Mapping Education for Sustainability in the Nordic Countries

The project presented in this report concerns the implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 4.7 in compulsory education in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The aim was both to get an overview of how well each of the Nordic countries had integrated the UNSDGs into their educational policies and practices. As one can immediately see, the goal is broad and, therefore, a thorough mapping of its implementation was outside of the present project’s scope. However, we attempt to outline a picture of how things stand in the Nordic countries, looking at legislation, curriculum, teacher education, and local implementation with the aim of identifying a “Nordic Perspective.” We try to bring out not only how things stand in each country, but also to shed light on what is common and where things differ. The more we have worked on this, the more we are painfully aware of how our work does little more than scratch the surface. But in order to go deeper, one has to begin by scratching the surface. We hope that what we present here goes a little further than the bare surface and, more importantly, will help others to continue to dig deeper.