Continued unsustainability and surpassed planetary boundaries require not only scientific and technological advances, but deep and enduring social and cultural changes. The purpose of this article is to contribute a theoretical approach to understand conditions and constraints for societal change towards sustainable development. In order to break with unsustainable norms, habits, practices, and structures, there is a need for learning for transformation, not only adaption. Based on a critical literature review within the field of learning for sustainable development, our approach is a development of the concept of transformative learning, by integrating three additional dimensions—Institutional Structures, Social Practices, and Conflict Perspectives. This approach acknowledges conflicts on macro, meso, and micro levels, as well as structural and cultural constraints. It contends that transformative learning is processual, interactional, long-term, and cumbersome. It takes place within existing institutions and social practices, while also transcending them. The article adopts an interdisciplinary social science perspective that acknowledges the importance of transformative learning in order for communities, organizations, and individuals to be able to deal with global sustainability problems, acknowledging the societal and personal conflicts involved in such transformation.

Many authors have claimed that participatory perspectives should be a significant feature of environmental and sustainability education (ESE). This change in ESE practice implies a relocation of the process of environmental knowledge constitution from ‘before’ to ‘in’ the educational event. The aim of this paper is to clarify both the processes of knowledge constitution and the content of the constituted knowledge within participatory ESE practices. Two methods based on John Dewey’s transactional perspective are used in the study: epistemological move analysis and pragmatic discourse analysis. The empirical material consists of video-recorded student discussions about climate change in the setting of a Swedish upper secondary school with a pronounced sustainability approach. In the analyses, six different epistemological moves used by the students are identified. The analyses show how students cooperatively constitute a specific view of climate change by using these moves. A main conclusion of this study is that participatory approaches do not necessarily mean that knowledge becomes more diverse. It is therefore important that teachers pay attention to governing processes among students and occasionally challenge the common view in order to allow for alternative possibilities and views.

This article proposes a model that describes and frames sustainability commitment. The model is based on didactic theory and pragmatic philosophy and is informed by several empirical studies on environmental and sustainability education (ESE) practice. The intention is for the model to serve as a critical perspective on ESE practices in secondary and upper secondary schools, and to offer a framework for the development of future practice with emphasis on teachers’ choices of content and teaching methods. The model suggests that a sound commitment is situated in the intersection of the intellectual, emotional, and practical aspects of sustainability. It is argued that: The intellectual aspect is essential for giving the commitment scientific rigor and a critical stance; emotions are vital for students to become dedicated; and skills to carry out appropriate actions for change is necessary for playing an active role in providing a sustainable transformation of society.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest an outdoor education model that respects the need to critically discuss the general belief in a causal relationship between experiences of nature, environmentally-friendly attitudes and behavioural change, but that at the same time respects the legitimate claims on the part of outdoor education practice for concretisation and clarity. The foundation of this model consists of a combination of theoretical perspectives and models that have been generated through a number of Swedish interdisciplinary research projects concerning human interrelationships with the landscape during the last decade. The paper first focuses on the subtleties of environmental concern with the aid of an environmentally historic model of how care for nature and environmental protection successively developed during the last century. It then addresses different aspects of outdoor education by presenting two specific models: a model of two principally diverse motives for this education, and a model of three different approaches to the landscape when executing outdoor education. In the final section these models are assembled in a suggested model for outdoor education and environmental concern, and identify a handful of main educational paths. The paper concludes with a brief discussion about continued research and examples of what can be regarded as particularly important developments and additions to the suggested model.

Conflict or harmony between economic, ecologic and social sustainability are two opposing perspectives that have appeared in the current debate about sustainable development. The aim of this studyis to investigate how the relations between these sustainability aspects are established in a concrete school practice. The present study is a case study and investigates two classes of Swedish upper secondary students presenting a three-weeks thematic assignment concerning sustainable urban planning.The empirical material consists of field notes, audio-recordings, video-recordings and students’texts. In order to analyse the students’ meanings about sustainable development a method inspired from pragmatic discourse analysis is used. The findings show how the students in their language usage constitute a harmony perspective on sustainable development. The results and implications for teaching and learning are finally discussed.