Interplay of Critical Thinking and Education for Sustainable Development: Poststructuralist Analysis

Abstract

One of the modern challenges in education society is to educate the future generation about sustainability goals. The challenge lies also, in how to decide, due to the multifaceted embeddedness within scientific, ethical, and moral domains. To better understand these decisions, I will rely on critical thinking (CT). In this article, the poststructuralist lens has been used along with positioning theory as theoretical and methodological perspectives to understand the discourse of primary teachers when they are discussing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) tasks. I explore how through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) positioning theory enlightens ESD as a form of social consciousness. This social consciousness is understood through the way two teachers in a focus group interview are positioning themselves when they are engaged in ESD tasks. How are teachers using the pronouns, such as I/me, and we/us when discussing environmental and sustainability issues is discussed from a Derridean perspective, as highlighting the formation of the “we” in terms of actions and its limitations.