Facts, Values and Perspectives on Sustainable Development in Free Teaching Materials in Sweden

Karin Skill (), Cecilia Axell and Per Gyberg
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Karin Skill: Tema Department, Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Cecilia Axell: Department of Behavioural Science and Learning (IBL), Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Per Gyberg: Tema Department, Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-16

Abstract: In this study, we adopt a critical perspective on knowledge about sustainable development in Swedish free teaching materials, where certain ways of illustrating sustainable development can make invisible alternative ways to understand and delimit it. We analyse physical, free materials for school teaching, distributed by Utbudet. The materials were produced between 2008 and 2019. Our analysis shows that there is a focus on facts, certifications and technical fixes, as well as scientific and societal consensus. The companies’ perspectives are prominent in the free materials, as are anthropocentric and Western approaches. Taken together, our study shows that the free materials convey that the global situation has improved and that development is on the right track, rather than in crisis, or that the sustainability problems are complex and difficult to manage. Thus, the materials present a fairly one-sided picture of the situation and the future, which does not really agree with the aim in Swedish education of presenting a balanced view of sustainable development.

Keywords: education for sustainable development; ESD; free teaching material; anthropocentrism; wicked problems; critical perspective; environmental risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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