In this thesis the focus is on upper secondary school students’ meaning-making in sustainability in science civic education. The aim is to study how meaning is created, if/how natural science is used and how democratic participation is constructed in students’ group discussions. The thesis also aims to create an awareness of the role science has in both the creation of meaning and the construction of democratic participation. The study is based on audio-recorded group discussions arising from two different sustainability tasks. Discursive psychology is used as an analytical framework, through the concepts of interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions. The students use different interpretative repertoires that draw on different conceptions of the “world” (discourses) in their meaning-making. These different conceptions create ideological dilemmas that recur several times during the discussions and are therefore negotiated in different ways. The students then use strategies where these dilemmas are solved in a relatively simple manner. They construct the sustainability issue they discuss so that their ways to live and act/not act are portrayed as acceptable in the current situation. The students use their knowledge in and about science in their meaning-making. Science is used to make the "world" more understandable and raise questions; to evaluate, decide and act; to give authority to arguments; and to solve societal problems. The students’ science-making process contains various kinds of use of scientific knowledge, for example, clarify the conditions, identify consequences, scrutinize information, compare, assess, evaluate and use scientific methods. The discussions increase the students’ experience of using scientific knowledge and which functions scientific knowledge can have. The students construct democratic participation in various ways: trust in science and technology are expressed and awareness of what is considered as actions that are “good” for the environment; different perspectives are expressed and ideological dilemmas discussed; students use their scientific knowledge in socioscientific reasoning to create a deeper understanding of the issues discussed; scientific knowledge is also used for evaluating actions in relation to sustainability issues. However, the students see themselves having a major responsibility to act “good”, but without power to influence the development of society as a whole. The students have two projects going on during their discussions: to discuss and learn about the sustainability issue and make their own existence acceptable.

The objective of this dissertation is to develop a theoretical and analytical framework for understanding the political in education from a social and global perspective. With this objective in mind, it employs an empirical engagement and theoretical reflection on how this political can be seen to emerge in policy making on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Policy making on ESD is interpreted as engaging in the constitution of the social and globalisation, where the non-determination of this practice is seen to require political acts of identification with particular perspectives on what education, society and, as a result, ESD should be. Book I constitutes a theoretical and analytical framework that outlines central concepts, such as antagonism, temporality, space and rhizomic globalisation, in order to conceive of how the political in education can be understood and analysed in concrete articulations, such as policy making on ESD. The findings of the empirical analysis underlying this dissertation and that address the political in policy making on ESD are presented in the papers that are incorporated into this dissertation as part of Book II. Paper I discusses how we can conceive of the relation between ESD and globalisation and makes an argument that this relation should be seen to be political and characterised by conflicting perspectives on what ESD is. Paper II presents the findings from a comparative study of policy making on ESD that engages with concrete policy on ESD in order to reflect on how globalisation can be seen to emerge in these instances of policy making. Paper III presents the findings of a comprehensive discourse analysis of Vietnamese policy making and shows how the concepts of ESD and Sustainable Development are contested among different perspectives of how Vietnamese society should be constituted. The dissertation as a whole makes an argument for the inescapable political condition for education and how this condition necessitates the articulation of concepts such as ESD that name an inaccessible state beyond conflict and social antagonisms that is to be achieved through education.

Syftet med följande litteraturstudie är att belysa hur elever i förskolan till årskurs sex förhåller sig till hållbar utveckling. Litteraturstudien ger en presentation kring elevers synsätt på de tre dimensionerna inom hållbar utveckling. Härtill framförs det hur begreppet hållbar utveckling har vuxit fram samt en sammanställning av nationella och internationella diskussioner om hur världen kan arbeta mot en hållbar framtid. Vidare presenteras det hur hållbar utveckling framträder i den svenska läroplanen. Det resultat som framkom inkluderar undersökningar från Sverige, Turkiet och USA, där elever under intervju eller med hjälp av illustrationer fick visualisera sin uppfattning på vad som väntar människan och planeten. I undersökningarna indikerade elever en generell oro gällande miljön och framtiden. Majoriteten av eleverna kunde ge uttryck för en koppling mellan de tre dimensionerna av hållbar utveckling. Härtill visade eleverna i en annan studie en generell rädsla för miljöproblem vilket återges som ”ekofobiska” idéer. I litteraturstudien förs slutligen en diskussion om införandet av ett nytt ämne i läroplanen, vikten av ett paradigmskifte samt hur undervisning kring hållbar utveckling kan exemplifieras i klassrummet. / The purpose of this study is to clarify how pupils in pre-school and the grades one to six relate to sustainable development. The literature study presents pupils´ perspectives on the three dimensions in sustainable development. Furthermore, it is presented how the concept sustainable development has expanded. The study also presents a summary of national and international discussions about how the world can work towards a sustainable future. Additionally it is presented how sustainable development stands in the Swedish curriculum. The study includes surveys from Sweden, Turkey and USA, where pupils during interviews or through illustrations visualized their view on what awaits the human kind and the planet. The result indicates a general concern regarding the environment and the future. A majority of the pupils could not refer to a connection between the three dimensions of sustainable development. Pupils indicated an overall anxiety for environmental problems, which can be redirected as “ecophobic” ideas. Finally, there is a discussion about an imposition of Sustainable development as an individual subject in the curriculum, the importance of a paradigm shift and how teaching about sustainable development can be exemplified in the classroom.

The engineering education has changed and evolved over decades in harmonywith societies challenges. Today, sustainable development is of great importanceand one way of equipping future engineers with the competencies to tackle these challenges is through Challenge Driven Education (CDE). CDE is a relatively new educational concept which brings together universities andexternal stakeholders to jointly foster the engineers of tomorrow. The research focuses on the challenge owner’s perspective, which is a sub-category of external stakeholder. The challenge owner could be a company or organisation providing the students with challenges and also takes an active role in the students path to solve them. Through qualitative interviews in Sweden and Tanzania this study investigates some aspects of the CDE concept and develops a product in the form of a guide.First, it was investigated which competencies for sustainability that could be considered important in future engineers, according to interviewees. It was also investigated which competencies were developed during CDE projects. Results show that UNESCO’s key competencies correlates well with interviewees views, justifying the legitimacy of the framework. However, some skills and attributes mentioned in interviews lie outside of UNESCO’s framework but where still considered important. This implies the need to supplement orevolve the framework in order to be a more comprehensive tool for improving CDE and the engineering education. Secondly, several differences on how CDE is portrayed and executed where found in the interviews. From the Tanzanian context a somewhat limited view of the challenge owner was identified and findings show possibilities of broadening the perspective of the challenge owner role. Also, findings shows a need to emphasise the importance of sustainable development and societal contributions in the future development of CDE. Lastly, in order to facilitate communication with potential challenge owners in future CDE collaborations in Tanzania, the need for a guide was identified. Using an iterative design method, a guide based on interviewees feedback and the findings from this study was created. The main purpose is to present a widened view of CDE and to inspire potential challenge owners to join. / Ingenjörsutbildningen har, i linje med samhälleliga förändringar, ändrats och utvecklats i årtionden. Idag är arbetet mot hållbar utveckling av hög prioritet och ett sätt att utrusta framtidens ingenjörer med kompetenser för att ta sig an dessa utmaningar är genom Challenge Driven Education (CDE). CDE är ett relativt nytt utbildningskoncept som för samman universitet och externa intressenter för att gemensamt fostra morgondagens ingenjörer. Studien utgår från de så kallade challenge owners perspektiv, vilket är en underkatergori till de externa intressenterna. Challenge owners kan vara företag eller organisationer som förser studenterna med utmaningar och som även tar en aktiv roll i studenternas arbete med att lösa dessa. Genom kvalitativa intervjuer i Sverige och i Tanzania undersöker denna studie några aspekter av CDE-konceptet och utvecklar en produkt i form av en guide:Först undersöktes vilka nyckelkompetenser för hållbar utveckling var relevantaför framtida ingenjörer enligt intervjupersonerna. Det undersöktes ävenvilka kompetenser som utvecklades under CDE-projekt. Resultaten visar att UNESCO’s nyckelkompetenser korrelerar väl med de intervjuades syn på vad som behövs, något som ger legitimitet till ramverket. Dock visar resultaten att några färdigheter och egenskaper som ansågs viktiga ligger utanför UNESCO’s ramverk. Det antyder att det finns ett behov att komplettera eller utveckla ramverket för att göra det till ett mer heltäckande verktyg i syfte att förbättra CDE och ingenjörsutbildningen i stort. I intervjuerna identifierades sedan flera variationer i hur CDE beskrivs och tillämpas. Från den tanzanska kontexten identifierades en något begränsad syn på vad en challenge owner är och resultaten visar på möjligheten att bredda synen på challenge owner-rollen. Resultaten visar också på vikten av att betona hållbar utveckling i CDE-projekt samt att CDE kan bidra till samhällsutvecklingen. Något som ansågs viktigt för att utveckla och ta CDE-konceptet vidare. Slutligen identifierades ett behov att underlätta kommunikation med potentiella challenge owners i framtida CDE-samarbeten i Tanzania. Genom att använda en iterativ design metod skapades en guide. Guiden är baserad på feedback från intervjudeltagarna samt resultat och slutsatser från denna studie. Det övergripande syftet med guiden är att presentera en breddad bild av CDE samt att inspirera potentiella challenge owners att engagera sig i CDE.