ESD implementation at the school organisation level, part 2 – investigating the transformative perspective in school leaders’ quality strategies at ESD schools

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that adopting a transformative school organisation perspective when implementing ESD may be more productive than the previously recommended transmissive perspectives, but it is not clear how transformative perspectives could be introduced. To address this issue, we conducted an empirical mixed methods study of existing practices in 10 highly ESD-active upper secondary schools in Sweden. The schools’ leaders, who were responsible for implementing ESD, were interviewed to obtain information on the quality criteria they used to guide their work. The arguments used by the leaders to justify their criteria were analysed and categorised based on their relationships with the transmissive and transformative quality strategies. Both school organisation perspectives were found to co-exist within the schools. A detailed analysis of schools where the transformative perspective was dominant revealed three distinct quality strategies, one of which was found to embody a strong focus on a transformative approach. This specific quality strategy is discussed and suggested as a way for interested schools to implement ESD in a more transformative way at the school organisation level.

Keywords:

• Implementation of education for sustainable development
• school leadership
• school organisation
• transformative education
• quality criteria

This article is related to:

ESD implementation at the school organisation level, part 1 – investigating the quality criteria guiding school leaders’ work at recognized ESD schools

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the school leaders who participated in this study and shared their time and experiences with us. Also many thanks to Associate Professor Hans-Åke Scherp and Lecturer Gun-Britt Scherp who have been supportive and contributed insightful comments and knowledge that enriched our understanding during the evaluation of the data gathered during this work.