There is a widespread understanding that schools play a pivotal role in protecting and preserving biological, social, and material resources. However, this requires a certain kind of education practices that support shared responsibility, promote competences in collaboration and facilitate critical and creative thinking. Such practices, denoted in both policy and research as education for sustainable development (ESD), is a response to the need to educate students to cope with the complex challenges associated with sustainable development and future societies. This paper presents a sub-study as part of a larger project (Forssten Seiser et al., 2023) that took place in a municipality in Sweden. ESD was introduced in 2016, and the school administration supported and managed the work for three years. In the sub-study, the function and conditions of ESD facilitators were explored. ESD facilitators are teachers with a function to lead improvement processes towards ESD. As middle leaders, the ESD facilitators’ responsibility was to facilitate dialogue and communication among teaching staff. The ESD process was directed towards a whole school approach, meaning that ESD is fully integrated in the local curriculum and functions as a pedagogical idea (Mogren & Gericke, 2019). In a middle leading position, the ESD facilitators worked from a position between the school leaders and the teaching staff, focusing on both students’ learning and on leading and organizing colleagues’ professional learning (Edwards-Groves & Rönnerman, 2013; Grootenboer et al., 2015). In semi-structured interviews seven ESD facilitators describe their goals, relationships and the practice architectures which enabled and constrained their function as middle leaders. Their reported experiences were analysed in relation to a typology of sustainability change agents (Van Poeck et al., 2017) in which their roles can be positioned along the axes of open-ended vs. instrumental approaches to change and learning, and personal involvement vs. personal detachment. Results show how the ESD facilitator function were more open-ended in schools where there was room for dialogue, reflexive discussions, and collaboration. In schools where there was little space for these activities, the facilitator function became more instrumental. The results show how a lack of dialogue and collaboration created challenges to integrating ESD as a holistic pedagogical idea. An individualistic school culture emerged as a plausible explanation for teachers’ resistance to other teachers acting as ESD facilitators and, that contextual factors relating to the organization and culture have significant influence on middle leaders and their ability to fulfil their assignments. 

References: 

Edwards Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2013). Generating leading practices through professional learning. Professional development in education, 39(1), 122-140.

Forssten Seiser, A., Mogren, A., Gericke, N., Berglund, T., & Olsson, D. (2023). Developing school leading guidelines facilitating a whole school approach to education for sustainable development. Environmental Education Research, 29(5), 783-805. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2022.215198

Grootenboer, P., Edwards-Groves, C., & Rönnerman, K. (2015). Leading practice development: voices from the middle, Professional Development in Education, 41(3), 508-526, DOI: 10.1080/19415257.2014.924985

Mogren, A., & Gericke, N. (2019). School leaders’ experiences of implementing education for sustainable development: Anchoring the transformative perspective. Sustainability, 11(12), 3343.

Van Poeck, K., Læssøe, J., & Block, T. (2017). An exploration of sustainability change agents as facilitators of nonformal learning: Mapping a moving and intertwined landscape. Ecology and Society, 22(2).