Global environmental changes in conjunction with substantial social justice issues are impacting the wellbeing of us all, raising significant concerns related to how education can address these challenges (Andreotti 2018). As pointed out in UNs 2022 sustainability development goals report, and research addressing health and sustainability challenges (Franzolin et al. 2022; Malqvist and Powell 2022), the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing global environmental and climate change have deepened the global learning crisis, highlighting the interconnectedness of wellbeing challenges and broader sustainability challenges related to the degradation of nature, and environmental and/or climate change. This accentuates the need for creating a greater awareness of the potentials in linking wellbeing and sustainability in educational research and practice. Broad explorations of perspectives on how the relation between wellbeing and sustainability challenges is addressed and linked to education and learning in schools have been largely absent within research. The paper aims to address this gap, drawing on perspectives identified in a literature review within the research areas of wellbeing and sustainability education. Wellbeing and sustainability are often described as ‘wicked’ or complex problems and challenges, founded in issues of resource justice and inequalities in access to welfare resources, and research addressing these challenges points to the need for a shift towards focusing on the potential benefits of supporting relationality, social cohesion, solidarity, interdependence, and care in schools (Block et al. 2018; Spratt 2017). The conceptual framework that informs and inspires the analysis is drawing on notions of education as a common good and social sustainability, as well as perspectives on the relation between wellbeing, sustainability, and learning. Notions of education as a common good has gained momentum in policy in recent decades, connoting a form of shared wellbeing that is chosen and achieved together (see e.g. UNESCO 2015; 2021). In a discussion of these notions, the purpose of education in schools is described as “being and becoming in the world through engagement in individual and collective actions to take care of shared resources, ways of being, and systems in the interests of social justice and ecological care” (Lotz-Sisitka 2017, p. 65). This emphasizes that taking care of resources is at the core of social justice and that resources must be shared more equitably by all if we understand these resources as a common good. The sharing and (re)distribution of resources is central in notions of social sustainability, defined as a matter of resource distribution – hereunder of opportunities for education, health, wellbeing, and social care, and as distribution between people of opportunities to have, create and experience belonging in social relationships in everyday life (Duff and Hill 2021; Krøjer 2020; Vallance 2011). Spratt (2017) is in her analysis of discursive relationships between learning and wellbeing in wellbeing policy distinguishing between two discourses, wellbeing seen as for learning, and learning seen as for wellbeing. In the first discourse, wellbeing is seen as the servant of learning outcomes, which shows how it may be appropriated to develop a manipulative type of ‘care’ to foster the types of learning that focus solely on the characteristics of human capital favored in the job market. In the second discourse, learning is seen as the bedrock of human flourishing, and as valuable when individual personal development takes place in the context of a democratic learning community, which seeks to ensure all learning is personally fulfilling and meaningful. A similar understanding of the relationship between sustainability and learning is identified in analyses of sustainability policy, emphasizing a political interest in education continuing efforts aimed at economic growth at the expense of social and ecological considerations (see e.g. Jickling and Sterling 2017; McKenzie 2014).

The paper is drawing on research within the areas of wellbeing and sustainability education identified in a literature review on perspectives on social justice, equity, and agency when schools address health, wellbeing, and sustainability challenges (Carlsson, in review). First understandings of wellbeing and sustainability challenges within the research area of wellbeing and sustainability education are discussed. Thereafter the analysis of perspectives on how the relation between wellbeing and sustainability challenges is addressed in schools is presented, drawing on perspectives identified in the literature review. The literature review is based on systematic search of research articles published in journals conducted in the PsycInfo and ERIC databases, including journal articles published in English between January 2013 and December 2022, peer reviewed, target population aged 7–15 (primary, middle and lower secondary school). Search terms were: (Health* OR Wellbeing*) AND (Children* OR "young people*" OR youth*) AND School AND Education AND ("social justice*" OR Equity) AND sustainability. Using a search string combining all search terms identified 2423 records in the two databases. Citations from the search were imported to the Covidence systematic review system, where a screening and selection process took place in two steps: first title and abstract, then full texts were screened to select articles for inclusion in the analysis. Removing duplicates left 1917 records whose title and abstract were screened in the Covidence systematic review program. Following this screening process, 52 articles were retrieved and assessed for eligibility. An additional 12 articles were identified as potentially relevant by searching reference lists, of which 8 were retrieved. A total of 60 articles were thoroughly assessed. After excluding articles that did not meet the inclusion criteria described above, 23 articles were eventually included in the analysis processes. In this paper I have returned to these articles, identifying, categorizing, and discussing examples of perspectives on how the relation between wellbeing and sustainability challenges is addressed and linked to education and learning in schools. The analytical approach is narrative (interpretative), based on descriptive qualitative content analysis, and informed and inspired by the conceptual framework presented above. The paper concludes with a discussion of potentials and challenges in linking wellbeing and sustainability in educational research and practice.

In the presentation I will share results from the analysis, focusing on examples of perspectives underpinned by conceptions of 1) resource justice and equal sharing of resources, 2) the natural environment as a common good, 3) relations between people and the more-than-human. 1) This perspective highlights cultural and structural barriers in relation to a more equal sharing of resources, pointing out that socioeconomically deprived areas have significantly less high quality public green spaces and children living in these areas are thus less likely to have access to green spaces. This unequal access means that children who are already at risk of poor health have the least opportunity to reap the health benefits of green spaces and face educational inequalities. 2) Drawing on notions of the natural environment as a common good, framing environmental issues as social justice issues, this perspective is emphasizing the intimate links between health, wellbeing, and the stewardship of the commons - the natural environment - shared by people in a local community. Potentials in students developing a sense of connection to and an awareness of their interdependence with other living things and their responsibilities in relation to the larger whole of the environmental commons are underlined. 3) Within the perspective focusing on relations between people and the more-than-human it is argued that human–nature connectedness has a restorative effect on children’s wellbeing and that giving them a sense of being able to make a difference and care for nature, can lead to children developing an awareness of interconnections between environmental and human health.

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