Today there is a call for reorientation and more sustainable ways of living which have created new demands on education. What it means to educate for sustainability, however, can mean many things. In the Swedish school subject Sloyd it is stated that students should be given opportunities to choose and handle materials to promote sustainable development. But how is this interpreted? Existing research on how sloyd teachers educate for sustainable development (ESD) is quite sparse. This study therefore aims to investigate sloyd teachers’ descriptions of ESD by identifying (1) what ESD contents are prominent in their statements about teaching and (2) what expected learning outcomes and teaching strategies that becomes visible in their statements. The data consists of 70 qualitative questionaries and were analyzed in two steps. In a qualitative content analysis prominent ESD topics were identified. Thereafter Lindströms (2012) model for analyzing goals and means for aesthetic teaching and learning, including four teaching strategies, were used to define expected ESD learning outcomes and how they could be related to different teaching strategies. The result shows that the craft materials were prominent in the teachers’ statements and three major teaching topics related to ESD were identified: to utilize materials, to use sustainable materials and to become a maker with materials. Surprisingly the ESD topics could only be related to three out of four teaching strategies. Instructing and advising teaching strategies were the most common, resulting in a dominance of convergent teaching approaches. Few sloyd teachers problematized ESD or pointed to conflicting goals. A more pluralistic understanding of sustainability was thus a missing perspective with the risk that the diversity of an ESD content is made invisible. The results of the study are relevant to Nordic educational research in that sloyd education is a Nordic phenomenon. It is known, however, that the Nordic countries emphases different teaching content in craft and design education, which makes the topic relevant for further research in the Nordic countries.

Lindström, L. (2012). Aesthetic Learning About, In, With and Through the Arts: A Curriculum Study”. iJADE, 31(2), 166–179.