This article aims to introduce a view of scaling as a learning process. In the article we discuss the concept of 'scaling up' or 'scaling' of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities on the basis of how 'scaling up' ESD is highlighted in the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD. Drawing on a Deweyan theory of learning as processes of transactional encounters, the article presents a conceptual framework of scaling-ESDactivities-as-learning. This conceptual framework is intended to have implications for ESD policy and ESE research. The theoretical specifications and practical implications presented are results of data collected using a participatory research approach (Re-Solve) and an abductive analysis. In this article, we argue that viewing scaling as a learning process enables a nuanced notion of scaling ESD-activities. This should be seen in relation to (a) complex sustainability challenges, (b) ethical aspects, (c) a more attentive and strict approach to scaling in ESD policy and (d) addressing questions of significant importance to scaling research. The research presented in this article is a response to the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Global Action Programme (GAP) (UNESCO 2014b). The GAP acknowledges that numerous ESD-activities 1 were initiated during the UNESCO decade for ESD (2005-2014). However, the GAP also emphasizes a need to 'generate and scale-up action in all levels and areas of education and learning in order to accelerate progress towards sustainable development' (UNESCO 2014a, 2014b, 2014d). The increased interest in 'scaling' in ESD policy is one reason for why it is important to address scaling ESD-activities in ESE research. Another reason for doing so is that the UNESCO (2014c) discourse on scaling focuses primarily on 'scaling up' ESD-activities. According to educational and other research on scaling, 'scaling up' is one among many terms in a great variety of notions of scaling, i.e. of 'moving activities from a small to a larger impact' (Elmore 1996; Do 2015; Looi and Teh 2015). Some of these concepts are 'scaling up' , 'replication' , 'expanding' , 'going to scale' , 'mainstreaming' , 'rolling out' , 'growing' , 'scaling out' , 'developing'. Arguably, this is a limited understanding of what scaling ESD activities can mean. For example,

This article aims to contribute to the knowledge of how the 'scaling' of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) activities is conceptualized in practice through transactional learning encounters. In the context of the UNESCO Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD, I discuss the reactualisation of experiences as part of these encounters. The study is a result of data collected as part of a ReSolve participatory research workshop held in South Africa in 2016, involving researchers and practitioners with experiences of ESD-activities in the Southern African region. To identify and analyse the transactional learning encounters a practical epistemology analysis (PEA) is used. The article draws on a Deweyan theory of learning as transactional encounters, supported with a tentative conceptual framework of scaling-ESD-activities-as-learning (SEAL). Throughout the study, I illustrate the transactional encounters, including the re-actualisation of participants' past experiences of ESD-activities. These encounters enabled the conceptualization of contextually relevant concepts of scaling, thus constituting an enabling condition for reflective scaling practices.

The aim of the article is to investigate, in the light of the emphasis laid on scaling by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2014a), how subjectification of those involved in educational innovations both enables and constricts scaling understood as a learning process. This is carried out through a case study of the Alforja Educativa, an educational project in Ecuador on antibiotic resistance (ABR). The ABR has been described as a sustainability challenge comparable to climate change. The way in which subjectification enables and constricts scaling as a learning process is analysed by drawing on educational scaling research and the article illustrates how the subject positions of those involved in scaling emerge as scaling subjects in transactional relationships, both with the sites where the educational project is to be scaled, and in relation to that, which will be scaled.