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Teaching Sustainable Development: On Systemic Issues and Fake Excuses
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Department of Game Design.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6597-1738
Uppsala University, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Earth Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural Resources and Sustainable Development.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0010-745X
Kristineberg Marine Research Station, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Kristineberg, Sweden.
2025 (English)In: Confronting the Climate Crisis: Activism, Technology and Ecoaesthetic / [ed] Daniel Binns; Rebecca Najdowski, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, p. 21-40Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

This chapter describes a course module for an interdisciplinary university course about questions of sustainability that aims to teach students how to reject approaches to sustainability questions that focus on individualizing the responsibility for climate catastrophe to instead take systemic approaches that also consider questions of global economy and production systems. The course module has been designed and taught by an interdisciplinary group of researchers to integrate critical social science perspectives with nature science in a productive way that informs and supports the broader critical points while contextualizing nature science politically. The chapter lays out the design of the course module in a way that makes it possible for the reader to use it in their own circumstances and evaluates it based on notes taken during the planning and teaching as well as student presentations and feedback. The results indicate that the course module works in getting the students to start thinking critically and systemically, for example by rejecting greenwashing, but that they are also still quickly defaulting to a framework of individual responsibility. Getting the students to start thinking systemically can be seen as an acceptable outcome for a 2-weeks course module in the face of life-long hegemony. The interdisciplinary approach takes more time for planning, but can be recommended because of the way in which the approaches support each other. Finally, the reactions of the students have shown that there is a need to plan for emotional responses to this kind of education. Questioning the frame of individual responsibility produces reactions of guilt and shame in the students and even reveals stories of manipulation by previous educators and family members. These responses are something that the course module and education like this in general might need to consider in the future.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. p. 21-40
Series
Palgrave Studies in Media and Environmental Communication, ISSN 2634-6451, E-ISSN 2634-646X
Keywords [en]
systemic sustainability, education, greenwashing, interdisciplinary perdagogy
National Category
Pedagogy Media and Communication Studies Environmental Studies in Social Sciences Environmental Sciences
Research subject
Earth Science with specialization in Environmental Analysis
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-577753DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-89606-4_2ISI: 001692787600002Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105014268158ISBN: 978-3-031-89605-7 (print)ISBN: 978-3-031-89608-8 (print)ISBN: 978-3-031-89606-4 (electronic)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-577753DiVA, id: diva2:2032806
Available from: 2026-01-27 Created: 2026-01-27 Last updated: 2026-09-21Bibliographically approved

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Prax, PatrickWallner-Hahn, Sieglind

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