Transdisciplinary Collaboration in ESD Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

Putting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into effect will become a major task for the 21st century, particularly for future teachers who are expected to participate in ESD but whose studies often do not prepare them for this task. This article responds to the question how collaboration in teacher education can help bridge that gap and how it can contribute to the transdisciplinary demands of ESD. It assumes an essential role in enabling collaborative spaces of dialogue and transfer of knowledge between educators and students of all academic disciplines, schools, universities, local stakeholders, and CSO. This specifically includes perspectives from the Global South.
 Presenting the certificate program “el mundo – ESD in university level teacher education” (LMU Munich) as an example for collaborative ESD practice, the article identifies and presents four central fields of transdisciplinary collaboration in teacher education: content– related, institutional, and biography–affecting collaboration, as well as collaboration in pedagogical–didactic contexts.