Carl Anders Säfström

This special issue is developed within the scientific research network ‘Public Pedagogy and Sustainability Challenges’ funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). The network has brought together educational theorists, sustainability education researchers, sustainability transition researchers, artists and activists from Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Ireland, Norway and South Africa. They share an interest in the relation between education and societal transformation and wanted to deepen and widen the understanding of the public role of education in the face of sustainability challenges through interdisciplinary research collaboration. The aim of the network and, hence, the special issue is to progress theory development and research on public pedagogy with a focus on sustainability challenges. It addresses issues such as how education can play a democratic role in addressing sustainability challenges, the conditions and obstacles for that, implications for the design of sustainability education practices, and theoretical, methodological and empirical implications for researching sustainability education as public pedagogy.