Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly understood as a guiding principle for education systems responding to global challenges such as climate change, social inequality and economic instability (UNESCO, 2023). Within the framework of Agenda 2030 and SDG 4.7, education is expected to foster competencies enabling learners to contribute to sustainable development (UNESCO, 2017; UNESCO, 2024). Teachers are widely recognised as key actors in translating sustainability-related goals into educational practice (Murray, 2011). Research indicates that ESD remains inconsistently integrated into teacher education and is often addressed in fragmented or implicit ways (Eloff et al., 2022; Dittrich, 2025). As a result, pre-service teachers frequently report uncertainty regarding both their conceptual understanding of ESD and its practical implementation (O’Byrne et al., 2015; Hinzke et al., 2024).
Theoretical grounding is provided by the UNECE competence framework (UNECE, 2012) and recent syntheses of ESD competence models (Rieckmann & Barth, 2022), which highlight conceptual ambiguities and uneven emphasis on transformative competences. This qualitative study investigates how pre-service teachers in Austria perceive ESD, how they understand their future professional role in relation to sustainability, and how prepared they feel to integrate ESD into their teaching. The study combines semi-structured interviews (n = 20) with vignette-based research (n = 4) (Schratz et al., 2012; Agostini, Schratz & Eloff, 2024).
Findings suggest a strong normative commitment to sustainability alongside uncertainties regarding its pedagogical implementation. By focusing on pre-service teachers’ perspectives, the study contributes to current debates on teacher professionalism and the structural integration of ESD in teacher education.

Authors:
Jana-Marie Engl, University Innsbruck, Austria
Ann-Kathrin Dittrich, University Innsbruck, Austria
Sunet Grobler, University Innsbruck, Austria

About the Presenter(s)
Jana-Marie Engl is a Master’s student and research assistant at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Her research focuses on professional identity and competence development in ESD within pre-service teacher education as part of the Pro4ESD project.

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