Purpose: Transformative learning (TL) and leadership are key leverage points for supporting society’s transition toward sustainability. The purpose of this study is to identify essential components of TL within an international sustainability leadership master’s program in Sweden that has been described by many students as life-changing, empowering and transformational. Design/methodology/approach: Alumni spanning 15 cohorts provided answers to a survey and the responses were used to map components of TL as experienced by the students. Findings: The survey confirms the anecdotal assertions that the program is transformational. The findings suggest that community, place, pedagogy, concepts and content, disorientation and hope and agency are essential components, combined with the synergy of those into an integrated whole that support transformational change according to many respondents. Originality/value: This study provides program designers and educators with suggested components and emphasizes their integration and synergy, to support TL experiences for sustainability leaders. © 2021, Jayne Bryant, James Ayers, Merlina Missimer and Göran Broman.

Purpose

Transformative learning and leadership are key leverage points for supporting society’s transition towards sustainability. The purpose of this study was to identify the outcomes of transformational learning within an international sustainability leadership master’s program in Sweden. The study also prototypes a typology for transformative learning (TTL) in the context of sustainability leadership education.

Design/methodology/approach

Alumni spanning 15 cohorts provided answers to a survey, and the responses were used to identify the outcomes of the program. Graduates were asked to describe what transformed for them through the program. Empirical data was coded prototyping the use of the TTL in sustainability education context.

Findings

Graduates of the Master’s in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability program, described transformation with regards to their Self-in-relation to Others and the World, their Self-knowledge, sense of Empowerment/Responsibility; their Worldview became More Comprehensive or Complex, and they gained New Awareness/New Understandings which transformed their Worldview. Many described transformations in their general Ways of Being in the world. Findings suggest the TTL learning as a good basis for analysis in the education for sustainable development (ESD) context. Suggestions for the TTL include further development of the process that articulates the relational, interdependent and perhaps a priori relationships between elements that transform.

Research limitations/implications

This study presents the outcomes of transformational learning within an international sustainability leadership master’s program. It prototypes the use of a TTL within the ESD context using empirical data. This combination provides practical insights to a dynamic, often theoretical and hard to articulate process.

Originality/value

This study presents the outcomes of transformational learning within an international sustainability leadership master’s program. It prototypes the use of a TTL in the ESD context and assesses the outcomes of a sustainability leadership program using empirical data. This combination provides practical insights to a dynamic, often theoretical and hard to articulate process.

An ongoing discussion in education for sustainable development (ESD) research has focused on defining a list of agreed upon sustainability competencies required for the work of sustainability change agents. This discussion has included the consideration of an ‘Intrapersonal’ perspective that considers the role of inner qualities in change agents and how this impacts their ability to implement sustainability. While many researchers have looked at the ‘inner dimension’ of sustainability work, the identification and function of an ‘Intrapersonal’ competence remains in question. Utilizing practitioner responses, this paper identifies eight Intrapersonal capacities that change agents described as beneficial to their implementation of sustainability. These capacities are the ability to: Hold complexity, Foster a learner’s mindset, Deeply value others, Let be, Show up as one’s full self, Regulate and manage the self, Persist with lightness and Ensure one’s wellbeing. The study provides insights into the identification of the capacities and their relationship to a wider Intrapersonal research field. It also discusses the implications this perspective has on education for sustainable development should it consider incorporating such capacities into teaching and learning. While much literature in the field is of conceptual nature, this paper offers an empirical contribution by including the voice and perspective of change agents to the Intrapersonal discussion. © 2023, The Author(s).

This study aims to examine the use of reflective pedagogies in sustainability leadership education by investigating two specific pedagogical tools-the Portfolio and Pod-employed by the Master's in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) program at Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. The study analyzed data gathered from student surveys, teacher interviews, and staff reflections to determine the benefits and challenges faced by students and staff in implementing and engaging with these pedagogical tools. Benefits include the provision of distinct structures to guide student reflection towards individual skill development and the use of collective reflection to encourage generative dialogue between students and staff. This holds benefits for collaboration, self-awareness, understanding of multiple perspectives, and creating self-directed graduates. Staff and students also, however, suggest a number of challenges. These include the 'constrictive' nature of guided reflection and the emotional and mental load faced by staff in hosting and holding students through often challenging personal reflective processes. For the potential of reflective pedagogies to be truly realized for Education for Sustainable Development in higher education institutions need to develop an understanding of the impacts that reflective pedagogies have on students and teachers and create institutional structures to support them. © 2020 by the authors.

The examination of pedagogies that promote effective sustainability learning has led to vigorous academic discussion, as has research regarding the role of competence-based learning for sustainability. This paper investigates the role of a study abroad program, the Engineers without Borders Design Summit, in promoting the acquisition of sustainability competencies in its students. This study analysed both content of the program pedagogy and the written learning reflections of 137 student participants to examine if the program resulted in sustainability competence acquisition. The study's findings suggested that students did acquire sustainability competencies during the program, but also that students may become competence-literate but context-lacking as they acquire competency skillsets without understanding their purpose for use as sustainability tools or to promote sustainability outcomes. Therefore, this study recommends that competence-based education for sustainability requires situation of competence acquisition within sustainability contextualisation to ensure full competence potential is fulfilled. This study suggests that contextualisation can occur in a number of ways, including the use of defined sustainability principles as boundary conditions to frame learning environments, the use of sustainability epistemic teachers as "guides" to connect learning to sustainability and the facilitation of student experiences with unsustainability to promote personally motivated action towards sustainability. © 2020 by the author.