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This paper explores potential tensions in transformative learning and environmental and sustainability education (ESE) between, on the one hand, pluralistic approaches, and, on the other hand, promotion of societal change to address urgent issues. We stipulate that design of ESE inevitably contributes to a bounding of the plurality of facts and values that are acknowledged in a given learning process. Based on a frame analysis of the Swedish Green Flag initiative, we argue that such bounding by design is a key aspect of how ESE practitioners handle tensions between pluralism and urgency, either consciously or unconsciously. Given its inevitability and importance, we assert that bounding by design is insufficiently theorized in ESE literature, which might partly explain that practitioners perceive pluralistic ideals as challenging. In the empirics, we discern three justifications for bounding by design: (i) certain facts or degree of scientific consensus ; (ii) objectives decided by elected bodies ; and (iii) decisions taken by student and teacher representatives. We point to the theory of libertarian paternalism and a typology of democratic legitimacy as conceptual tools that can guide further scrutiny of pluralistic ESE and support practitioners in undertaking conscious and transparent bounding by design.

This paper explores potential tensions in transformative learning and environmental and sustainability education (ESE) between, on the one hand, pluralistic approaches, and, on the other hand, promotion of societal change to address urgent issues. We stipulate that design of ESE inevitably contributes to a bounding of the plurality of facts and values that are acknowledged in a given learning process. Based on a frame analysis of the Swedish Green Flag initiative, we argue that such bounding by design is a key aspect of how ESE practitioners handle tensions between pluralism and urgency, either consciously or unconsciously. Given its inevitability and importance, we assert that bounding by design is insufficiently theorized in ESE literature, which might partly explain that practitioners perceive pluralistic ideals as challenging. In the empirics, we discern three justifications for bounding by design: (i) certain facts or degree of scientific consensus; (ii) objectives decided by elected bodies; and (iii) decisions taken by student and teacher representatives. We point to the theory of libertarian paternalism and a typology of democratic legitimacy as conceptual tools that can guide further scrutiny of pluralistic ESE and support practitioners in undertaking conscious and transparent bounding by design.

Samverkan är en vanlig arbetsform inom svensk förvaltning. Samverkansarbetet för samman aktörer från offentlig sektor, näringsliv, civilsamhälle och akademi. I bästa fall kan samverkan resultera i både effektiva och demokratiska förändringsprocesser. Men då krävs att de som samverkar har samverkanskompetens; att de kan designa och facilitera samverkansprocesser där förtroendefulla relationer skapas och önskvärda resultat nås. Trots det ökade behovet av samverkanskompetens har svensk forskning i liten utsträckning undersökt hur sådan kompetens kan utvecklas genom utbildning. Syftet med den här artikeln är att sprida lärdomar från utvecklandet och genomförandet av utbildningen Att leda samverkan. Artikeln visar på möjligheter och begränsningar i att basera samverkansutbildning på idéer om reflekterande praktik och praktisk klokhet.

This paper focuses on the practices of an emerging group of practitioners in Swedish urban governance: dialogue experts. As dialogical ideals have been mainstreamed in planning policies, civil servants and governance consultants have been increasingly commissioned to engage in dialogue with citizens within public deliberation, planning consultations or citizens budgeting. Even though these practitioners influence the whys, whats and hows of urban development, their practices remain curiously under-explored in Nordic urban studies. Dialogue experts experience the practical dilemma of being experts in a practice that has developed as a reaction to expert-rule and top-down power. We inquire into this dilemma together with a group of dialogue experts who work within an urban development scheme in the district of Gottsunda in Uppsala, Sweden. We ask: how do dialogue experts make sense of their use of power in dialogues with citizens? We explore whether analysing dialogue practice through the concepts of power and justification might explain the practical dilemmas confronted by dialogue experts. By engaging in joint inquiry with the practitioners in a series of focus groups, we learn that the practitioners are inclined to critique power relations that exclude marginalised voices from urban planning but find it more difficult to justify their own use of power in pursuit of a more inclusive governance system. The dialogue experts employ two types of justification for their use of power: an advocative justification, which revolves around aspirations to change the planning system to include marginalised voices, and a more conventional bureaucratic justification, by which they merely execute the will of elected politicians and follow established planning procedures. Even so, the practitioners remain ambivalent about their use of power. Hence, we demonstrate how power theory and joint inquiry between practitioners and researchers can shed new light on the practical dilemmas in dialogue practice.