‘Is It That We Do Not Want Them to Have Washing Machines?’: Ethical Global Issues Pedagogy in Swedish Classrooms

Sund, Louise and Pashby, Karen (2018) ‘Is It That We Do Not Want Them to Have Washing Machines?’: Ethical Global Issues Pedagogy in Swedish Classrooms. Sustainability, 10 (10). pp. 1-13. ISSN 2071-1050

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Abstract

According to sustainable development target 4.7, by 2030, all signatory nations must ensure learners are provided with education for sustainable development and global citizenship. While many national curricula provide a policy imperative to provide a global dimension in curriculum and teaching, mainstreaming an approach to teaching about sustainable development through pressing global issues requires strong attention to what happens between students and teachers in the classroom. In this article, we aim to help teachers think through an ongoing reflexive approach to teaching by bridging important theoretical and empirical scholarship with the day-to-day pedagogies of global educators. This collaborative praxis offers an actionable approach to engaging with values, conflicts and ethical consequences towards bringing global issues into teaching and learning in a critical and fruitful way. Our results show that teachers and students can both experience discomfort and experience a sense of significance and worthiness of engaging in a more critical approach. In addition, if we critically reflect and support students in doing so, as these teachers have one, we open up possibilities for approaches to global issues pedagogy that come much closer to addressing the pressing issues of our deeply unequal world.