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Early childhood education and care (ECEC) is a vital arena for addressing sustainability issues, since values, attitudes, and behaviors are founded during the early years. As sustainability crises intensify, research has shown that eco-anxiety is growing among children and youth. Besides sustainability knowledge and skills, ECEC teachers also need to support children's notions of hope and how to be change makers. In this way, they need to mobilize their own hopes and action competence. In this study, we explore what drives ECEC student teachers' future work with sustainability and how they build hope and action competence. The study was conducted within a qualitative paradigm with an online questionnaire directed at student teachers (n = 50) at two universities in Finland and Sweden. A reflexive thematic analysis was adopted. The results show six different themes that illustrate the professional, personal, external, and internal aspects that drive them to work for Early Childhood Education for Sustainability (ECEfS). Furthermore, through a theoretical lens, the results can be understood as an issue of care and of the relationship with oneself, the children, and the world. The results suggest some rethinking of how we can better prepare future student teachers in ECEC to engage in sustainability education.

Contrary to curricular objectives, vocational education and training programmes in Sweden and elsewhere do not appear to foster all students’ willingness and abilities to participate actively in society. Furthermore, previous research into students’ perspectives on such education is both limited and inconclusive. The aim of this study is to add to current knowledge about Swedish vocational students’ perspectives on education for active participation in society and their expectations of such participation in the future. The study was a part of a joint research and development project, focused on developing citizenship education in the subject areas of history, religious education, science studies, and social studies in Sweden. A questionnaire about the perceived importance of citizenship education and expected future participation in society was distributed to all students in grade three of all vocational programmes in one Swedish municipality (n = 140). Most participants favoured citizenship education, but their expectations of future participation in society varied substantially, depending on the activity in question. Differences in views between students on different vocational programmes were minor. The results are discussed in relation to established types of citizens and action (individual, collective, direct, and indirect).

Social responsibility goals have shown positive relationships with performance and well-being. However, being too diligent has also been raised as a possible contributing factor to students’ reports of feeling stress and pressure in school, as well as experiencing psychosomatic problems. This study investigates the long-term associations between students’ social responsibility goals, academic achievements, and psychosomatic problems from Grade 9 (n = 4,573) to Grade 12 (n = 3,552), and gender differences in these associations. Descriptive statistics showed that girls reported more psychosomatic problems, higher social responsibility goals, and higher GPAs. Structural equation models showed that psychosomatic problems and achievement were stable over time. Social responsibility goals were associated with less psychosomatic problems and higher achievement in Grade 9. For girls, higher achievement was also associated with psychosomatic problems. Social responsibility goals did not predict later achievement, yet they predicted future psychosomatic problems, although the prediction was significant only for boys.

Swedish vocational education and training programmes have become increasingly aligned with labour market demands and employability, with consequent risks of marginalisation of citizenship education and formation. Four subjects that have traditionally played important roles in this, history, religious education, science, and social studies, are now only taught in short courses that are minor elements of the programmes. To obtain insights into the teaching and learning conditions in these key subjects for citizenship formation in Swedish VET programmes, school leaders and teachers were interviewed. The analysis, informed by frame factory theory and Biesta’s conceptualisations of three functions of education, revealed clear differences in the school leaders’ and teachers’ views of the conditions. School leaders articulated problems related to internal frame factors, such as the teachers’ engagement and students’ attitudes to the subjects, while teachers referred to external frame factors, such as the organisation of teaching. However, when talking about the VET students and their learning, both school leaders and teachers expressed notions of the students as in need of qualification and socialisation, thereby focusing on preparation of the students for their future professional and civic roles, with little room for substantial subjectification.

Engagement in scientific discourse is an essential part of becoming a scientist. In this exploratory study, we aim to examine the scientific discourse (and resulting benefits) between undergraduate biology students and professional scientists. We developed a novel method for engaging in scientific discourse, grounded in the theory of legitimate peripheral participation, where undergraduate biology students participate in communities of practice within their own departments. Students selected a piece of primary scientific literature (PSL) from a professional scientist in their department and, after spending time annotating the PSL, met with the professional scientist to engage in scientific discourse. We analyzed the time students spent speaking and characterized questions students ask professional scientists. In addition, student motivation for reading PSL and students’ sense of belonging to their department shifted positively, suggesting that students are integrating into the scientific community of practice being formed between students and professional scientists. We discuss best practices for supporting effective scientific discourse between undergraduates and scientists.

Although there is a discourse among politicians, school leaders, and teachers that students in vocational education and training (VET) programmes in upper secondary school are less motivated than students in higher education preparatory (HEP) programmes there are few large-scale studies comparing differences and similarities within and between these two groups of students. The aim of this study was to investigate and problematize differences in goal orientation and subject specific interest between students entering VET and HEP programmes. The study is based on questionnaire responses from 4262 students in last year of lower secondary school and administrative data on which upper secondary school program these students graduated from. Initial analysis showed that, as a group, students later entering VET programmes embrace motivational goals to a lesser extent and found most subjects less interesting than students later entering HEP programmes. However more nuanced analysis gave reasons to problematize the colloquial meaning of motivation and to the question the dichotomic division of programmes into VET and HEP.

In this chapter, we report from a 4-year study of the systematic work at an organizational level towards a whole school approach to sustainability. Aiming to extend the individual good practices on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) to include all schools in the municipality, a process of school development began in 2019, and was studied for 4 years until 2022. Through a narrative approach, we describe the process and its critical events. Different dimensions of the school improvement model devised by Scherp and Scherp are also identified and analysed. The results show that a cyclic process, including not only different actions but also reflections, is important for improvement and, furthermore, that the holistic idea is an important dimension that should guide structures as well as teachers’ professional development towards more successful work with ESD in a whole-school organization.