Approaching complexity in the context of education for sustainable development: research and perspectives

Abstract

This chapter deals with findings from an interdisciplinary study focused on thinking tools for approaching complexity in secondary schools, in the framework of education for sustainable development (ESD). The new curriculum implemented in the French-speaking part of Switzerland gives an important role to ESD, especially through its contribution to the development of critical thinking and awareness of complexity. In this context, data has been collected among 18 teachers, their pupils and in their classrooms and has been analysed using qualitative methods. Some results are presented and discussed in this chapter, showing that part of the pupils mobilise elements of complex thinking, even if they have difficulty in identifying the thinking tools that contribute to it. One reason could be that teachers themselves do not clearly identify these tools. Additionally, pupils confronted with a task where they had to imagine the future of a neighbourhood remained within a framework of thinking based of conventional modes of thought and thus in a perspective of “conformative change”, according to Sterling’s typology (2010-11). In the last subsection of the chapter, the authors make proposals for the improvement of teaching and teacher training as well as suggestions for research in the general context of ESD.