Alone in the sustainable wilderness - transforming sustainable competences and didactics in a design for change education

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆

Article explores how UNESCO-aligned Educations for Sustainable Development (ESD) should cultivate critical thinking, inquiry, and reflection, while shifting pedagogy toward student-centered participatory learning. It argues educators remain central, making their competencies and worldviews decisive. Transformative learning is proposed through real, emotionally grounded experiences and reflection, addressing systemic focus limits and the scarcity of research on personal sustainable transformation connected to ESD. A reflexive BA case study from 2019–2021 tests this via tools and interventions.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Educations for Sustainable Development and the role of educators

Transformative learning and reflection tools

Case study approach (2019–2021)

Educational system and collaboration needs

Alone in the sustainable wilderness; transforming sustainable competences and didactics in a design for change education Thomas Østergaard, VIA University College, Denmark Abstract According to UNESCO (2012) pedagogies associated with Educations for Sustainable Development (ESD) should spur and inspire students to think critically, ask questions and reflect. The assumption is, that pedagogies are moving towards student-centred participatory learning. Still, the educator is at the core of the transition towards developing ESD’s, so changes of the educators’ worldviews and practices are emerging. The educators’ competences and knowledge on ESD-development becomes central as the question of the what and the how the students are taught becomes more pressing. Today many sustainable educations still have a high focus on systemic issues (external systems); politics, technology, or socioeconomic structures (Parodi & Tamm, 2018, Wamsler, 2019) and lately the UNESCO (2021) has stressed the need for adapting cognitive, transformative, personal, emotional, dimensions of learning into ESD. In a transformative learning setting the educators should provide real-heartfelt experiences generating the students with capacities to reflect critically on both systems and personal design practice methods and help them aligning their methods with their personal emotional values. In doing so, the educators feel left “alone in the Wilderness” and research in the personal dimension of sustainable transformation and connection of this to ESD’s is scarce (Parodi & Tamm, 2018, Wamsler, 2019) . On this backdrop, this article provides a reflexive case study of a BA level course on “Design for Change” performed from 2019 – 2021 using transformative learning practices and the connected interventions in the form of a reflection tool, the Decoding Creativity Tool (DCT) . The data was collected to discover if and how the students could enhance personal sustainable competences using transformative learning focusing on the personal emotional and creative development and awareness, reflection tools and “visiting” methods. Implementing transformative learning and ESD’s into educational practices requires radical revisions of the design education system, managerial strategic commitment and involves many levels of the HE’s. It requires both internal and external collaborations for the design educations and could involve developing new didactics and methods where ideas can grow.(Barth & Rieckmann, 2012) . Keywords Design Education, Design for Social & Sustainable Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Design Didactics, Education for Sustainable Development Introduction We are faced with an unprecedented and huge learning challenge at every level, in which educational policy and practice need to play a pivotal role. How do we‘reorient our systems of knowledge creation and education’? How do we ensure that education for these extraordinary times can manifest a culture of critical commitment—engaged enough to make a real difference to social–ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn from experience and to keep options open into the future? (Sterling, 2016, p. 212) 88% of the Danes think it highly important that young people receive proper and coherent education in how we as a society handle the climate challenge, according to a recent survey performed by the Climate Barometer 2020 (Thinktank Concito, 2021) . With numerous initiatives forming over the years such as A Nordic Textile Strategy initiated by the Nordic Council for Ministers targeting increased collection, sorting, reuse and recycling, Global Fashion Agenda or Mistra Future Fashion research program from Mista and RISE Research Institute of Sweden, the intention is to bring together research, business and governments for a unified approach to accelerate the transition towards sustainable development and circularity in the fashion industry. However, little focus

FAQs

Why are educator competencies central in advancing ESD?

The text states that as pedagogies shift toward student-centred participatory learning, educators still sit at the core of the transition. Changes in educators’ worldviews and practices make their ESD knowledge and competences increasingly decisive.

What problem with current sustainable education does the article highlight?

It notes that many sustainable educations focus heavily on external systemic issues like politics, technology, and socio-economic structures, and that UNESCO has called for integrating cognitive, transformative, personal, and emotional dimensions of learning into ESD.

What is the article’s case study and how was data collected?

It presents a reflexive BA-level case study on a “Design for Change” course implemented from 2019 to 2021. Data collection examined whether and how students could enhance personal sustainable competences using transformative learning, reflection tools, and “visiting” methods, including the Decoding Creativity Tool (DCT).

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by nayy☆