Education “through” sustainable development in Swedish school-age educare – exploring how SAEC is responding to ESD in daily practices

ABSTRACT

This article aims to explore how extended education in Sweden, School-age educare (SAEC), is responding to education for sustainable development (ESD), since these two educational practices have not that often been combined nor related in research. The exploratory findings are based on a small-scale case study in one municipality; including three in-depth examples from practice. The results reveal different kind of activities in the centres visited, as well as different approaches to education for sustainable development within SAEC. The cases show activities related to traditional outdoor environmental education, to social justice and global issues, and also as meaning making through play-based activities. The results were further analysed in relation to core concepts within extended education as well as ESD, exploring the “missing link”, but also new possibilities of ESD when part of an extended educational practice. The main conclusion of the analyses is that SAEC activities related to ESD offers education through sustainable development by active participation in various forms and contexts, as also currently suggested in policy and by scholars. By explicitly focusing ESD in the educational context of Swedish school-age educare, a missing link in this area of research was pinpointed paving the way for further research, and increased awareness in practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Education for sustainable development
• school-age educare
• participation and meaning-making

Introduction

In times of urgent ecological, economical, and social crises, Agenda 2030 declares that education for sustainable development (ESD) should be the inner purpose of all education in a broad sense, i.e. not only as a matter of individual learning in classrooms (UNESCO, 2020). Furthermore, the traditional forms and contents of education should be re-thought (Bokova, 2015), and a new social contract for education is needed in order to meet the calls for sustainable transformations in society (UNESCO, 2021).

In Sweden, education in both primary and secondary schools includes not only compulsory classroom teaching but also extended education integrated into that of schools: Swedish school-age educare (SAEC). In 2011, SAEC became part of the common national curriculum which included a shift of focus from the traditional tasks of care and fostering democratic values to now also providing teaching in certain areas (Klerfelt, Haglund, Andersson, & Kane, 2020). In short, according to the curriculum SAEC should complement the teaching methods found in classrooms with more creative learning methods, but still also provide care and activities by choice i.e. meaningful activities (Education Act, 2010:800). SAEC should also compensate for students’ various needs and socio-economic background, i.e. emphasise a social educational purpose (Läroplan för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet [Lgr 22], 2022).

Education for sustainable development is included in Swedish national curricula and thus also part of the mandatory educational task of SAEC. There is although a lack of studies on ESD in SAEC as a specific educational context, in comparison to both preschool and primary school, despite the urge for more informal and participatory teaching approaches in ESD (Sterling, 2001). The experience within SAEC as an extended educational practice seems not to have been considered explicitly in the calls for scaling up the work with ESD in general, even though SAEC could be a vital source of knowledge in this matter; i.e. a missing link for ESD as a whole school approach (cf. Mogren, 2019) is here identified.

The study here presented is part of a municipality-based research project focusing on the implementation and evaluation of the ongoing work with education for sustainable development in schools and school-age educare centres. The first survey-based study within this project showed that SAEC teachers in general had less knowledge about how to frame and carry out ESD in the centres, and also a greater need for organisational support, than teachers in schools. Despite the described insecurities among SAEC teachers, there were no doubts that sustainability issues were regarded as important, even though not explicitly considered as part of SAEC teaching practices (Manni & Knekta, 2022). One conclusion drawn from those results is that aspects of sustainability are somewhat unconscious and implicit in SAEC. Teachers do not seem to communicate their work in ESD terms, but perhaps instead through more established extended educational concepts, which might cause ESD becoming invisible in SAEC practices, and thereby a neglected potential for ESD at large.

Aim and research questions

Since there seems to be a missing link in understanding how school-age educare are framing ESD and contributing to sustainability education, in practice as well as in research, this article aims to explore and analyse how issues related to ESD are put into practice in three different cases within Swedish school-age educare, and that this work might open up for further work in this area.

The specific research questions are:

- In what ways do Swedish school-age educare centres work with education for sustainable development in practice?

- How can activities in Swedish school-age educare practices be defined in relation to the contemporary framing of ESD as well as SAEC, i.e. what is the link between these two fields and practices?

Background and previous research

In the search of literature and previous research explicitly combining ESD and extended education, the absence of such studies becomes obvious (at least using the established terminology of the two fields and practices). This background section thus presents the two areas of focus separately, starting with school-age educare followed by education for sustainable development.

Swedish school-age educare – curricula and context

Swedish school-age educare stems from early practices of childcare, which were developed to offer children meaningful activities in their spare time after school. Traditions of practical-didactic approaches and activities, such as creative artwork, sports and outdoor activities, with the intention of offering new and meaningful experiences, are thus strong within Swedish SAEC (Klerfelt, Haglund, Andersson, & Kane, 2020). Regarding outdoor teaching and learning, the after-school activities traditionally tend to focus more on creativity and social meaning-making (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018) instead of supporting curricular learning, which could also be the case in the experiential-based field of outdoor teaching and learning in general. Many outdoor practices emphasise adventures, the simple life at a campfire, and dwelling in nature for restorative reasons (cf. Quay, Seaman, Quay, & Seaman, 2013).

Swedish SAEC has been included in the compulsory school system and the national curriculum since 2011, and since 2016 it has had its own section in the common curriculum (Lgr22, 2022), and in the Education Act chapter 14 (SFS, 2010, p. 800). This has changed the premises and status of SAEC, and has also uncovered differences in how to understand the purpose and task in practice (Skolverket, 2018). The definition in itself, school-age educare, highlights the dual task of education and care, but this is also where the disagreements lie. In particular, has the integration with school led to an unwanted “schoolification” of SAEC in preference to meaning-making and free play? With its background in an educational tradition of informal and social learning, school-age educare is nowadays being challenged to re-form and for its teachers to identify themselves and their practice within the formal schooling system, with a common teacher education at university level, and a common curriculum (Ackesjö, Nordänger, & Lindqvist, 2016; Andersson, 2013; Hjalmarsson, 2019). Haglund (2004) defines the possible positions within this search as the school follower, the care-giver or the integrating re-newer. From the descriptions in the curriculum, the task of SAEC is to contribute to a democratic society and establish respect for human rights, but also to provide care and meaningful activities from a holistic perspective in relation to the child and the methods of teaching and learning (Lgr22, 2022). In addition to (or perhaps alongside) the new educational structures for teachers in SAEC, Lager (2020) presents a contextual framework for describing institutional spaces in SAEC. Through a socio-material perspective she identifies three different types of spaces: the abandoned space, the activity space and the community space. One interpretation of these different spaces relates to the overall change in SAEC described above, and how the understandings of the new tasks but also organisational structures are applied in practice. The SAEC centres identified as community space “contains a context for children to be involved in societal arrangement, democratic processes, to grow as persons and prepare for life outside institutions” (p. 34), and is suggested as an approach in favour of the other types of SAEC in order to assure the purpose of both complementing school and compensating differences (Lgr22, 2022). Yet another aspect of the function of SAEC centres as the inclusive and societal, implicating that SAEC could be an extra important arena for children in socio-economic disregarded areas and thereby also for the society itself (Ackesjö & Haglund, 2022).

Education for sustainable development in Swedish schools

The content of sustainable development is commonly described as including ecological, economic and social issues in an integrated way. Teaching for sustainability can thus involve areas such as climate change, consumption and poverty, but primarily if, and if so how, these areas might relate to and affect each other.¹ Previous studies have shown that classroom teachers describe challenges in teaching interdisciplinary issues within school structures that support single-subject issues, and also that these are not easily assessed within subject-specific goals (cf. Bursjöö, 2015). Even though, students seem to appreciate informal teaching methods outside the classroom more than formal ones in relation to ESD issues, which was also shown in a project involving field-studies and meeting local stakeholders (Manni, 2018). In interdisciplinary and informal educational contexts, such as in school-age educare, issues of sustainability are easier to adapt for both teachers and pupils as shown in the example from teaching in forest gardens (Hammarsten, 2020).

Another aspect of sustainability is that it deals with both local and global aspects of the issues in focus. In the traditional forms of environmental education in schools, the local nature of issues was often the focus, while now in ESD this has been extended to also include a global perspective. This shift has further strengthened the ethical aspects of ESD, such as climate justice, but also our understanding of the relations between all areas of sustainability (Sund, 2016). Furthermore, the global call for ESD extends beyond ordinary educational goals, such as improved literacy. Instead, this is a value-laden call for a common striving towards a common sustainable future where all aspects of learning are included. This is simultaneously both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge to existing forms of educational structures in terms of subject areas, but a possibility for a new holistic approach on education (Bokova, 2015; Mogren, Gericke, & Scherp, 2019). The possibilities within the deepened (and broadened) concept of ESD also open up space for discussing learning as meaning-making, and contributing to action-competence on sustainability in a transformative way (Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid, & McGarry, 2015), or as Sterling (2001) puts it: a shift from learning about or for sustainability, but as (or through) taking part in a sustainable practice.

Core educational concepts within SAEC

Within the field of Swedish school-age educare, Klerfelt and Ljusberg (2018) describe, and elicit, some core concepts that they argue define the character and framings of the SAEC practice: complement, compensate, meaning-making, play, and life-affirming attitude and attention. Added to these concepts from 2018 are also teaching, due to the new guidelines in the National curricula (Lgr22, 2022). Below follow a short summary of the concepts and how they are described:

Teaching

this has been one of the most debated concepts in the curriculum, since it indicates a vital shift in the mandatory tasks for school-age educare, from care to education (Norqvist, 2022). It has been problematised in relation to a fear of “schoolification”, but nowadays, teaching is an inevitable concept that must be handled in SAEC as a common definition for all activities in the Swedish national curriculum.

Complement

This curricular concept is defined and understood in relation to classroom teaching; SAEC should complement the forms of teaching in school with other methods that support more informal learning approaches.

Compensate

This concept is based on the value that SAEC should help all children to develop and achieve their maximum potential. It is mainly about compensating for different living conditions and social contexts, but also meeting individual needs for support. This concept is not unproblematic due to the risk of viewing differences as challenges rather than opportunities. This complexity is not met in the curriculum text but is problematised by Klerfelt and Ljusberg (2018).

Meaning-making

This concept is associated with the core of SAEC approach. It is theoretical in the sense that it enables a different understanding of learning and education, broader than the formal one. It emphasises how the learner makes deeper meaning from content and a situation within a holistic process (Biesta, 2006; Dewey, 1934). The concept involves a view of SAEC as a place where children should be able to create meaning from their everyday experiences of life (cf. Orwehag & Nyckel, 2020).

Play

Is also a somewhat complex concept because there are different notions and uses of play. The main complicating question is whether play is seen as a tool or method for learning (instrumental value), or whether it has value in itself, such as in children’s free play (intrinsic value). Play, as a common term used for both of these functions, is central in the curriculum for SAEC, and seen as an important part of children’s lives and development (Kane, 2015), as well as a potential of emotional experiencing and making space for creative imagination of what could be (Kane, Ljusberg, & Larsson, 2013).

Life-affirming attitude and attention

These are rather new concepts that Klerfelt and Ljusberg (2018) put forward as the SAEC spirit. These concepts include notions of love, relationships and a participatory approach to involve children in daily practice, but also in society and the world. Primarily, the authors want to extend the traditional concepts and add those that include joy and happiness as a new dimension in contemporary discussions about SAEC.

The character of Swedish school-age educare as described in the concepts above, indicate a child-centred approach of care but without explicitly mentioning any concepts related to education for sustainability. Although both SAEC and ESD emphasise democracy, social justice, and individual meaning-making as vital aspects of education, these fields seem not to have communicated upon their similarities in the past, neither in practice nor in the literature.

Educational policy, theoretical perspectives, and the missing link

In the limelight of the calls for re-thinking education for sustainable development as a new social contract (Bokova, 2015; UNESCO, 2021), and not only for individual benefits, one might turn to educational policy and theories for a new point of view when exploring how ESD and SAEC align, and why there seems to be a missing link between these two fields.

First, educational policy on ESD as well as SAEC share values and intentions, but in parallel structures and organisations. The subject of education in general, both formal and informal, has been critically discussed over the past few years, with concerns about the increased “learnification” of education. Biesta, among others, argues that education has become more static and focused on learners’ individual outcomes, acting as a form of control in a neoliberal society instead of (what is argued more important) involving democratic processes of meaning-making for the individual and the collective community (Biesta, 2006). This line of argument is seen both in the UNESCO (2022) document on ESD, and in research on extended education (cf. Lager, 2020). This fear of neoliberal influences might have kept SAEC apart from questions of ESD, if those are understood to belong to formal education and thereby something to avoid.

Nevertheless, an increased emphasis on informal educational approaches is also currently seen in traditional teaching contexts; the conference theme at the Nordic conference on subject education, (NOFA9, May 2023) was: Education, Knowledge and Bildung in a global world.² This indicates a (re-)increased focus, now also beyond the field of ESD, on education as social, not only individual, and the need to engage students in practical work, discuss the purpose of use of knowledge, and emphasise ethical aspects of teaching and learning. This is similar to how Bokova (2015) and Lotz-Sisitka (2017) argues on ESD: a holistic educational approach beyond numeracy and literacy aiming for the common good.

In this vein, one might view and understand education as a risk-taking activity, since the outcome of teaching is not predefined, but rather open. This is also something that could be said about SAEC as an informal educational practice without individual assessment goals to reach. Biesta (2013) argues that this is “the beautiful risk of education” and the true nature of learning as open-minded, transformative and an issue to be reconsidered at a time when the measurement of pre-decided knowledge has increased (Biesta, 2009). Likewise do scholars within ESD argue that this is an era when new thinking and sustainable transformation is needed, since the old ways might have caused the troublesome situation we are now facing (Johnston, 2009; Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid, & McGarry, 2015).

When looking at the educational policy of ESD and educational theoretical approaches emphasising teaching and learning as something “more” than individual knowledge, one might wonder why there is a gap or missing link between SAEC and ESD since there are so many similarities. One answer could lie in the academic and educational structures; as they organise fields and practices by subject, or by separate formal curricula. This background research has although pin-pointed some possible aspects that could link SAEC and ESD; participation, meaning-making, and social engagement. Even though this conclusion in theory the question remains; how are issues of sustainability framed and put into practice in SAEC? That is what this study will try to examine.

Methods and methodological approach

The study presented here is part of an ongoing municipal school development project focusing on ESD. Based on a case study methodology (Flyvbjerg, 2011), several sources of data are sampled and used with the aim of achieving a comprehensive and qualitatively rich picture of the case for this small-scale and qualitative study.

Participants and data

Six teachers from three different SAEC centres participated in this study at the field visits and by taking part in interviews (see Table 1). The participants were all school-age educare staff within the municipality project underlying this study. They were chosen and asked to take part because they were identified on a general level as representing different ways of working with ESD in their SAEC centres. The identified differences regarded the structures and routines of their centres as well as their own descriptions of their work with sustainability issues. From this information, three different centres were chosen and asked to participate by inviting us to their practice, taking part in an interview and give a guided tour of their centre. Hence, an expedient selection of participants was made due to the character of the work we wanted to analyse more deeply (Denscombe, 2007).

Table 1. Participants.

School-age Educare centre	Participating teachers
A	T1
A	T2
B	T3
B	T4
C	T5
C	T6

One researcher and one photographer then visited each centre for one day each, when they reported that they would be working with ESD-related issues. We then documented the ongoing activities in multiple ways: with fieldnotes, photos, and with audio-recorded interviews with the teachers afterwards. The interviews were semi-structured, asking for contextual descriptions of their practice, how and why they had chosen to work with ESD as they did, and their opinions on student’s learning outcomes. The fieldnotes and photos aimed to document the different learning environments and the specific activities for further comprehensive analyses.

Analytical procedure

The data on the three examples from practice were in the first step put together to form a comprehensive story of each practice and to get a qualitative and contextualised in-depth picture of this case. In line with case study methodology, a presentation of the specific context is given due to the situated understanding of teaching and learning (Flyvbjerg, 2011). The main characters of the activities of each example were then summarised and described inductively.

In a second step of analysis the research questions guided a more in-depth investigation of the examples with help of the SAEC and ESD core concepts and theoretical perspectives: What sustainable content was in focus of the activities? What didactical approaches were used? and which educational concepts within SAEC and ESD were put forward? The data was in this second step analysed more thematically, compared between the cases, and were the concepts and theoretical perspectives helped to analyse the data even deeper in an abductive way (Biesta, 2010).

Ethical considerations

The teachers at the centres volunteered to take part after receiving both written and oral information, and gave their written consent. They were informed that their stories, photos and examples from practice would be displayed within the municipality project, and also in the research study. The project was approved in the ethical vetting, and research ethics were followed regarding information and consent to participate, and handling data and photographs with confidentiality and respect (Swedish Research Council, 2017).

Results and analysis

In his section examples from three different school-age educare centres are presented, in order to give an illustrative picture of different kind of ESD activities and their character. The results of an analyse of the examples in relation to type of sustainability content and approach, established SAEC concepts (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018; Lager, 2020), and Biesta’s (2020) theoretical educational concepts are also part of this result section.

Three examples of ESD activities in school-age educare practices

ESD as traditional outdoor environmental educational activities

The first example is from a school with an established profile and long history of working with ESD. There are plans for progressive work during each school year as well as different regular activities during each month of the school year. The school is located in a sub-urban area with lake and natural surroundings nearby, where the school facilities are shared between the school teacher and SAEC centre. The female teacher participating in the interview is an experienced school-age educare teacher with about 20 years in this practice, and has also worked with environmental education quite extensively. The other teacher participating in the activity acted as an assistant and did not take part in the interview.

The spring day when we visited the centre was said to be representative of a typical activity there. This particular afternoon, the group of two teachers and 20 children (7 years-old) took a walk to the nearby lake and, after playing a drama-game about air pollution together, they were offered three different activities to choose from. These were: bird-watching with binoculars, bird-bingo, and an ecology game with butterflies (see Figure 1). In the interview afterwards, the teacher explained that these outdoor activities are part of a theme at the SAEC centre that they call the “Green woodpeckers”. Within this theme, there is an ambition to teach pupils about nature, develop scouting skills such as making a fire, nurture respect for the environment, and include sustainability issues in general. Some of the described activities had a practical character, for example mending things that were broken or collecting litter in the nearby forest. “Yes, we created ‘The green woodpeckers’ as a way to gather our environmental work around a theme.” (T1) The teachers had a clear vision of the contribution they hoped these activities would make: “to increase the pupils’ knowledge about nature, but also to increase their engagement and action competence regarding the local environment and social sustainability.” (T1) The teachers thought that having experienced these activities has increased the pupils’ interest in animals and plants, and also helped to develop an awareness about respecting and taking care of nature. Furthermore, that they felt safer and were more self-confident about spending time in nature, as well as having grown as individuals and established new friends through the relational character of the activities.

Figure 1. Outdoor environmental activities.

Analysing this example in the first step shows how ESD is practiced as traditional outdoor environmental education, and is what Lager (2020) would call an activity space. The teacher-planned activities emphasise learning about sustainability, and to complement classroom teaching (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018) with physical experiences and play. Play could although in this example be understood as a tool to create interest and learning, but also to encourage relations with nature and peers, which is emphasised within outdoor education (Quay, Seaman, Quay, & Seaman, 2013).

ESD as a local-global, and social practice

The second example is from a school in an urban area, without a nearby area of nature. The school, has many pupils with a family background in countries other than Sweden, and some of them are newly arrived. The school does not have an explicit ESD profile or plan, instead the teachers put forward their intercultural work as a profile for the school. The two teachers participating (one male, T3, and one female, T4) are close to be retired and have many years of experience teaching, mainly in class. This is a school practice where the class in year 5 and SAEC centre work closely together to support the pupils (aged 11) in their care. They have two classrooms they can dispose in their integrated work.

The day in December when we visited this school’s SAEC centre was a preparation day before their annual second-hand bazar. This event started many years ago due to a personal contact with a school in Mozambique and a desire to help that school develop. The incomes from the second-hand event are thus given to charity in a country in greater need of help than this Swedish school: “Yes, we have contact with a school class there that we support with school material. They don’t get anything for free there, everything has to be paid for, so we send money that supports 20 school children.”(T3) This is not the only purpose of the second-hand event, however; it also has local and immediate benefits for the pupils and their families at the school. At this event, they are given the opportunity to buy items such as winter clothes and sports gear at reduced cost so that they can still get the equipment necessary for taking part in everyday life in this northern part of Sweden. During the annual work with the bazar, the teachers have realised that it is important for the families to buy what they need from the second-hand bazar instead of being given items for free. From an ethical point of view, it is vital to strengthen people’s self-esteem and notion of agency: “The first year we made a mistake and gave students winter clothes for free, but now we know better and by selling what families need here, we can also help children in Mozambique.”(T4) The work for the event includes preparations, such as organising the items to be sold and advertising the event (see Figure 2). During the event, the pupils are in charge of selling things, and after the event they have to add up the takings, distribute the money, and also contact the school in Mozambique. They share experiences and learn about each other and other countries through email, with help from a school assistant who speaks Portuguese.

Figure 2. The second-hand bazar.

In the interview, we learned that this is a co-operative activity with all the teachers on the staff: class teachers and SAEC teachers. Everyone is engaged in this annual project, which perhaps does not fit into any ordinary schoolwork but extends beyond the traditional school structure: “Yes, all of us are involved in this, I mean the whole team or personnel who work here at our school. because this is like, not just maths, it’s cross-cutting all subjects.” (T3) Finally, as well as engaging all the teachers, they describe how the bazar has become a space for meeting parents who perhaps would not have come to school otherwise.

Analysing this example in the first step shows another aspect of ESD; a social, and local-global one. One main SAEC character of these activities is of a compensating kind, sensitive to the needs of the pupils and their parents (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018), it is in other words what Lager (2020) would call a community space. The activities are also found to give the pupils possibilities to contextualised meaning-making beyond classroom teaching regarding life conditions in other countries, and in that sense also complementing the classroom teaching. Finally, the ethical aspect described by the teachers are analysed as an example from practice on how “life-affirming attitude and attention” (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018) could be a vital character of SAEC in an ESD activity.

ESD as a creative, participatory, and play-based practice

The third example is from a school with a new organisation of classes and SAEC centres, where a new team of colleagues gained access to several classrooms for their work. They were then in the position of starting anew and deciding how to organise their work at the centre. The two participating teachers are quite new at their work, the male teacher is recently graduated from university and has worked for 2 years (T5). The female teacher is educated in southern Europe, and has worked in Sweden for 5 years at SAEC (T6). The 30 pupils in their care are 6 years old.

As a combination of the school working with Agenda 2030 and an interest among the teachers to develop creative artwork and play with the children, they decided to create a room together with the children that would be an inspiring place to play and learn. The process of creating the “sustainability room” started with a focus on water, and so they made a waterfall and a pond with fish (see Figure 3). Besides the practical artwork, the children also learnt about the water-cycle and conducted experiments. Then they moved on and created a forest with trees and engaged the children in learning about the animals that lived there and talked about why trees are so important for the environment. In the process of creating this indoor environment, they also went out to the nearby forest to study “real” animals in order to learn about them and decide how to design their room. When they worked with physics, they built cars that were environmentally friendly and could be driven around the city part of their room. In this never-ending creative vein, the room is continuously being developed together with the children as more animals and plants are added, along with small cities and bridges over a river running from the pond, and “We’re also planning for a sustainable farm and to learn about farming and food production.” (T5) The interest in this “sustainable play-room” has spread to other classes that were invited to visit and play along. At one point, the teachers noticed that things had been broken, and the fish in the pond were scattered about. They then decided to take advantage of the situation and turn it into a moment of learning. They gathered the children and told them that there had been an environmental crisis in their milieu, caused by humans, and that the fish were gone. They then discussed what to do and how to solve the problem. The children decided that they should mend the broken pond, and create a river to bring new fresh water in, in order to get the fish back. But they also decided that it was not sustainable to allow fishing every day, only once or twice a week, in order to keep as many fish alive as possible. The teachers described how, through this process, the children learnt to see how everything in the room fits together and relates, just like in the real world. They have also found that the changing character of the work in this room keeps it interesting for the children. The goal is not to produce a result, but to maintain a creative and engaging process together with the children. “Well, we think the room is a basis for all the work we do, we involve creative artwork and play with content-focused themes such as ecology, literacy, maths and programming. We think that working in this holistic way increases children’s learning and engagement with the world around them.” (T6)

Figure 3. The sustainability room.

The first analysis of the third example reveals yet another approach to ESD in SAEC: a play-based one (Kane, Ljusberg, & Larsson, 2013), and it combines two types of SAEC centres; the activity space and the community space (Lager, 2020). This example is also similar to the findings in Lagers (2020) study concluding that space, and dedicated rooms are important for the practice and qualitative character of SAEC. Here the concept of meaning-making (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018) gets a new dimension, the children were not only learning about and for sustainable development, but “through” as participants in a novel, holistic and changing process (Sterling, 2001). In the same vein were the character of teaching different from traditional forms, since there were no final goals of achievement set, the goals were open for more and unknown knowledge along the way (Biesta, 2013).

Summarising the results of three examples of ESD in school-age educare practice show different contents and educational approaches; activities related to traditional outdoor environmental education, activities focusing local-global and social perspectives, and creative, participatory and play-based activities on complex sustainability issues. Besides the differences regarding sustainability content, and the teaching methods, all examples include elements of learning about sustainability issues, and also for, but most of all “as or through” activities in practice (Sterling, 2001). The latter is an important finding from this comparison of the similarity of the three examples on how issues of sustainability is put into practice in SAEC; education is carried out through participating in different activities.

Concluding discussion – education “through” sustainable development in Swedish school-age educare

Returning to stepping stone for this article: exploring how SAEC is responding to ESD, this section will conclude and discuss the results from this comparative case study more in depth. By using core concepts from extended education and ESD as well as some theoretical lenses to analyse the three examples, a more context-specific picture of what ESD in school-age educare could be becomes visible.

Previous research has shown problems in classroom teaching with interdisciplinary issues as ESD could be related to traditional school structures and subject-specific curricula. This could also indicate a limited cooperation between class teachers and SAEC teachers, since the possibilities for interdisciplinary teaching and learning are bigger in the informal setting of SAEC. Although, when SAEC complement classroom teaching (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018), and learn about important issues related to sustainability (Sterling, 2001), the educational purpose of ESD is interpreted as it aims to develop or support new knowledge for the individual (Biesta, 2006). Although and somewhat problematic, in the examples showing this approach, there were mainly teacher-led activities with clear definitions of goals to be achieved, in a similar vein as Lager (2020) has described. Furthermore, in these cases of learning about sustainability play was often used as a tool with certain rules to support teaching, not as an intrinsic activity based on children’s’ initiatives (Kane, 2015).

The results show that all dimensions of sustainability (ecologic, economic, and social) easily can be a topic in extended educational practices, and also that the interdisciplinary content of ESD is not a problem to handle in SAEC. Although the results show how SAEC complement classroom teaching through providing an interdisciplinary content of ESD, the complementary task of SAEC is described by the teachers to lie in the experience-based approach of learning outdoors, in practical and emotional experiences stemming from the creative work indoors, and in informal situations of reflective dialogue.

The second example, the bazar, highlights how a SAEC practice can compensate (Klerfelt & Ljusberg, 2018) for the different living conditions and socio-economic status encountered globally, and also among the students in the local practice by education through sustainable development. This example is interpreted as what UNESCO would call education as a new social contract (2021) and is also aiming for the common good (cf. Lotz-Sisitka, 2017). The example from the bazar also shows a new dimension of the compensating approach; as the teachers had struggled with the complexity of sustainable justice from an ethical point of view; how to compensate injustice and still preserve a notion of dignity? Compensating could include unequal aspects of power and value between the teachers and the students’ families, a matter that requires careful considerations. This example could also be communicated as a SAEC centre being a (sustainable) community space (cf. Lager, 2020) or to extend Ackesjö and Haglund (2022) notion of the pedagogical task of SAEC as a sustainable societal one. Furthermore, to some extent the teachers in the first example also argue that the outdoor activities are of a compensating kind, since not all children get to spend outdoor time with their families. Reflecting on this finding, a new extended aspect of the compensating task in SAEC when working with ESD is visualised, namely an ethical one (cf. Sund, 2016).

The perhaps most unexpected example of how ESD can be put into practice was the third case: “ESD as a creative, participatory, and play-based practice“. In this example a new and novel way of dealing with ESD was shown. By keeping the traditional characters of intrinsic play and meaning-making (Kane, 2015) the children could learn through active participation in the ESD activity, not only about or for (cf. Manni, 2018; Sterling, 2001). This approach also widens the learning experience to include emotions, co-operation, and creativity. Furthermore, all three cases contain elements of critical thinking and questioning, they reach beyond individual subject-specific learning and touch upon existential issues such as human relations with nature and each other. This is something previously emphasised by ESD scholars (McKenzie & Blenkinsop, 2006), but in an ordinary school context. In the example, they also deal with choices of action, in practice and in imaginary worlds, thus enriching sustainability learning for action-competence and transformation (Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid, & McGarry, 2015).

Returning to the previous study of this project showing that ESD was not explicitly related to the daily work in school-age educare centres (Manni & Knekta, 2022), this study has provided a new understanding of the case. Dipping beneath the surface and digging deeper into the three examples from practice, another picture emerges indicating new possibilities of student participation and meaning-making even in sustainability issues. Presenting the ESD examples from practice, and analysing them in relation to the established core concepts of school-age educare and ESD, could hopefully start bridging the missing link between ESD in SAEC.

The results could also be interesting for the research field of ESD since SAEC seems to have been a forgotten educational practice of possibilities for transformative sustainability learning (Lotz-Sisitka, Wals, Kronlid, and McGarry, 2015). This descriptive case study could also be valuable to the field of SAEC due to the lack of literature or research explicitly relating ESD to SAEC, but here in practice shown otherwise. Furthermore, uncovering the missing link might help school-age educare teachers to locate themselves in relation to ESD, but also to more explicitly discuss their role as potential part in ESD of a whole school organisation (Manni & Knekta, 2022; Mogren, Gericke, & Scherp, 2019) with other teachers. In relation to rethinking education from an individual focus to a new social and societal contract for education (UNESCO, 2021), a conclusion from this study is that school-age educare centres could lead the way for such transformations, which are needed in schools with traditional structures (cf. Johnston, 2009). The educational traditions and approaches of SAEC are well fitted to take this lead, but somewhat invisible in the current discussions.

Despite the many advantages of ESD in SAEC here discussed, Swedish school-age educare is also struggling to navigate the new curriculum, its part within the organisation of schools, and their very limited financial and practical resources, which could explain some of the disorientation within the work with ESD (Klerfelt, Haglund, Andersson, & Kane, 2020). Nevertheless, an increased internal understanding of this matter, together with the inclusion of SAEC in the research field of ESD, could be a possible way forward to close the current missing link and lift the invisibility (and possibilities) of this educational practice.

This article did not set out to identify a right answer about what ESD in SAEC should be, but rather to open up for further work, professional discussions, increased awareness of the different educational possibilities and purposes of SAEC, and perhaps a reframing of what ESD might be when re-thinking education for real as a new social contract (Bokova, 2015; UNESCO, 2021).

Acknowledgments

I want to thank and give credit to Matz Glantz and Hans Lindeborg, who took the photographs during the field visits for this study. Furthermore, thanks to all the teachers at school-age educare centres who participated with their stories and experiences of ESD.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Annika Manni

Annika Manni is an associate professor at the Department of Educational Science, Umeå University in Sweden. Her research interest focuses aspects of teaching and learning within environmental and sustainability education, in various learning environments and contexts. Her current research projects deals with implementation of ESD in schools and in school-age educare, as well as sustainable encounters at preschool playgrounds.

Notes

1. https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-sustainable-development/esd-for-2030

2. https://www.abo.fi/en/nofa9/