Choosing Sustainability Education : Context, Values and Resources of Parents choosing non-formal Sustainability Education Projects in Germany

Non-formal education projects are seen as taking a key role regarding Education for Sustainable Development; however, the conditions of participation are still scarcely explored. The objective of this study is to develop a concept helping to understand the resources, motivations, underlying values, and context of parents in the process of choosing a non-formal Education for Sustainability project in Germany for their children aged six to twelve. For this, the school choice concept of Raveaud and van Zanten, which is utilizing “resource” definitions in approximation to Bourdieu’s capital, is adapted for the non-formal sustainability education sector, by implementing the concept of environmental capital, conceptualizing the choice framework for non-formal sustainability education. Ten interviews with parents from such projects have been conducted in the summer of 2021 and analysed based on the newly developed choice framework for non-formal sustainability education. Unlike what the adapted school-choice theory suggests, the local normative framework has little impact on the choices parents make in the non-formal choice process. The results indicate that especially cultural resources within the framework of environmental capital and accumulated in the informal learning space have had a formative impact on the parents, which let them to enrol their children to participate in the sustainability education projects. In comparison to formal school choice processes, the tension between impersonal and personal values is not as tangible for parents. As projects combine expressive values like self-realisation and impersonal values like environmental awareness in their pedagogical approaches, parents are even able to satisfy both their personal and impersonal values while choosing an SE project. It is being discussed how parents can be strengthened in their role to pass on sustainability values, without creating an even greater inequality regarding environmental capital, as well as the importance of a symbiosis between EE and ESD projects to further sustainability education in Germany.

Choosing Sustainability Education : Context, Values and Resources of Parents choosing non-formal Sustainability Education Projects in Germany

Non-formal education projects are seen as taking a key role regarding Education for Sustainable Development; however, the conditions of participation are still scarcely explored. The objective of this study is to develop a concept helping to understand the resources, motivations, underlying values, and context of parents in the process of choosing a non-formal Education for Sustainability project in Germany for their children aged six to twelve. For this, the school choice concept of Raveaud and van Zanten, which is utilizing “resource” definitions in approximation to Bourdieu’s capital, is adapted for the non-formal sustainability education sector, by implementing the concept of environmental capital, conceptualizing the choice framework for non-formal sustainability education. Ten interviews with parents from such projects have been conducted in the summer of 2021 and analysed based on the newly developed choice framework for non-formal sustainability education. Unlike what the adapted school-choice theory suggests, the local normative framework has little impact on the choices parents make in the non-formal choice process. The results indicate that especially cultural resources within the framework of environmental capital and accumulated in the informal learning space have had a formative impact on the parents, which let them to enrol their children to participate in the sustainability education projects. In comparison to formal school choice processes, the tension between impersonal and personal values is not as tangible for parents. As projects combine expressive values like self-realisation and impersonal values like environmental awareness in their pedagogical approaches, parents are even able to satisfy both their personal and impersonal values while choosing an SE project. It is being discussed how parents can be strengthened in their role to pass on sustainability values, without creating an even greater inequality regarding environmental capital, as well as the importance of a symbiosis between EE and ESD projects to further sustainability education in Germany.

Value Sustainability: Developing Affective Learning in Sustainability Leadership Programs

As sustainability challenges increase in both frequency and magnitude, there is a growing need for leaders who can deal with such complexity. Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) develops knowledge,skills, and attitudes to enable the development of such leaders. This thesis focuses on the elusive “attitude” piece, more widely referred to as the affective domain. The research team interviewed experts on affective learning in either higher education or ESD contexts. Additionally, staff members from the case study organisation, Teach for Austria (TFA) were interviewed to determine how affective learning can be further developed within their fellow program. The five-level model (5LM) was employed to frame the findings of each interview set to provide recommendations for TFA. A feature of the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development, the 5LM provides a strategic planning approach that allows for easier adaptation and implementation of the findings for other programs that wish to learn from this research. Therefore, this thesis serves to provide recommendations for developing affective learning in sustainability leadership programs. Making affective learning explicit and empowering one to reflect their own affective domain and their perspective on the world can have a positive impact on their life, as well as on their environment