Climate change, ecological degradation, resource consumption and social injustice are among the defining challenges of the 21st century, requiring a profound rethinking of current socio-ecological structures (Hajer & Versteeg, 2019). The mobility sector is a key area for transformative action. This is underlined by the 2023 data: at the sectoral level, the largest increase in emissions was in transport. Achieving a comprehensive transformation of mobility – one that prioritises human well-being, equitable access, walkability, multi-functionality, conservation and restoration in both urban and rural environments  – will require changes not only to the built environment, but also to the way people think and behave (Vergragt & Brown, 2007). Central to these changes are strategies that focus on reducing the need for transport, shifting travel to sustainable alternatives, improving vehicle technology (e.g. through electrification) and improving transport equity (Hennicke et al., 2021).

Times of change such as the present offer opportunities to re-imagine liveable futures, which is particularly important for children, who are often seen as the innovators of a sustainable future. Research suggests that as children's understanding of the world develops, they begin to simulate alternatives to current realities, using their existing knowledge to create new ideas and visions for the future (Kushnir, 2022). Studies of primary school children's future visions of sustainable mobility indicate that these are shaped by the environment in which they live. The results of a systematic analysis of existing research projects suggest that students from urban areas, who are more exposed to the negative effects of traffic, tend to reject car use, whereas students from rural or intermediate areas see the car as an essential means of transport and rarely question its future relevance. These students do not seem to see the need for a redistribution of the modal split (Schuster & Ohl, 2024). 

In the context of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Mobility (ESM), this ability to imagine the future is particularly emphasised in the context of a transformative ESD (Pettig, 2021; Schuster & Ohl, 2024). Based on a critical reflection of the status quo of the mobility system, transformative approaches to ESD are primarily about negotiating visions of the future that enable a good life for all people (Holfelder, 2019; Pettig, 2021). Understanding students' visions of the future and the factors that shape them is essential to enable transformative ESD and to engage constructively with their conceptions (Dockterman, 2018). This approach is rooted in the perspective that visions of the future are part of students' conceptions that they bring to the classroom as basic prerequisites for learning (Helmke, 2022) and that serve as starting points for reflection in ESD classrooms.

As visions of the future have been largely under-researched, especially in primary education (Corres et al., 2024; Henriksson, 2023), and are shaped by different factors such as living environment (urban vs. rural) (Friedrich & Hendriks, 2024), our study explores the extent to which students' personal environments influence their visions. In doing so, it provides valuable insights for a more constructivist approach to ESD and ESM. 

In order to explore differences in primary school students' visions of sustainable mobility, we are conducting a cross-sectional study with a sample of 180 fourth grade students from primary schools in Bavaria, Germany. The study will be complemented by a teacher questionnaire to assess which mobility-related topics have already been covered in class. Students will complete a paper-and-pencil questionnaire designed to measure key constructs, including their future visions of sustainable mobility, the characteristics of their place of residence and the frequency with which they use different modes of transport. The data will be analysed using t-tests to examine differences in students' future visions between urban and rural students. This approach provides useful insights into how students' future visions of sustainable mobility vary according to their living environment. By analysing the external factors that shape students' future mobility perceptions, we aim to contribute to more targeted sustainability education practices.

At the conference, I will present initial results from the study on the poster, including item and scale level statistics and preliminary findings from the data collection. These results will provide an overview of how primary school students imagine future mobility and how this differs according to their living environment. Based on these findings, we will derive recommendations for the design of meaningful reflection processes on sustainable mobility in the classroom. As well as having practical implications, these findings may also serve as a basis for intervention studies that explore the development of students' future visions of sustainable mobility within school projects. Such studies could further explore key competencies in sustainability education, such as critical thinking and reflection skills, particularly in primary education (Redman & Wiek, 2021). In addition to external factors, existing literature suggests that internal factors – such as values and beliefs, including problem awareness – also shape students' future visions (Rana et al., 2020). However, this aspect remains underexplored and represents a research gap within the present findings.

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