Justice, What a Dream!—Mapping Intersections of Sustainability and Inclusion

Author(s)
Juliana Heigl, Matthias Müller, Nicole Gotling, Michelle Proyer
Abstract

This paper takes on the important concepts of inclusion and sustainability, in both their broad and discursive understandings, to map out the interrelations that teachers, who work within different areas of the Austrian school system, make between different, key aspects of their work and organization. The complex intersections of school organization, sustainability, and inclusion were analyzed following a situational analysis approach that made use of different types of mapping (e.g., messy, situational, positional) of data gathered from semi-structured interviews with a teachertraining student and teachers positioned across the Austrian school system, some of whom with experience in classrooms with, for example, refugee, d/Deaf, and neurodivergent students. The findings from these data display ways of being oriented towards sustainable and responsible as well as inclusive engagement, especially within educational spheres. By and large, what emerged from the data was the clear result that school organization as a whole plays one of the biggest roles in determining whether or not non-mandatory subjects such as “sustainability” are given space and time in the classroom. Therefore, if we want to promote topics on sustainability and a focus on climate justice in education, efforts need to be made to bring these topics into the official curriculum.

Organisation(s)
Department of Education, Department for Teacher Education
Journal
Sustainability
Volume
14
No. of pages
22
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095636
Publication date
05-2022
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
503034 Inclusive education
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Environmental Science (miscellaneous), Geography, Planning and Development, Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 4 - Quality Education
Portal url
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/en/publications/justice-what-a-dreammapping-intersections-of-sustainability-and-inclusion(57b94134-f31e-4e52-895f-9181b736e8ed).html