Teaching for sustainable development in primary school : A qualitative study of steering documents and teachers' descriptions of education for sustainable development

Previous research has shown that sustainable development is a complex concept that can be difficult to apply in a teaching context. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the concept of sustainable development and education for sustainable development are formulated in school policy documents related to the five teachers' descriptions of how they practice it in reality. I have, based on the purpose of this study issued following questions: What are projected on sustainable development and education for sustainable development in the school curriculum as well as other documents that support school activities? What is included? What is not included? How does the teachers interpret the concept of sustainable development? How does the teachers say that they work with sustainable development in the subjects of social science? What difficulties does the teachers experience with education for sustainable development? This study is made through a qualitative method based on a contextual analysis and interviews with five teachers. The results show that neither the documents nor the teachers' descriptions of education for sustainable development seem to indicate that sustainable development is seen as a political issue. Rather, the descriptions indicate that sustainable development is seen as a matter of ethics. In both the documents and the teachers' descriptions all levels of sustainable development i.e. local, national and international level are mentioned. Therefore, it is also described as a collective responsibility rather than an individual responsibility. In the teachers' descriptions of sustainable development the environmental dimension is mainly mentioned. The documents on the other hand emphasize all dimensions i.e. the social, economic and environmental. According to the documents these three should be balanced in order for sustainable development to be possible to achieve. Teachers' descriptions of how they work with sustainable development show a more clear vision of education for sustainable development as value mediation compared to what is written out in the documents. The steering documents also emphasize that knowledge of sustainable development is required to enable sustainable development. The difficulties that the teachers’ describe on education for sustainable development is mostly related to the complexity of the concept. One conclusion of this study is that the documents and the teachers' descriptions of sustainable development and education for sustainable development are quite similar. This despite the few differences mentioned above and the fact that one teacher believes that the directives of the curriculum syllabus is a bit unclear in terms of sustainable development.