Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses how the concept of sustainable development is transformed to pedagogical practice in primary schools. What might the practice and challenges look like in today’s Swedish school? The analysis is based on some examples from actual tasks performed by student teachers.

Paper long abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate what it means to work with sustainable development within the context of the school. What do practices and challenges look like for sustainability education in today's Swedish schools? Whose responsibility is it to ensure that relevant knowledge about sustainability is taught to students? These questions are discussed based on a cultural analytical perspective based on a material that consists of actual tasks that student teachers have completed. The analytical discussion revolves, among other things, around how sustainability education tends to stay at a relatively superficial level, largely due to the pedagogical and benevolent idea of not creating climate anxiety in students. Here, however, arises the challenge of being able to convey a deeper knowledge at the same time, something that is required to understand the dignity of the sustainability problems. How can one seriously understand that the situation is urgent while not feeling climate anxiety? How can you combine age-appropriate pedagogy with complex knowledge? These are questions that future teachers will have to deal with in their everyday work.