Ragnhild Lyngved Staberg

There is increasing recognition of the need to integrate sustainability education (SE) into school curricula, and assessments such as PISA 2025 emphasise the importance of pupils’ ability to apply sustainability knowledge in authentic contexts. Because sustain-ability issues require social, environmental, and economic perspectives, transdisciplinary real-world approaches are recommended. However, many teachers find SE challenging, and initial teacher education (ITE) students often feel unprepared. This study investigates how a transdisciplinary approach can prepare students for sustainability teaching. Fifty-four fourth-year students participated in a two-week transdisciplinary sustainability project. Working in groups, they explored a self-selected local sustainability issue, engaged with community actors, and proposed solutions. The data consist of individual reflection notes describing how the project supported their understanding of transdisciplinarity, authenticity, subject integration, and teacher preparedness, which were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Findings indicate that the project strengthened students’ preparedness for sustainability teaching and, through transdisciplinary approaches, offered a concrete model of best practice for SE. Engagement with authentic, local issues fostered emotional involvement, relevance, and deeper understanding, while collaborative work enhanced insight into distinct disciplinary perspectives on SE. Students further emphasised the need for clear subject expectations and strong pedagogical framing.

Critical thinking (CT) is widely recognised as a key competency in education for sustainable development (ESD). However, international research shows that many teachers feel unprepared to teach CT, especially within the ESD context. Despite its importance, few studies have explored how CT is actually practiced in ESD, particularly in primary and secondary education. This article presents a systematic literature review of 43 qualitative studies published between 1990 and 2021, following the PRISMA guidelines. This review aimed to (1) synthesise research on teachers’ understanding of CT in ESD and (2) identify teaching practices where CT is integrated into ESD. The findings reveal that the concept of CT is frequently used but is not clearly understood in the context of ESD. Most studies focused on critical rationality (skills), with fewer addressing critical character (dispositions), critical actions, critical virtue, critical consciousness, or critical pedagogy. This review highlights a need for broader engagement with these dimensions in order to foster ethically aware and responsible citizens. We argue for teaching approaches that involve students in interdisciplinary, real-world problems requiring not only critical reasoning but also action, reflection, and ethical judgment.

Using a case-study approach, we aim to understand how teachers interact with both analogue and digital resources in the science classroom for formative assessment (FA) purposes and their justifications for such interactions. The study was conducted in the context of a European Union project on FA in science and mathematics education. The case involved two Norwegian primary school teachers teaching their grades 5 and 7 students a series of science lessons on the topic “how to prevent microorganisms from spreading.” The data set consisted of lesson plans, classroom observations, pre- and post-interviews conducted with teachers, student tasks, post-interviews with students, and student work. We identified eight analogue and digital resources, which were used to employ five FA strategies. The strategies that were most commonly used related to “engineering effective classroom discussions” that elicited evidence of student understanding and “activating students” as autonomous learners and peer instructors. The teachers’ rationales for using the selected resources were mainly connected to their effectiveness, practicality, and relevance. Teacher interactions with the selected resources are described, and educational implications are discussed.

Education can serve the purpose of trying to mitigate catastrophes. In a school context, teachers can have a role in enacting an interconnection between critical thinking (CT) as a potentially useful tool and education for sustainable development (ESD), in terms of educating and communicating the importance of sustainability to future generations. This paper uses discourse analysis, drawing on post-structuralism, to explore how Norwegian primary school teachers consider CT (skills, dispositions, and civic participation) in relation to ESD. The study draws on social constructivism and positioning theory (PT) in particular to find patterns in teachers’ own shifting standpoints through individual and collective assertations around ESD. Specifically, in this paper we make efforts to implement the PT to study (i) teachers’ own positioning about sustainability through their communication acts within primary-school contexts, and (ii) the functions of education in relation to ESD in this context. We explored the discussion between three teachers from the same school team during one focus group interview, by tracing the teachers’ uses of I and we (as markers) in relation to Biesta’s three functions of education in the discourse. Our discourse analysis has an exploratory character and is carried out on a limited dataset. PT was used as a framework to categorize the teachers’ statements; treated as content of discourse. The pronoun we is identified in the discourse analysis in three different ways: with the underlying meaning of a humanitarian we, an institutional we, and a classroom we. In the one focus group interview, we also identified teachers’ sense of belonging with the environment and nature, generally regarded to be prevalent in Norwegian society.

Purpose: Previous research shows that identity formation is a crucial bridge between higher education and future employment. The objective of this study was to improve our understanding and knowledge of food technology students' prior interests, their perceived identity formation, perceptions of food technology and the profession of food technologist.Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative study was conducted and the data consisted of audio recordings of 10 semi structured group interviews of first-, second- and third-year students, as well as alumni, at work. The interviews were transcribed and analysed by conventional content analysis, here following an inductive approach.Findings: Most students had previous general culinary interest, an interest in the science behind or an interest in contemporary food-related issues. Regardless of the year group and prior interest, most felt that graduation was the stage at which they could identify themselves as food technologists. They evolved from having a rather diffuse understanding of food technology and what is a food technologist before they started to have an increased awareness in their second and third years.Originality/value: The research findings inform higher education food technology programmes aiming to promote the development of food technology students' professional identity. The study suggests that a holistic approach to teaching, as well as context-based and professional activities at an early stage might help students in their identity formation.

Getting pupils closer to nature seems essential, even more, after the pandemic. Therefore, schools and teachers have to take active part in this process trying to hold as many outdoor classes as possible. The implementation of this methodology requires well prepared teachers, which depends on teacher training institutions. In this regard, 551 trainee teachers from Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Spain and Norway were surveyed in order to analyse their perceptions about outdoor education (OE), filling out a questionnaire composed of 11 questions, most of them were Likert-scale. The aim was to determine whether the students considered OE effective and important, and whether they are satisfied with the knowledge they get during their studies. The results were analysed separately by countries and were compared among the five countries. They show that trainee teachers find OE important and effective to get pupils familiar with nature. Trainee teachers are planning to use this method; however, they are not satisfied with the knowledge received during their studies. There are significant differences on trainee teachers’ perceptions depending on which country they study in. These findings give a good basis for further research, and help universities to prepare their students more effectively for using this method.

Purpose: – Investigations of food-borne outbreaks are complex and require multidisciplinary collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to help food technologists face this challenge and be competent members of a multidisciplinary team, a study module on the investigation of a “real-life” food-borne outbreak was developed.Design/methodology/approach: – The module design was based on the principles of inquiry-based learning with the purpose to motivate and activate students with challenging assignments. The didactic impact of the module was evaluated as a qualitative case study with questionnaires, reflection assignments and interviews of students and lecturers.Findings: – A teaching module developed by an external professional taking part in the academic environment provides a learning environment well adapted to the curriculum, as well as bringing first-hand realism and enthusiasm into the classroom. The external lecturer’s dedication to the subject was appreciated by the students. A majority of the students believed that the outbreak investigation simulation play gave a better understanding of how food-borne outbreaks are investigated. A majority of the students 68 per cent (2011) and 82 per cent (2012) believed that what they learned in this module would be useful in a future work situation.Research limitations/implications: – There are some limitations to the study, the most important one being the small sample size, and as the classes rarely exceeds 30 students, the use of a control group was not logistically feasible.Originality/value: – Teaching food technologists to become knowledgeable professionals in this field will constitute a valuable contribution to the multidisciplinary food-borne outbreak investigation team. In turn, this may increase confidence among the general public in the food industry.