Against the background of increasing socio-ecological crises, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Environmental & Sustainability Education (ESE) are increasingly discussed on an interdisciplinary stage. In the course of this, the debate around ESD has also become the focus of Critical Political Emancipatory Education (CPEE) in recent years (Eis et al.: 2015). CPEE's self-understanding of political education (or citizenship education, social science education or democracy education), also in relation to sustainability issues, emphasises the interconnectedness of different crises – such as capitalism, ecology, democracy and reproduction (ebd.). As these crises deepen, questions of socio-ecological transformation have become increasingly important for political education which is closely related to the search for the political dimension in education for sustainable development (e.g. Håkansson et al.: 2018). Following discussions on the implementation of such political ESD practices, the question of whether and how it might be applied in primary schools has recently come to the fore. The ignite talk presented here will examine a political ESD practice across different age groups to show that similar challenges arise regardless of grade level, albeit with different emphases. This underlines the conference's central question: while education has a central role in society, its purpose remains politically and scientifically contested. For example, despite decades of critical discourse on individualised education in addressing sustainability issues, it is still often reduced to promoting individual behavioural change without addressing underlying socio-political structures and contradictions. At the same time, however, individual options for action are called for, which are framed as solutions to global political problems. This is particularly problematic for children, as they have hardly contributed to the current unsustainability but are granted few rights in adult-oriented structures (Röhner et al. 2023).

As ESD and ESE research moves from the margins to the mainstream, a desideratum remains in empirical research to identify practical educational entry points for addressing the political dimension of sustainability, particularly in relation to socio-political conflict and dissent. This ignite talk aims to address this gap by providing insights into practice through two ethnographic research projects describing educational practices in cooperation projects between schools and non-formal educational settings. Based on these insights, the projects seek to develop approaches that outline new points of connection for practices using socio-political conflict and dissent as teaching and learning tools.

Two ethnographic research projects form the core of this ignite talk. Both focused on different facets of ESD practice through participant observation in five non-formal learning settings working with different school classes. They are all certified ESD non-formal education settings in Germany, ranging from science-oriented laboratory settings to places rooted in farm-based pedagogy and global learning traditions. Following the production of field notes (Emerson et al. 2011), 'thick descriptions' (Geertz 1983) were produced. In order to systematise this exploratory approach, the project draws in particular on situation analysis (Clarke 2018), which emerged from grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss 1967). The results of the first research project are part of an ongoing research project (funding period: 1 April 2024 - 31 March 2027; preliminary study since July 2023) in cooperation with Alexander Wohnig, Jochen Lange and Manuela Siewert at the intersection of political education and primary school pedagogy at the University of Siegen. The second set of findings are results from my dissertation project "Conflict-oriented Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): On the Relationship between ESD and Political Education in Theory and Practice", which includes empirical research with learners aged 10-16. While both studies provide a large body of data, this ignite talk focuses specifically on children's and adolescents' responses to individualised calls for behaviour change and responsibility. These responses will be analysed within a broader sociological (e.g. Blühdorn 2023, Brand/Wissen 2021) and educational policy framework (e.g. UNESCO 2020). The emotional connotations of the issues, social desirability and defensive patterns will be addressed, including ironic/sarcastic reactions and responses by students to calls for sustainable behaviour.

As a first step, the ethnographic research perspective helps to understand how children respond to the often deficit-oriented discourse surrounding their role as influential consumers or 'change agents' (UNESCO 2020: 28). The focus on examining collaborations between schools and non-formal education settings is also of key interest, as non-formal political education is often seen as having the potential to innovate by breaking through traditional school structures (Butterer et al. 2024). Observations of the educational practices described here suggest that, among other things, a space is created for learners themselves to critically reflect on the overemphasis on individual responsibility for sustainable development within educational settings. Beyond clear and task-based right-wrong dualities and individual responsibility, this ignite talk concludes by advocating the development of reflexive perspectives that explore how the phenomena observed here can be understood as a starting point for practice that takes greater account of socio-political conflict and dissent. In this sense, the ignite talk is linked to an emancipatory perspective on ESD (e.g. Vare & Scott 2007) and to research on the political dimension of ESD (e.g. Håkansson et al.: 2018). Finally, the need for a (self-)reflexive level inscribed in the self-conception of Critical Political Emancipatory Education is central, based on the understanding that "Political Education itself is part of the political" and therefore "[l]earning relations are not free from power structures, Political Education [and in line with this also the political dimension of ESD] reveals this" (Eis et al. 2015).

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