Facilitating democratic processes for sustainability: the possibilities and limitations of teaching guides for climate change education

ABSTRACT

The UNESCO-led Global Action Programme (GAP) on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) stresses the importance of building teachers’ capacity for an ESD transforming how people think and act. From the perspective of the pluralistic tradition, this creates challenges related to this tradition’s notion that educators should facilitate open-ended democratic education processes. This study examines these challenges through a critical policy analysis drawing on the ‘what’s the problem represented to be? approach. It departs from democratic theories’ emphasis on cultivating both social unity and disunity as well as from their diverse problematizations of this tension. It shows how different problematizations create particular possibilities and limitations to solve the challenges. This is demonstrated through an analysis of teaching guides, linked to the GAP, on how democratic processes can be facilitated in climate change education. The study also provides a discussion of how the limitations can be approached and the guides improved.

Keywords:

• Education for sustainable development
• secondary education
• environmental and sustainability education
• pluralistic
• policy

Introduction

The severe risks that follow human-induced environmental changes, such as climate change, have created a sense of urgency to promote sustainable ways of life (Steffen et al. 2015; IPCC 2014). To attain this, UNESCO (2014, 2017) stresses that education for sustainable development (ESD)¹ needs to transform ‘[…] the way we think and act’ (UNESCO 2017, 1). Accordingly, one of the priorities of the UNESCO-led Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD is to build educators’ capacities for such education (UNESCO 2014). However, there are numerous ideas on how ‘we’ should think and act to promote sustainability, each underpinned by particular values that are contested from other ideological positions (Carter 2018; Eckersley 1992; Hornborg 2015; Raworth 2017). The pluralistic tradition (Rudsberg and Öhman 2010; Kowasch and Lippe 2019; Tryggvason and Öhman 2019) responds to this circumstance by stressing that educators of ESD should facilitate democratic education processes through which students engage with different meanings of, and pathways to, sustainability. Situated within that tradition, this study is a critical policy analysis of teaching guides for climate change education (CCE). These guides are linked to the GAP on ESD and some propose ways to facilitate democratic processes in CCE.

The pluralistic tradition has its roots in education research in Sweden and Denmark (Wals 2010), but informs studies of ESD in other democratic countries as well (Van Poeck, Wals, and König 2018; Kowasch and Lippe 2019). As Öhman and Östman (2019) point out, it is distinctive from the fact-based and normative traditions. The fact-based tradition focuses on facts and presumes that these can be separated form values. It also conceives the democratic process as something that comes after education. The normative tradition is based on the notion that education should foster particular thoughts and actions, decided before the education process. In this sense, the democratic process is located before the moments of education. As mentioned, the pluralistic tradition presumes that democratic processes should take place within education.

Although this study builds on research in the pluralistic tradition, it should be stressed that the emphasis on locating democratic processes in education are not unique to this tradition. It is shared with studies in the traditions of critical pedagogy and transformative learning (Nikel 2007; Aboytes and Barth 2020; Balsiger et al. 2017; Oberman and Sainz 2021). Hence, this study could be of interest to other research than that positioned within the pluralistic tradition.

The pluralistic tradition encompasses different approaches to facilitate democratic education processes. Some studies are based on conflict-oriented approaches, centered on how tensions and dissensus can be fostered to challenge consensus and common-sense conceptions of sustainable development and sustainability in order to broaden the horizon of ESD. These have, for instance, explored how tensions and dissensus can be triggered through participatory approaches (Öhman and Öhman 2013; Hasslöf, Ekborg, and Malmberg 2014), social media (Andersson and Öhman 2017), storytelling (Franck and Osbeck 2018) and encounters with the natural environment (Sandell and Öhman 2010).

Other research is based on consensus-oriented approaches (e.g. Englund, Öhman, and Östman 2008; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019). Recognizing that sustainable development and sustainability are contested concepts, Kioupi and Voulvoulis (2019) for instance argue for the importance of striving toward consensus on how the UN sustainable development goals should be understood in particular communities, thereby enabling collective actions.

The emphasis of UNESCO to promote an ESD that transforms our actions and thoughts nonetheless creates challenges for all pluralistic approaches. One is the challenge to facilitate education that fosters actions for sustainability without prescribing predetermined actions (e.g. Van Poeck, Goeminne, and Vandenabeele 2016; Wals 2010; Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019). Another challenge is the tension between the ‘universal’ ethical ideals and values of ESD and the pluralistic approaches’ emphasis to foster autonomous and free citizens (Sund and Öhman 2014; Franck and Osbeck 2018). A third is that the scope to engage with different ways to think and act is reduced by naturalized discourses or hegemonies. In the field of ESD, research for instance highlights that anthropocentric moral theories (Kopnina 2012, 2016, 2018), ecological modernization (Laessøe 2010) and neoliberalism (Huckle and Wals 2015) are hegemonic.

Although previous research provides different solutions to these challenges, this study departs from the assumption that the possibilities and limitations to solve these challenges plausibly differ depending on how, what I term, the unity-disunity tension is approached through the democratic education processes. This tension entails cultivating social unity among the ‘the people’ or demos and enabling and encouraging pluralism of incompatible ideas within ‘the people’. As stressed by scholars of different democratic theories (e.g. Rawls 1993; Mouffe 1994), nurturing both poles of this tension is a precondition for promoting and sustaining any democracy. Nevertheless, scholars disagree on the proper way to do this, both in democratic societies at large and in democratic education processes (as detailed below).

Based on the ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach (Bacchi 2009) to policy analysis (described below), each response to the unity-disunity tension is presumed to represent a problematization that creates specific possibilities and limitations to solve the challenges of pluralistic ESD. What these are is, however, not explored in ESD research. The studies closest to such exploration either examine how the political dimension, more broadly understood than the unity-disunity tension, can be approached through ESD (Håkansson, Östman, and Van Poeck 2018; Håkansson, Kronlid, and Östman 2019; Tryggvason and Öhman 2019). Or they discuss solutions to the unity-disunity tension from the standpoint of one democratic theory, such as agonistic pluralism (Hasslöf, Ekborg, and Malmberg 2014; Franck and Osbeck 2018) or deliberative democracy (Kioupi and Voulvoulis 2019; Englund, Öhman, and Östman 2008). None of these studies discuss the possibilities and limitations that different problematizations of the unity-disunity tension create for solving the described challenges of pluralistic ESD. This study reduces this gap. Specifically, its purpose is to examine the possibilities and limitations to solve the challenges of pluralistic ESD through different problematizations of the unity-disunity tension, which are represented in a diverse sample of teaching guides for CCE in secondary education (see Appendix 1, supplementary material). Drawing on the WPR approach (Bacchi 2009) in which the problematization(s) of policies (such as CCE guides) is the unit of analysis, the questions guiding the analysis are:

1. How is the unity-disunity tension problematized in each CCE guide,

2. What possibilities and limitations do each problematization produce for solving the challenges of pluralistic ESD?

The remaining part of the study has the following outline. First, I present the methodology and data. Second, I provide a compact overview of how the unity-disunity tension is problematized in democratic theories, along with brief comments on educational research drawing on or criticizing these theories. These problematizations inform the analysis in that they are used to categorize problematizations in the CCE guides that reflect those of the democratic theories. Third, I answer the first analytical question by describing the problematizations represented in the CCE guides. Subsequently, I answer the second analytical question by discussing the limits and possibilities of each problematization. Finally, I elaborate on the implications of the findings by presenting three concluding points.

Methods and data

The analysis draws on the WPR, which is an approach for critical policy analysis that provides questions and tools to identify and examine the possibilities and limitations produced through policies’ problematization(s). These problematizations are not explicit descriptions of problems. They are those implied by specific policy prescriptions and guides to practice (Bacchi 2009, 2012; Bacchi and Goodwin 2016). Based on the Foucauldian notion of power as productive, each such problematization is presumed to produce particular possibilities and limitations (Bacchi 2009). A specific problematization of the unity-disunity tension in a CCE guide could for example constitute a notion of citizenship and a focus on issues that produce possibilities to solve some of the challenges of pluralistic ESD while other challenges fall outside of its scope. The latter would be an example of a limitation.

I have included a diverse sample of guides designed to build teachers’ capacity for CCE in secondary education. These guides form part of a network of documents that support the GAP’s priority action area 3: ‘Building capacities of educators and trainers’ (UNESCO 2014, 20). The sample is drawn from documents that are linked to each other through databases, and the documents’ lists of references and recommended reading. They were retrieved from database searches at webpages – initially only those administered by UNESCO and, later, other webpages that were linked to these or referred to in the retrieved documents (see Appendix 2, supplementary material) – in combination with the ‘snowballing’ technique (Esaiasson et al. 2012). The latter entailed that I scanned the retrieved documents for references to additional documents that include CCE guides.

When I conducted these document searches, which I did in August and September 2020, all teaching guides with a focus on climate change education in secondary education were included, except those with a focus limited to one specific regional and country context. Among these guides are those that encompass instructions for entire lesson plans, singular learning activities, as well as inspirational content for CCE, such as ‘good examples’ and more general curricular recommendations. The searches were repeated until no additional documents were identified. As a result, I retrieved 33 documents (see Appendix 1, supplementary material).

There are two primary reasons for using these guides as my data. One is their authoritative status and thereby potential to have far-reaching impacts on actual education practices. This is due to the circumstance that they are part of the network of guides linked to, and designed to support, the capacity building priority of the GAP. Another is that these guides were presumed to include a diverse set of ideas on how democratic education processes can be facilitated. The reason for this is that they are developed by several different organizations, are quite numerous and focus on different issues related to climate change. Consequently, they should create relatively favorable conditions to identify and compare different problematizations of the unity-disunity tension in an ESD setting.

I coded the CCE guides systematically by using the software NVivo 12 and a coding scheme to identify codes of the unity-disunity tension (see Appendix 3, supplementary material). As a result, I identified codes of the unity-disunity tension in eight documents, many of which included several CCE guides (see Table 1).

Table 1. Documents representing the problematizations.

Problematizations	Documents with lesson plans or other guides to learning activities	Documents with inspirational guides for education
The problematization reflecting public choice democracy	FAO (2015)	–
The problematization reflecting deliberative democracy	Selby and Kagawa (2013)	Cade and Bowden (2011)
	weADAPT (2018)	Gibb (2016)
	World’s Largest Lesson (n.d.-b)
	World’s Largest Lesson (n.d.-a)
The problematization reflecting agonistic democracy	Selby and Kagawa (2013)	Cade and Bowden (2011)
		Thoresen (2010)

Problematizations of the unity-disunity tension in democratic theories

The tension between unity and disunity in democratic processes is a central topic in scholarly discussions of democratic theories, and further elaborated in educational research. There are several responses to this tension, each problematizing it differently. Considering the large number of democratic theories (see Cunningham 2002), all problematizations cannot be presented here. Instead, this section outlines the problematizations, along with core ideas and assumptions, of the three democratic theories found to be reflected in the CCE guides. In what follows, the problematizations of the unity-disunity tension represented in scholarly literature on these three democratic theories are detailed, along with references to educational research discussing these theories.

Public choice democracy, advanced by theorists such as Downs (1957) and Buchanan and Tullock (1962) as well as by Hayek (1979), is based on the notion that democratic politics should be modeled on economics and its logic of market exchange. Its solution to the tension between unity and disunity is to organize the public and private sectors as competitive markets on which every individual should pursue its self-interests according to his/her pre-political preferences. Based on the foundational assumptions of homo economicus, such pursuits will unintentionally result in win-win scenarios benefitting everyone (Cunningham 2002; Foucault 2008). For instance, Downs (1957) makes the presumption that it is self-interest that motivates politicians to run for office. In competitive pluralist democracies, he argues that their self-interests nonetheless spur them to develop innovative and attractive policy propositions, just as entrepreneurs improve goods and services on competitive markets to attract customers. The competitive pursuit of self-interest, based on pre-political preferences, should thus be encouraged, not only among ‘ordinary’ citizens, but also among those representing them. This ensures mutually beneficial market-exchanges – as a form of unity – and allows everyone to pursue their own preferences – as a form of disunity. Being a citizen thus entails pursuing individual self-interests, as a ‘customer’ and ‘entrepreneur’. By implication, the unity-disunity tension is problematized as insufficient opportunities for citizens to pursue their self-interests on competitive arenas, both in public and private spheres.

Educational research primarily draws on and engages with deliberative and agonistic democratic theories (e.g. Ruitenberg 2011a; Tryggvason and Öhman 2019; Englund 2016; Håkansson, Kronlid, and Östman 2019) and is often critical of the ideas of public choice democracy (e.g. Ruitenberg 2010; Biesta 2019). For instance, Biesta (2019) argues that our ‘impulse society’ encourages everyone to pursue their self-interests without question, with detrimental effects on democracy. He argues that education should promote capacities to question and resist this impulse society and the self-interested individuals that it reproduces.

Deliberative democracy – which in educational research is centered on developing the communicative capacities of students (Englund 2006, 2011, 2016) – is based on the notion that public reason, grounded in a specific ethos, should constitute the core of democratic politics. Through the influential work of Habermas (1990, 1995), the unity-disunity tension is approached through so-called communicative action. Communicative action entails deliberative processes that support articulations of different and conflicting interests and concerns, followed by the aspiration to reach consensus through the ‘better’ argument. These deliberative processes are founded on claims of universally valid procedural rules, which together constitute the discourse ethics for communicative action. Specifically, discourse ethics is comprised of five procedural requirements: (1) none of the effected parties should be excluded; (2) all should be equally entitled to criticize and present validity claims; (3) all must be willing and capable to empathize with the validity claims of the other participants; (4) power differences should be neutralized to enable consensus based on the better argument; and (5) each participant should transparently state their goals and intentions and abstain from strategic action (Habermas 1990; Habermas 1995). Strategic action resembles the instrumental, self-interested action advocated by public choice theorists. By implication, the tension between unity and disunity is problematized as a shortage of discourse ethics since, if not established, inclusive deliberative processes oriented toward consensus around the better argument are hampered. Importantly, the content of deliberation is viewed as context-specific. It is only the procedural rules that are understood as universal. Proponents of deliberative democracy also recognize that the ideal speech situation of communicative action is difficult to attain in practice (see Cunningham 2002).

Scholars of agonistic democracy, such as Mouffe (1995, 1999, 2005) and Connolly (1995), argue that nurturing and sustaining democratic pluralism, and thus fruitfully approaching the unity-disunity tension, entails two things. First, reflecting its post-foundational assumptions (see Wingenbach 2011), it is stressed that all foundational claims are expressions of particular hegemonic projects. The impossibility of a universally valid foundation or final ground, means that conflicts are unavoidable. Accordingly, peaceful political contestation between diverse publics should be promoted. As Mouffe (1999, 755) puts it:

[w]hat is at stake is how to establish the us/them discrimination in a way that is compatible with pluralist democracy. In the realm of politics, this presupposes that the ‘other’ is no longer seen as an enemy to be destroyed, but as an ‘adversary’, i.e. somebody with whose ideas we are going to struggle but whose right to defend those ideas we will not put into question.

Mouffe (1999) presumes that such adversary relations can be cultivated through contestation over the meaning of widely shared ethico-political principles, such as ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’ in liberal-democratic regimes. Since these are open to multiple and conflicting interpretations, she argues that they can nourish ‘conflictual consensus’ between adversaries. Peaceful contestation is also stressed by Connolly (1995). He argues for promoting an ethos, which, as he recognizes, is itself a hegemonic project that entails openness to challenge one’s own foundational ideas and resisting the impulse of categorizing difference as dangerous and threatening ‘otherness’.

Second, democratic pluralism is cultivated through continuous exploration and contestation of the diverse exclusions and harms produced by hegemonic formations of power, for instance as a result of norms oppressing certain identities and sustaining various forms of inequity. For example, the ethos that Connolly (1995) advocates includes a commitment to support the emergence and flourishing of multiple constituencies by embracing contingency and ambiguity, encouraging difference to transpire, and challenging the stabilization of hegemonic formations.

Taken together, agonistic democracy problematizes the tension between unity and disunity as an insufficient facilitation of peaceful contestation. Ideas of how agonistic democracy can be exercised in educational contexts are developed by scholars such as Ruitenberg (2009, 2010, 2011b) and Tryggvason (2018, 2019).

Problematizations of the unity-disunity tension in guides to practice

This section presents the problematizations of the tension between unity and disunity that are implied by the prescriptions in the CCE guides. These problematizations reflect those of public choice democracy, deliberative democracy and agonistic democracy.

A problematization reflecting public choice democracy

This problematization is only represented once; namely, in the learning activity: ‘International Ideas’ (FAO 2015, 125). Moreover, it is merely represented through an example of what this learning activity could entail in practice. Namely, students are assigned to talk to a friend living in another country about green habits to enable country comparisons of such habits. The assignment includes an example of a green habit that mirrors the assumption of homo economicus; namely, that pursuits of self-interest in combination with the market-logic stimulate innovative win-win scenarios: ‘[…] in Pakistan some people go from house to house buying people’s old newspapers, which they then sell to shopkeepers who make paper bags out of them – a recycling scheme where everyone wins’ (FAO 2015, 125).

This example depicts how sustainability is promoted through a market-exchange scenario in which all parties pursue their self-interest. Accordingly, it reflects the logic of the public choice problematization of the unity-disunity tension, which constitutes unity as cooperation through the win-win scenarios of market exchange and disunity in terms of individual preferences. Hence, the problem of cultivating unity and disunity is represented as insufficient education of how self-interest, through market exchange, can promote sustainable win-win scenarios.

A problematization reflecting deliberative democracy

This problematization is represented in guides prescribing education for rational argumentation aimed at promoting consensus around the better argument (see Table 1). Among these are both more inspirational guides (Cade and Bowden 2011; Gibb 2016) and those with instructions for lesson plans and learning activities (Selby and Kagawa 2013; weADAPT 2018; World’s Largest Lesson n.d.-b, a).

The inspirational resource guide, Youthxchange – Climate Change and Lifestyles Guidebook, for instance emphasizes:

Skills such as comparing evidence, listening to different perspectives, understanding connections and making judgements are essential for young people to make informed choices, reach consensus, and collaborate with others to make lifestyles more sustainable (Cade and Bowden 2011, 8).

Several aspects of Habermas discourse ethics are reflected in this passage. The emphasis to listen to different perspectives reflects the procedural requirement of discourse ethics to empathize with others’ validity claims, and thereby expresses a recognition of disunity. Conversely, the focus on unity emerges through the stress on skills to compare evidence and reach consensus, which also echoes the Habermasian discourse ethics.

Instructions for a number of lesson plans represent the deliberative problematization of the unity-disunity tension as well (see Table 1). One example is the first two parts of the lesson plan ‘Sustainable Development and Climate Change Collages’. The first part reflects both the unity and disunity aspect of communicative action. The teacher is instructed to divide up the class into groups of four. Each student should then write down four statements completing the sentence: ‘Sustainable development is…’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 315 (8)). Subsequently, each group should make a collage based of its 16 statements, mirroring the deliberative stress on recognizing different perspectives and ideas. This should be followed by a discussion of these statements, based on which ‘[t]hey should also agree on and write down a one-sentence summary definition of “sustainable development”’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 315 (8)). The latter mirrors the unity aspect of communicative action; namely, the aspiration to reach consensus.

The second part of the lesson focuses on cultivating students’ openness to reevaluate their understanding when confronted with other, potentially better, arguments. This exercise takes place after the student groups have received feedback from their classmates and have listened to statements from the teacher that represent alternative perspectives on sustainable development. The students are then asked

[…] to reconsider their collage in the light of the statements and in response to feedback [from the class] to their Stage 1 presentation. They should add new ideas and insights they had previously overlooked, pasting in any of the statements that they wish and adding comments (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 315 (8)).

The instructions of this lesson plan thus focus on fostering empathy towards others’ validity claims, reconsideration of students’ understanding in light of others’ arguments and inclusion of all legitimate voices. Accordingly, they mirror the disunity aspect of discourse ethics through the stress to recognize and deliberate on different ideas, but also the unity aspect through the consensus-orientation.

Another example is from the lesson ‘Listen Up! Exploring a Child’s Right to be Heard and Taken Seriously’ (World’s Largest Lesson n.d.-b). It includes instructions for the teacher to facilitate conversations in which the students should learn the meaning of being active listeners to others’ perspectives and viewpoints. The students should then organize an event with the aspiration to reach consensus on a community-based climate action:

The aim of the event is for students to participate in a positive and productive discussion about climate change, where students can make their thoughts and feelings heard and agree together with adults on a positive climate action for their community (World’s Largest Lesson n.d.-b, 5).

This dual emphasis on encouraging articulation of different perspectives along with the ambition of reaching consensus on a climate action mirrors the Habermasian approach to the unity-disunity tension.

In sum, the guides described in this section represent the problem of promoting unity and disunity as insufficient education of discourse ethics that enables students with different perspectives and ideas to reach agreements on definitions and actions based on the ‘better’ argument.

A problematization reflecting agonistic democracy

This problematization is represented through instructions in lesson plans and guides with more inspirational content (see Table 1). Starting with the latter, there are a few proposals that mirror the agonistic-democratic stress to nurture disunity by exploring and challenging the limits of current forms of hegemony. This includes consumer culture, as detailed in a guide to education for sustainable consumption (ESC):

It [ESC] provides a chance to reconsider such central questions as the meaning of life, the value of material and non-material prosperity, and the significance of service to one’s fellow human. It also opens for reflection the positive and negative aspects of accepted economic and social systems (Thoresen 2010, 26).

ESC should thus be used to facilitate critique of core ideas linked to unsustainable consumption, which mirrors the agonistic-democratic emphasis to explore and challenge the limits of hegemonies. Furthermore, Thoresen’s (2010) suggestion to facilitate contestation over the meaning of widely embraced concepts, such as ‘prosperity’, reflects the logic of Mouffe’s (1999) argument to cultivate adversary relations by establishing conflictual consensus, as a form of unity, around shared ethico-political principles.

Concerning lesson plans, ‘Climate Change Mitigation Continuums’ provides an example reflecting how the agonistic-democratic emphasis on exploring and challenging hegemonic formations, and thereby promoting disunity, could be facilitated through CCE. One learning objective entails recognition that’ […] mitigating climate change by addressing fundamental driving forces calls for a transformation in assumptions, expectations, lifestyles and dominant world view’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 366 (4)). Accordingly, there are instructions to facilitate discussions and debates on different climate change mitigation strategies along with discussions of how they could be promoted. These include ‘deep mitigation strategies’ that address fundamental driving forces. An example of these strategies, which reflects ideas of a counter-hegemony, is to ‘[r]educe, halt or reverse the economic growth model in favour of a ‘steady-state’ economy […]’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 374 (12)). Moreover, reflecting the agonistic notion of conflictual consensus, the teacher is instructed to facilitate a discussion and debate over these and other strategies based on specific criteria (Selby and Kagawa 2013). The use of these criteria, such as ‘justice’ and ‘effectiveness’, mirrors the logic of the agonistic prescription to establish conflictual consensus over ethico-political principles to foster adversary relations (Selby and Kagawa 2013, 366 (4)).

In sum, the guides described in this section represent the problem of promoting unity and disunity in CCE processes as insufficient education of how the limits of current hegemonies can be explored and challenged through peaceful contestation.

Possibilities and limitations of the problematizations

As demonstrated, there are CCE guides representing problematizations of the unity-disunity tension reflecting those of public choice democracy, deliberative democracy and agonistic democracy. However, while several guides problematization of the unity-disunity tension mirrors deliberative democracy, those resembling the problematizations of agonistic and public choice democracy are less frequent, especially the latter. In this section, I discuss the possibilities and limitations that these problematizations constitute for pluralistic ESD.

The problematization reflecting public choice democracy

It is noteworthy that this problematization only occurs once in the CCE guides, especially if one considers that research has shown that the neoliberal market logic dominates other aspects of ESD (Huckle and Wals 2015; Kopnina 2016; Kopnina and Cherniak 2016) and other fields of environmental and sustainability (ES) policy (e.g. Bell 2015; Lockie 2013; Raworth 2017). Importantly, the near absence of this problematization could be viewed as problematic for at least two reasons. First, in the spirit of pluralism, it is one legitimate contender in the democratic struggle over foundations on which to base democratic processes in CCE and, more broadly, ESD. Second, since the market logic dominates much of both ESD and environmental and sustainability policy, CCE should provide opportunities for students to explore the possibilities and limitations of democratic processes that represent this problematization. Perhaps paradoxically, this could promote the emancipatory purpose of education that Biesta (2013) discusses in terms of subjectification, since it enables a critical understanding of the market foundation for democratic politics. Hence, I suggest that it is warranted to develop CCE guides designed to explore the possibilities and limits of pluralistic ESD produced through the public choice problematization.

What then are the possibilities and limits that this problematization constitute? To start with, it constitutes homo economicus as the sustainable citizen, and the market as the model for democratic politics and sustainable development. Through ‘green markets’ (Lockie 2013; Mol, Spaargaren, and Sonnenfeld 2014), the presumption is that individuals will generate sustainable innovations as a side-effect of their selfish pursuits. Accordingly, sustainable actions, as a form of unity, and a plurality of individual preferences, as a form of disunity, should emerge. Considering these things, this problematization constitutes the following possibilities and limitations for solving the challenges of pluralistic ESD.

First, the described assumptions in combination with the notion to refrain from public interference with individual preferences and values (Cunningham 2002; Foucault 2008) offer a way to solve the challenge to facilitate education of sustainable actions without prescribing predetermined actions. The teacher could for instance facilitate competitions that appeal to students’ self-interest in order to trigger innovative ideas on how they can act more sustainably – ideas such as that of the win-win scenario described in FAO (2015, 125). This would not require an ESD that prescribes predetermined actions. However, such democratic processes in ESD would be limited to win-win scenarios driven by self-interested market actors, which is a heavily contested way to promote sustainability (Raworth 2017; Carter 2018).

Second, since this problematization is underpinned by the assumption that shared public interests are non-existent, besides those produced from mutually beneficial market-like exchanges (Buchanan and Tullock 1962; Cunningham 2002), the existence of universally shared ‘ethical’ ideals and values is simply denied. Hence, the tension between cultivating universal values and autonomous citizens would be solved by simply dismissing the idea of fostering universally shared values. As mentioned, the dismissal of fostering shared values is, however, contested from the positions of other democratic theories (as further discussed below).

Third, the notion of public non-interference in the formation of individual preferences and values implies that hegemonic notions of sustainable development and sustainability are not a cause for concern from this perspective, as long as citizens are free to pursue their self-interests on arenas modeled on the market. If so, the assumptions underpinning this problematization entail that market-mechanisms would result in innovations eventually leading to sustainability. However, the critique of the market- and innovation-driven approach to sustainable development and sustainability is extensive and provide several openings to explore its limits. For instance, some research suggests that the market assumptions, on which this problematization is based, are forces that both undermine Earth’s carrying capacity and exacerbate inequalities (Raworth 2017; Bell 2015). Examples of inequalities presumed to be reproduced through these market assumptions are ecologically unequal exchanges (Jorgenson and Givens 2013; Hornborg 2015) and the unsustainable privileges of the wealthy high-emitting minority of the world’s population (Shue 2019, 2018; Schlosberg 2019; Holland 2008, 2015). Additionally, there are difficulties to commodify, and thereby incorporate, environmental and other sustainability values on markets (Lockie 2013; Boström and Klintman 2013). Moreover, from ecocentric perspectives, the market-oriented assumptions reproduce anthropocentric human-nature relations that legitimize unsustainable and unjust exploitation of non-human life (Kopnina 2016; Kopnina and Cherniak 2016). These critiques point to some ways in which the limitations of the market-logic, as a basis for sustainable development and democracy, can be explored in CCE and other forms of ESD.

The problematization reflecting deliberative democracy

As demonstrated, this problematization is the most frequent in the CCE guides and constructs human nature as more dynamic than the public choice problematization. Namely, humans are presumed to have capacities to become ethical citizens. Reflecting Habermas (1995, 1990) and educational research drawing on his ideas (Englund 2006, 2011, 2016), the CCE guides representing this problematization are underpinned by the assumption that the unity-disunity tension should be approached through education nurturing a procedural ethos. Mirroring the discourse ethics of communicative action, the importance of recognizing and understanding difference and disunity is emphasized, along with the notion that unity can be reached in the form of consensus around the ‘better’ argument. Considering these things, this problematization creates particular possibilities and limitations for solving the challenges of pluralistic ESD.

First, it creates possibilities for solving the challenge of facilitating education for sustainable ways of acting, without prescribing predetermined actions, within the auspices of rational deliberation. By encouraging and cultivating students’ capabilities to voice their concerns, interests and ideas, attentively listen to those of others, reevaluate their ideas etc., the assumption is that different ideas on how to act can come to the fore followed by consensus on actions based on the ‘better’ argument. This assumption is reflected in the lesson ‘Listen Up! Exploring a Child’s Right to be Heard and Taken Seriously’ (World’s Largest Lesson n.d.-b) through its focus on promoting articulation and deliberation of conflicting viewpoints as well as agreement on a preferred climate action. As such, it reflects education research on deliberative democracy that suggests that ‘[…] the presence of different views, in some form or another, respect for the concrete other, and the element of collective will-formation are basic components of deliberative communication’ (Englund 2006, 513f).

Nevertheless, this CCE guide, and others that represent this problematization, could benefit from further refinement of how potential failures to reach consensus can be understood and approached, as discussed in education research based on the deliberative perspective. For instance, Englund (2016) stresses that consensus is not always possible to reach and is not the only acceptable outcome of a deliberative process, although it is the ideal. He argues that a better apprehension of the causes of disagreement and a mutual understanding of each other’s’ viewpoints are also important outcomes.

Even if the guides were developed in this way, additional limitations nevertheless emerge when this problematization is viewed from the positions of the other problematizations. For instance, from the position the agonistic problematization, the deliberative solution to this challenge is limited to situations in which consensus can be reached, which then also implies that a provisional hegemony is temporarily stabilized and difference subjugated. In education, such subjugation is illustrated empirically by Håkansson and Östman (2019). Moreover, the presumption that political differences can be solved by procedural ethics and, accordingly, ethical citizens, is considered to be flawed from the positions of both public choice and agonistic democracy.

Concerning the second challenge, the tension between ‘universal’ ethical ideals associated with ESD and the notion of the autonomous free citizen, this problematization creates a possibility for students to articulate different interpretations and aspire to reach consensus on the meaning of ‘universal’ ethical ideals in a particular context. This possibility can be apprehended in the instructions ‘Sustainable Development and Climate Change Collages’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013), which stress that students’ different interpretations of sustainable development should be articulated, followed by rational deliberations to reach agreement on the ‘best’ definition. However, this CCE guide could benefit from instructions that emphasize that consensus on a definition is context-dependent, as stressed by Kioupi and Voulvoulis (2019). Finally, from the position of the other problematizations, the consensus-orientation and ethical assumptions of this problematization entail that it produces the same limitations discussed in relation to the first challenge. From an agonistic position, consensus for instance implies that counter-hegemonic ideas are silenced.

The third challenge, to reduce the limits of current hegemonies, is largely silenced by the CCE guides that represent the deliberative problematization. Since they constitute a consensus-orientation, for instance on definitions of sustainable development, effective climte change adaptation (Selby and Kagawa 2013) and climate actions generally (World’s Largest Lesson n.d.-b), they create few opportunities to challenge the limits of current hegemonies. Even from the perspective of deliberative education scholars, such as Englund (2016), the lack of instructions on how educators can act when consensus is not reached could be viewed as problematic. Perhaps, such addition to the guides could shift the focus towards attempts at rational comprehension of counter-hegemonic ideas. However, such additions would not erase all limitations that this problematization create in relation to this challenge. From the position of the agonistic problematization, the consensus-orientation that nevertheless is the primary goal of communicative action, including Englund’s educational applications of it, tends to reproduce hegemonies. As Mouffe (1999, 756) puts it, consensus ‘[…] exists as a temporary result of a provisional hegemony, as a stabilization of power and that always entails some form of exclusion […].’ Moreover, as shown in education research, these forms of exclusion could result in unspoken disagreements (Håkansson and Östman 2019). Hence, although there is room to improve the CCE guides’ potential to address this challenge, this problematization would still produce significant limitations.

The problematization reflecting agonistic democracy

As shown in the analysis, this problematization is made in a few CCE guides. The agonistic problematization, reflected in these guides, constitutes politics as inescapably conflictual and the citizen as a political subject in Mouffe’s sense of ‘the political’ (Mouffe 2005). One example of this is Thoresen’s (2010) suggestion that educators should approach central concepts, such as prosperity, from a sustainable consumption perspective to enable conflicting interpretations of them. Another is the instructions to facilitate discussions on different mitigation strategies based on criteria such as ‘justice’, as in the lesson ‘Climate Change Mitigation Continuums’. As argued, this reflects the logic of promoting conflictual consensus around shared ethico-political principles. So, what are the possibilities and limitations of this problematization concerning the three challenges of pluralistic ESD?

First of all, as it emerges in the CCE guides, it offers few possibilities for solving the challenge of facilitating education of sustainable ways of acting without prescribing predetermined actions. For instance, the lesson plan ‘Climate Change Mitigation Continuums’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013) includes instructions to invite students to debate and discuss incompatible and conflicting mitigation strategies, but is silent about how a democratic decision on a climate action can be reached in the absence of agreement. This limitation resonates with the critique that agonistic democracy only focuses on collective decisions in terms of how these can be opened to further contestation (Dryzek 2006). There is, however, educational research on agonistic democracy that emphasizes the importance of closure. Insights from this research could be used to develop these (and other) CCE guides. Namely, Tryggvason (2019) suggests that the teacher can end a discussion with a recapitulation of the viewpoints that emerged from it and a clarification of the viewpoint that became hegemonic. If CCE guides are developed to include this way of thinking, it would be possible to reach decisions on a climate action in the class while also stressing that it is based on a hegemonic formation rather than rational consensus.

Regarding the second challenge, these CCE guides provide opportunities to solve the tension between ‘universal’ sustainability values and autonomy in ways that partially reflect those constituted through CCE guides that represent the deliberative problematization. However, a central difference is that the former lacks the aspiration to reach consensus on one interpretation. That is, they provide the opportunity of using criteria such as ‘justice’, as in ‘Climate Change Mitigation Continuums’ (Selby and Kagawa 2013) and ‘prosperity’ (Thoresen 2010) in a way reflecting the logic of facilitating conflictual consensus over shared ethico-political principles (Mouffe 1999). In doing so, these guides mirror proposals made in Sund and Öhman (2014) who, partially based on Mouffe’s ideas, suggest that ESD should facilitate contestation over the particular meanings of ‘universal’ sustainability values. From the position of the deliberative problematization, the guides nevertheless lack a focus on reaching closure and, thus, a decision. This limitation could, nevertheless, also be reduced if the guides were developed based on the suggestions of Tryggvason (2019).

Finally, since challenging the limitations and damaging implications of hegemonies is central to agonistic democracy (Mouffe 1995, 1999, 2005; Connolly 1995), it is expected that the CCE guides making this problematization provide such opportunities. They do this through instructions to, for instance, introduce what is clearly examples of counter-hegemonic climate mitigation strategies (Selby and Kagawa 2013). Considering the consensus-orientation that studies have observed in classroom conversations on issues pertaining to the environment and sustainability (Öhman and Öhman 2013; Andersson and Öhman 2017), it could be argued that CCE guides centered on challenging hegemonic climate mitigation strategies, notions of prosperity and the meaning of life etc. are important. But it should also be stressed that conflict-oriented pluralistic approaches can be difficult to employ in environmental and sustainability education (see Håkansson and Östman 2019). Furthermore, to better realize the potential of guides underpinned by this problematization, it would be beneficial to develop additional guides focused on other hegemonic formations, such as anthropocentrism (see Kopnina 2012, 2016; Kopnina and Cherniak 2016; Kopnina and Saari 2019; Payne 2010; Kopnina 2014).

Conclusions

The purpose of this study has been to examine the possibilities and limitations to solve the challenges of pluralistic ESD through different problematizations of the unity-disunity tension, as represented in teaching guides for CCE linked to the GAP. Based on the analysis, three main conclusions are made. These are of relevance to ESD research, policies and education practices locating democratic processes within ESD.

First, this study contributes to research on how democratic processes in ESD can be facilitated. It shows particular possibilities and limitations that different problematizations of the unity-disunity tension, represented in the CCE guides, constitute for solving the challenges of pluralistic ESD (cf. Tryggvason and Öhman 2019). Based on these findings, I suggest that many of the limits produced by each problematization could be visualized and constructively discussed if teachers facilitate, and are supported to facilitate, democratic processes that represent different problematizations. If so, teachers could promote an understanding the possibilities and limitations of different democratic approaches to issues such as climate change. This could, moreover, promote a meta-perspective on different democratic theories’ approaches to the unity-disunity tension and the implications for sustainable development. Such meta-perspective is perhaps particularly important these days since many democracies are characterized by divisive political polarization (Guan, Liu, and Yang 2021; Müller et al. 2017; Oberhauser, Krier, and Kusow 2019), which puts both democracy and sustainable development at risk.

Second, the study points to specific ways in which the CCE guides that represent each problematization can be developed. From a pluralistic perspective, it can also be argued that developers of teaching guides should particularly consider designing guides representing the problematizations of public choice and agonistic democracy.

Finally, since the analysis here is limited teaching guides for CCE in secondary education, a next step could, in addition to analyses of other CCE and ESD guides, be to carry out inquiries of actual ESD in which teachers facilitate a combination of different democratic processes, as suggested above.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my colleagues in the RISE project for useful and insightful comments on this text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, under a grant with the award number 217-34.

Notes on contributors

David Olsson

David Olsson holds a PhD in political science from Karlstad University, Sweden. He currently has a postdoctoral position at the Centre for Societal Risk Research at Karlstad University, within the project Societal Resilience in Sweden, funded by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency.

Notes

1 I use ESD as an umbrella term for ESD, environmental and sustainability education (ESE) and environmental education (EE).