: a roadmap? https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374802 UNESCO. 2006. UNESCO Guidelines on Intercultural Education. Paris: UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000147878 Vare, P./Scott, W. (2007): Learning for a Change. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development (1/2): 191–198.