Numerous concepts have emerged to point the way to a more sustainable future.  In addition to education for sustainable development (ESD), a variety of approaches have been proposed, including sustainable education (Lange 2024; Sterling 2023), planetary wellbeing, posthumanist education (Jordan & Jónsson 2024), global citizenship education (Pashby et al. 2020; Andreotti 2015), and global learning (Scheunpflug 2021). Each of these approaches is based on different theoretical foundations and contexts, addressing in part different aspects of the global permacrisis (Turnbull 2022). Despite their differences, these approaches also share common discursive grounds. They emphasize the need to include the entire planetary system in the sustainability discourse and to develop new knowledge contexts, particularly in the Global North, that include discussions of unlearning and the inclusion of the minoritized and previously silenced. Many of these concepts also question anthropocentrism, ask how we can deal with uncertainty about the world of tomorrow, and recognize (inter)cultural education as important for sustainability education.  

The notion of permacrisis highlights complexity and interdependence between the severe, interconnected and enduring crises of our time, including climate change, biodiversity loss, war, poverty, hunger, migration and flight. In the midst of these challenges, children and young people continue to be educated, raising critical questions about how schools can prepare students from diverse socio-economic, cultural and religious backgrounds to navigate and contribute to a world shaped by such crises. All of this raises key issues for environmental, intercultural and sustainability education (Tannock 2021), among them how teachers can reduce complexity to make issues comprehensible and actionable for students. However, this process of reduction is inherently political (Biesta 2010), shaping which perspectives are included or excluded and thereby defining what is deemed important or at stake. Traditional pedagogical and research practices rooted in Western scientific traditions often fail to question human exceptionalism and hierarchical worldviews (Braidotti 2019), further perpetuating exclusionary perspectives and need to be critically examined in light of the diverse interdependencies of global society.

The main aim of this symposium is to critically discuss how these crises are addressed by the above educational concepts and what measures are considered relevant to mitigate or solve these problems. We will reflect on how individual and collective conceptions of sustainability and global citizenship education, held by teachers and researchers, influence selective teaching traditions and disciplinary boundaries (Öhman & Östman 2019). 

We do acknowledge that it is impossible to address every aspect of these crises simultaneously, as the title of our symposium might suggest. However, we aim to foster thoughtful dialogue on the implications of the concepts we use to describe these crises and their potential to shape educational responses. By critically engaging with these issues, this symposium seeks to contribute to a more inclusive, interdisciplinary, and impactful discourse on education’s role in addressing the permacrisis. The following questions will be addressed:

1. Under which conceptual and pedagogical assumptions can the educational concept of ESD, which has been internationally mainstreamed but remain criticized from a post-colonial and power-critical perspective, adequately address these multifaceted and multidimensional challenges?
2. How can global citizenship education be linked with sustainability education without falling into the trap of adding new concepts instead of meaningful connections? 
3. What is the contribution that the global citizenship education can bring for the education aiming to address the current crises affecting to (un)sustainable futures

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