Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education (NJCIE)

Exploring Interdisciplinary Approaches to Education for Sustainable Development

Robert J. Didham — 2024-05-24

Sustainable Development, Education and Learning: The Challenge of Inclusive, Quality Education for All

Hiroki Fujii — 2024-05-24

Review of the book authored by Victoria W. Thoresen, Agenda Publishing, 2023

Redefining TVET Leadership in Kenya

Jeffrey Matu — 2024-08-27

The alignment of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) with industry needs is pivotal for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Kenya. Yet, reliance on global commitment mechanisms, primarily voluntary national reviews (VNRs), has proven insufficient. This forum piece argues for a strategic transition towards voluntary local reviews (VLRs) and incorporating indigenous philosophies, such as Harambee, to better align TVET with SDG objectives. This transition is essential for fostering inclusive, equitable learning environments, enhancing workforce preparedness, and facilitating a community-centric educational model that effectively addresses local needs while contributing to global sustainability goals. Additionally, this forum piece underscores the need for institutional social change to resolve contradictions in current policies that hinder educational systems from reaching their goals. Drawing from a comparative study of TVET governance models in Nairobi, Kenya, and Pittsburgh, USA, this forum piece illustrates how different approaches can align TVET systems with localized educational demands and SDG frameworks, highlighting policy innovation, leadership development, and community engagement as key strategies for redefining TVET leadership.

Teaching and Learning Sustainable Consumption: A Guidebook

Gregor Torkar — 2024-05-24

A Tribute to Professor Wing On Lee

Karen Parish — 2024-01-30

High School Teachers’ Adoption of Generative AI

Eyvind Elstad — 2024-05-08

In 2023, the breakthrough of generative artificial intelligence (AI) led to its adoption. While some teachers expressed frustration over pupil misuse of generative AI, others advocated for the availability of a school-relevant chatbot for pupil use. In October 2023, a local chatbot intended to meet that goal was launched by Oslo Municipality. After six weeks, an investigation was conducted to examine how 246 teachers perceived the opportunities and limitations of this new technology. The examination used structural equation modelling to explore antecedents of instructional AI utility. The analysis shows that the pathway between instructional self-efficacy and AI utility has the highest positively charged value, while the pathways between management and AI utility have low numerical value. This last finding can be interpreted as the influence of untapped management potential and must be seen in the context of the fact that no guidelines for the use of AI in schools existed when the survey was conducted. In addition, the pathway between colleague discussion and AI utility has relatively low numerical values. The potential for learning through discussion among colleagues can be utilized to an even greater degree. The pathway between management and colleague discussion is remarkable. Implications are discussed.

Exploring Child Standpoint Theory in Early Childhood Education

Annica Källebo — 2024-08-27

This empirical study in Bangladesh explores the potential of Child Standpoint Theory in constructing and reconstructing the child in early childhood education (ECE) and its role in facilitating cross-cultural comparisons in and of ECE systems. The comparative gaze is considered for ways of scholarly investigation in the context of ECE system messiness. The paper suggests viewing children as relational ethnographic units of comparisons for comparing the conditionality, contextual elements, and temporality of each child's education across cultures through a three-fold approach. Spanning method and theory, the approach combines the notion of the entangled researcher and the comparative case study tool of tracing with Child standpoint theory. Findings are presented through a comprehensive visualization of a ‘child’ going through the ECE system during a day as a pathway to deeper analysis of facets underpinning ECE from a bottom-up rather than top-down approach.

Opportunities and Dilemmas in Interactions between the Education Sector and Academia

Mari-Ana Jones — 2023-12-21

International Master’s Degree Students’ Experiences of Support at a Finnish University

Anduena Ballo — 2024-03-17

This phenomenographic study explores international master’s degree students’ ways of experiencing support in Finnish higher education. The study draws on Schlossberg’s Transition Model and the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments Model as a conceptual framework. The phenomenographic analysis of 17 interviews with international master’s degree students identified four ways of experiencing support as: (a) study system adjustment, (b) learning enhancement, (c) personal growth, and (d) autonomy development. The findings identified participants’ experiencing support in relationships, use of information, communication, services, the flexibility of studies, learning and study environments. The presence of two indicators, Humanizing Educational Environments and Availability of Holistic Support suggested that the campus environment was culturally responsive to academic and personal support of international degree students. The findings contribute to the understanding of support for international degree students in higher education and may be used to develop services to support international degree students’ social, cultural, and career integration into host communities.

Future Teachers Conceptualizing Democracy in Pre-war Ukraine, in Palestine, and Norway

Ingrid Christensen — 2024-09-06

This article presents a qualitative study of future teachers’ conceptions of democracy in Ukraine, Palestine, and Norway during a pre-war and pre-pandemic period. In recent years, there has been a noticeable decline in the understanding of the democratic concept and reduced engagement, particularly among youth, coinciding with an assumed global recession of democratic recession. However, democracy also evolves with societal developments, whereas education holds the mandate to renew democratic values in society. This study therefore aims to explore student teachers’ own definitions of the democracy concept. Employing a grounded theory approach, we compare the written responses of 619 student teachers from Ukraine, Palestine, and Norway. The analysis reveals that despite different emphases, democracy is articulated along five dimensions: 1) political systems, 2) political culture, 3) values, 4) actions, and 5) actors. However, the study also indicates a striking finding: To our surprise, there were many identical responses across the data material, interpreted as wikied copy-paste responses, which indicate a distance and irony towards standardized democracy concepts. Consequently, democracy education is in a limbo between standardization and fostering new dimensions, whereas the teachers’ tasks will be challenging in providing democracy concepts born anew for the next generation.

Futures Thinking in Middle School Science Textbooks

Khalifatulloh Fiel'ardh — 2024-05-24

This research aims to illuminate the characteristics of "Futures Thinking" components within the interdisciplinary units of "Science, Technology, and Humanity" and "Nature and Humanity" and "Sustainable development" within Japanese middle school science textbooks. Grounded in pre-existing literatures, this research meticulously organizes the essential competencies of future-oriented thinking into three distinct components: "Envisioning the Future," "Predicting the Future," and "Planning for the Future." Each component is further broken down into more precise indicators. For "Envisioning the Future," indicators include perspectives on "Multiple Futures," the "Science of Future," and "Hope and Fears." For "Predicting the Future," we delve into the "Scenario" technique, alongside "Forecasting" and "Backcasting" strategies. "Planning for the Future" assesses the "Precautionary" approach, "Evaluating Action," and understanding "Risk and Changes." The research involved a cross-sectional analysis of content types (such as texts, diagrams) and contexts (individual, regional, national, and global), determining the presence or absence of these indicators. The findings reveal: (1) a more frequent articulation of these competencies within the "Science, Technology, and Humans" unit, (2) a scant representation of "Multiple Futures" and "Scenario" methods among the nine indicators, (3) a prevalence of explanatory text in presenting these concepts, and (4) a consistent inclination towards a global context in the textbooks' narratives. These insights imply an extant gap within the current pedagogical tools, underscoring the importance of an expanded, multifaceted approach to teaching these competencies. The implications for future curriculum development and instructional strategies in middle school science education are profound, necessitating a more integrated approach that resonates with the uncertainties and possibilities of the future.

Interdisciplinary Teaching Scenarios on Sustainable Development in Croatia

Veljko Armano Linta — 2024-05-24

This paper reflects on the project for the creation of teaching scenarios for the curricular Interdisciplinary Topic of Sustainable Development, which addressed a wide variety of subjects in Croatian primary and secondary schools. The paper intends to provide insight into potentially replicable approaches for the creation of teaching resources in similar contexts. The paper aims to identify (1) the project’s approaches that stimulated interdisciplinary collaboration during the creation of the teaching scenarios, and (2) the project’s approaches that could facilitate the adoption of the teaching scenarios by a wide variety of subject teachers. The approaches are explored through observation and reflection by the author, who was the key expert and development leader for the teaching scenarios. The interdisciplinary creation is found to be stimulated by creating conditions for authors to explore sustainable development with an awareness of their subject’s important role in it while paying attention to team relationships, processes, and results, including in online collaboration spaces. The teaching scenarios are found to be more likely to support a multidisciplinary type of implementation than an interdisciplinary one due to teaching activities mostly being not integrated enough to enable team teaching. This, however, allows more enthusiastic individual teachers to use the activities autonomously. The scenario adoption may be supported by the efficient simultaneous addressing of subject outcomes and sustainable development outcomes, by the adaptability of teaching activities, and by the connection between scenario topics and real life, including the life of the school community and wider communities.

Education Beyond Green Growth

Sharon Stein — 2024-05-24

Despite the continued popularity of education for sustainable development (ESD) and expanded calls for educators to inspire hope in the face of the climate and nature emergency, scholars from varied disciplines and knowledge systems have pointed to the disavowed social and ecological costs of the promise that we can continue pursuing infinite economic growth on a finite planet. In this article, we offer an alternative approach to education grounded in a regenerative inquiry methodology. Regenerative inquiry can prepare people to honestly confront the limits and harms of “green growth” and support them to “grow up” by expanding their capacity to navigate complexity and uncertainty and activating a sense of intergenerational responsibility. We also offer an example of how this methodology was mobilized in the context of a year-long transdisciplinary program focused on the climate and nature emergency.

“Because they have technology”

Øyvind K. Mellingen — 2024-05-24

Over the last forty years, the concept of sustainable development has gained attention in large parts of the world. With it comes the need for comparative research on how the concept is understood in different contexts.

This article is a comparative discourse analysis of how Tanzanian and Norwegian secondary school teachers conceptualize sustainable development. By applying Laclau and Mouffe’s (2014) discourse apparatus, I trace articulations of sustainable development across Tanzanian and Norwegian discourses.

The findings indicate that the Tanzanian teachers in the study primarily conceptualize sustainable development within a socioeconomic discourse, while the Norwegian teachers are rooted in an environmental discourse. The teachers are also embedded in a Western exceptionalism discourse constructed around the myth of “the West” as sustainable, and favour solutions emerging from Western technology and innovation. However, the study also finds that there is a critical discourse opposing this articulation of “the West”.

The transformative potential of textbooks

Milja Pollari — 2024-05-24

Education is recognized as crucial in addressing unsustainable practices, such as food waste. One of the aims of interdisciplinary food education in basic education is to promote sustainable food waste behavior, which can be promoted by transformative learning. This study examined how food waste is addressed in nine Finnish basic education textbooks. The content related to food waste and the pedagogical style of the texts were analyzed from home economics, biology, and geography textbooks designed for secondary level education (grades 7–9, age 13–16). The results were analysed to assess their potential to promote transformative learning. All of the textbooks approached the topic of food waste from the perspective of their own subject, and none presented it as an interdisciplinary phenomenon. Home economics textbooks focused on students' perspectives, emphasizing food waste reduction and waste sorting. Geography textbooks frequently explored the topic in the context of the food supply chain or at a global level, while biology textbooks primarily addressed the sorting of food waste. The textbooks primarily used a neutral text style focusing on information transmission. In some contexts, a persuasive style was employed to encourage critical thinking and action. The participative style, which encourages active student engagement, was utilized the least in all textbooks, and primarily for exercises. By integrating learning-supportive text styles (such as participative and persuasive), including student tasks related to food waste, and fostering an interdisciplinary understanding of food waste, textbooks have the potential to transform student learning and engagement in sustainable food practices.