Perceptions of interconnected sustainability: Students’ narratives bridging transition and education

As sustainability becomes a focal point and important aspect of educational development in several disciplines and universities globally, it is important to critically reflect on the different utilisations of sustainability education. Research on educational aims and the potential transformative impact of sustainability courses is quite timely. Among several others, the theory of interconnected learning has been gaining traction as an approach to transformative sustainability education, as it employs a distinct approach to systemic sustainability awareness. This approach aims to further express the plurality of sustainability, with the aim to foster a deeper comprehension beyond the dichotomous thinking often typical in disciplined science. The aim of our research was to study the efficiency of employing the pedagogy of interconnected learning on the types of sustainability transition narratives produced by the students attending an online sustainability course. The sustainability transition narratives, as expressed through fifty-eight students’ course assignments, were studied pre- and post-course, and analysed against a collection of established narratives drawn from transition studies. The comparison from the pre-to post-course answers revealed that while some of the student narratives remained unchanged, the majority of the narratives were expanded during the course experience. Our analysis revealed that while most of the students’ answers referenced a single type of transition narrative, some students produced narratives that hybridised two or more types of narratives. Additionally, some of the students produced elements of a pathway for a transition narrative that are currently unarticulated in the transition narrative framework employed herein. The elements of this newly articulated narrative focused on changes in the societal mindset, achievable through sustainability education.