Paper short abstract:

This paper gives insight into unexpected, but familiar epistemic practices of ESD in formal education and schooling in Northern Germany and problematizes the benefits and pitfalls when doing ethnographic research in this field.

Paper long abstract:

In Germany ESD for formal education and schooling is a vibrant topic: The responsible ministry initiates and coordinates the implementation, teacher educators model competencies and accompany offers from extracurricular providers, who design project days, workshops, and competition. However, critical voices point out that ESD is hardly possible in its current form. Existing ESD concepts for schools fit into the modern school as “institution of normalization” (Ball, Collet-Sabé 2021: 4). By this they contrast with transformative education as a process that is open to the future. As a result initiatives not only fail, but can even relativise their own motives and goals. (Budde/Blasse 2023) Against this background my paper engages with alternative educational programs that argue with bodies of knowledge from an all too familiar origin, this is ethnography.

My talk is based on ongoing research in educational programs offered to teachers in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany’s northernmost federal state. I will take my initial confusion and astonishment concerning the familiarity of epistemic practices, e.g. narrative research, in the field as a starting point to unravel the different strands of shared interest and stance. I will analyse friction that becomes visible because normativity drives ideas of education, the future and the environment when working with teachers outwith the standard curricula, but also forms fieldwork relations. In doing so I will consider the following question: What are the benefits and pitfalls of anthropological perspectives when it comes to unexpected but familiar approaches to sustainability education in the field?