Student Teachers’ Workplace-Based Learning in Sweden on Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: Experiences in Practice Settings

The overall purpose of this study is to examine how early childhood student teachers describe their experiences with education for sustainability during their workplace-based learning in an early childhood setting, including dilemmas observed in practice and divergences in interpretation of education for sustainability.

The author identifies three themes that illustrate both the students' meaning-making and the workplace-based teaching supervisors' perceptions as well as specific cultures of "doing" education for sustainability in an early childhood education setting.

1. Early childhood student teachers' knowledge construction about education for sustainability.
In their blogs, the majority of students describe a shift in their understandings of education for sustainability from before the start of the course to after the workplace learning period. Before the course started, the majority of students understood education for sustainability as environmental and/or economic sustainability, whereas later on they reflect about their own understanding and problematise how they can work with education for sustainability in a pedagogical practice. The study shows that particularly the possibilities to enter into dialogue and discuss with supervisors and other early childhood practitioners are very important to the students' changed understandings. Together with their supervisor, the students explored important questions and practices of sustainability in a pedagogical context, thereby creating a co-constructive relationship in which the students and their supervisors can learn from each other.

2. Dilemmas in practising education for sustainability in early childhood education.
The author finds several dilemmas in the students' blogs, especially concerning what education for sustainability means in practice, and dilemmas that reflect the construction of different cultures of "doing" education for sustainability in the various early childhood education settings. Among other things, the study reveals that work with social and cultural sustainability in practice depends on whether the early childhood education setting is multicultural or monocultural. In multicultural settings, work with cultural diversity is considered both essential and necessary, whereas several of the monocultural settings only work with cultural diversity to a small degree (or not at all) as part of the social and cultural sustainability. Moreover, the study shows that the children's young age in some settings is seen as an obstacle to working with education for sustainability, and the teachers' level of personal engagement also seems to be crucial for working with sustainability.

3. Critical aspects and disagreements about education for sustainability in early childhood education settings.
Many critical aspects and disagreements are visible in the students' blogs. Some students describe disagreements between them and their workplace supervisors about the interpretation and practice of the different dimensions of education for sustainability. This was expressed as tensions and resistance in their discussions with their supervisors, which some students describe as problematic. Another important aspect of the students' blogs is the absence of a transformative whole-institution approach to education for sustainability in the individual settings. Even through all settings work with education for sustainability in different ways, sustainability was rarely worked with in a systematic way that embedded sustainability in everyday activities and routines. The study also shows that the different dimensions of education for sustainability were not viewed from a holistic perspective; instead they were seen as separate parts.

The empirical data of the study consists of 76 blogs (188 pages of text) written by student teachers as part of a course on education for sustainability in an early childhood education setting. The students were asked to describe their workplace experiences with education for sustainability and to reflect on issues regarding sustainability using a Swedish version of the Educational Rating Scale for Sustainable Development in Early Childhood (ERS-SDEC) as well as course literature on education for sustainability in pedagogical practices. Moreover, students were encouraged to discuss their reflections and questions with their workplace-based teaching supervisor. Focus of the analysis was particularly on the students' understandings of social, economic, environmental and political dimensions of education for sustainability and the interconnectedness between these.

Ärlemalm-Hagsér, E. (2017). Student Teachers’ Workplace-Based Learning in Sweden on Early Childhood Education for Sustainability: Experiences in Practice Settings. International Journal of Early Childhood, 49(3), 411-427.