Discursive Representations of Education for Sustainable Development in Policy Documents by English Medium Instruction Schools in Estonia and Norway

Abstract

This article introduces and discusses a study that aims at illuminating discursive representations of education for sustainable development (henceforth – ESD) by means of compiling and analysing a corpus of policy documents written by English medium instruction (EMI) secondary schools in Estonia and Norway, respectively. Informed by the constructivist approach (Foucault, 1981), discursive representations of ESD in the study were operationalised as discursive strategies that were employed in naming, referring to, and providing an evaluative perspective to ESD-related topics. In this study, the corpus of policy documents published by EMI secondary schools in Estonia and Norway was collected in order to analyse discursive representations of ESD by means of applying a qualitative content analysis. The results of the analysis indicated that the discursive representations of ESD were similarly construed in policy documents written and communicated by EMI secondary schools in Estonia and Norway. Those findings were further discussed in the article in conjunction with their didactic implications.

The Discourse of Sustainability in English Language Teaching (ELT) at the University of Oxford: Analyzing Discursive Representations

“…The frequent keywords and phrases are analyzed against the background of the discursive clusters surrounding them (Soler et al, 2018). Thereafter, the discursive clusters are manually investigated for their textual and discursive connections to ELT and sustainability (Kapranov, 2021). In line with Soler et al (2018), there could be several representations per discursive cluster and per text, respectively.…”

“…The construal of discursive representations has been elaborated in researching such complex issues as didactics (Kapranov, 2022) and education policy (Kapranov, 2021), feminism (Olson et al, 2008), national identity and immigration (Wodak, 2012;Van Leeuwen & Wodak, 1999;Wodak & Reisigl, 1999), political discourse (Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2008;Sénit, 2020), and religion (Miladi, 2021). Typically, the construal of discursive representations is employed in the research literature in order to analyze a particular type of discourse through the lenses of situatedness in the given culture, timeframe, socio-cultural context, as well as ìspecific assumptions, judgments, contentions, dispositions, and capabilitiesî (Dryzek & Niemeyer, 2008, p. 481).…”

Learning English Under the Sounds of Air Raid Sirens: Analysing Undergraduate EFL Students’ Sustainable Learing Practices

“…Importantly, the concept of sustainable learning factors in a paramount role of the immediate and global learning contexts (Sterling, 2009). It should be noted that the concept of sustainable learning has found its place in applied linguistics, EFL studies and English Medium Instruction (Han et al, 2021;Kapranov, 2022bKapranov, , 2021Kirsner et al, 2007;Peng & Xie, 2021).…”

Utdanning for bærekraft. Erfaring og forskning fra barnehage og skole

“…Witoszek (2017) finner fire felles hinder for UBU (utdanning for baerekraftig utvikling) i Norge, Kina og Ghana; en vekstfetisj, utilstrekkelig laererutdanning, testregime og at utdanning har lite innvirkning på faktisk miljøpraksis. Kapranov (2021)…”